D&D 5E D&D Next weekly art column!

[Yora]

I've never looked at all the details hidden in that picture. There's actually quite a lot going on.

• Sense of mystery. A lot of light and shadow play, a lot of mist and half-concealed creatures and ambiguous scenes. The art should invite the reader to imagine what might be happening or about to happen. This is a game of imagination, after all.
• Scenery! Play up the setting. Pictures of cool characters may inspire the players, but evocative backdrops and panoramas inspire the DM.

Good point. D&D is about exploring places, not about watching other people.

 

[Ant]

Even if the art direction of D&D wasn't very close to my heart I would rate this as one of the best D&D articles I've ever read. Very impressed.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey all, copied from an earlier thread post, but still as relevant:

Wayne Reynolds is my favourite contemporary fantasy artist BUT I would probably downsize his responsibility with any new edition (that may well be a moot point if he is tied to Pathfinder of course).

Here are my general thoughts.

1. Stop Reusing Art from previous editions: I don't mind if a piece of art from this edition just happens to show up in an adventure from this edition, but it always grates to see artwork reused from past editions.

2. Improved Layout Design: I recently (at Xmas) picked up Warhammer's Storm of Magic book. I no longer play Warhammer, I just got the book because the layout and art are both fantastic. I don't mind paying a few extra gold pieces if a book is gorgeous. By comparison the interior of the Monster Manual is sterile.

3. BIG Art! Time after time WotC books like the Monster Manual (in particular) the art is squashed into a 3x3 inch 'cubby-hole'. Tarrasque, Balor, Pit Fiend etc. Solo Monsters should get full page art, Elite Monsters half a page.

4. Identity: How about different artists working on different types of monsters? Or working on different tiers? Or on different planes or campaign settings? Give certain places, monsters and styles of play their own artistic identity.

A book on the Far Realm should have a weird design (remember the D20 Call of Cthulhu book), a book on the Shadowfell should have a dark and sombre design, but all the 4E books really look the same. Grrr!

5. Sense of Scale: Illustrations of monsters that are not medium size need a reference to some type of object or character for scale.

6. Covers: Wayne Reynolds Orcus cover for the 4E Monster Manual is fantastic and one of the few iconic 4E pieces. So many other covers were utterly rubbish by comparison (Open Grave for instance, great book, terrible cover). For me, the best fantasy covers give a location and an encounter in progress with the protagonists put in peril!

Check out the difference between the 1st Edition (Iconic) Manual of the Planes cover, and the 4th Edition (Homage) Manual of the Planes cover.

I compared the covers when I reviewed the 4E Manual of the Planes recently.

Review: Manual of the Planes 4E Eternity Publishing

7. Location, Location, Location: Anyone remember the 4E preview book Worlds & Monsters? The art in that book was magnificent! Full page art! Even DOUBLE PAGE ART! Panoramic scenes that cross the page. Even the pencil sketches were great and provided a nice contrast. Black and white art can be beautiful too!

No 4E book was as well illustrated as Worlds & Monsters. How sad is that?

8. Stat-blocks. I really like the functionality of the 4E monster stat-block. BUT, they really need to do something to jazz it up a bit, more colour for one thing.

Too many pieces are functional, so very few are entertaining.

In this way the 1st Edition art was so much more interesting. Even in the monster manual you had pictures of adventuring parties in action...*spins chair and grabs 1E monster manual off the bookshelf*

9. Vignettes: Lets check out the 1E Monster Manual.

Page #1: Has a group of Knights attacking a Bulette.
Page #7: Two adventurers against a swarm of gant ants?
Page #9: Giant stag beetle chasing a chicken while someone hides behind a tree.
Page #12: A bugbear smacking an adventurer over the head
Page #34: Dragon watching its eggs hatch.
Page #37: Air elemental lifting two adventurers into the air.
Page #38: Wizard summoning a fire elemental.
Page #40: Big spread of Wood Elf families welcoming their loved ones home.
Page #42: Someone trying to outswim a Giant Gar. Also another piece where an adventurer has just ruptured a Gas Spore.
Page #48: Flesh Golem smacking an adventurer on the back. Also another piece where an Iron Golem has grabbed an adventurer.
Page #51: Giraffe chasing two adventurers.
Page #52: Battle scene between Hobgoblins and Knights.
Page #56: Jackelwere having just slain an adventurer.
Page #57: Coatl fighting(?) with a Dragon Horse.
Page #58: FULL PAGE SPREAD - Kobolds surrounding an Adventuring Party
Page #60: Leprechauns messing about with the book's graphic design.
Page #62: Lizardman fighting a Knight.
Page #64: Adventurers encounter a Giant Lynx - accompanying text is "Whaddya mean we gotta talk to this lynx, the last monster we talked to ate half the party!
Page #69: Humans guarding wagons.
Page #70: Mind Flayer blasting some adventurers, also another piece with a Rogue being attacked by a Mimic.
Page #73: A Neo-Otyugh attacks some adventurers.
Page #78: Adventurer swallowed by a Giant Pike.
Page #80: Purple Worm being attacked by two adventurers, also another piece where a Wizard is studying a Quasit.
Page #81: Rhino barrelling into two adventurers.
Page #82: Rot grubs burrowing into a shocked adventurer's arm.
Page #85: Giant Scorpion grabs an adventurer.
Page #86: Two Sea Lions attack a Shark.
Page #87: Adventurer runs from a Giant Slug.
Page #88: A giant snake encircles a Ship.
Page #90: FULL PAGE SPREAD - A Giant spider lurks above a party of adventurers.
Page #93: A swarm of Stirges attack an adventurer.
Page #94: An adventurer stands before a seated Titan.
Page #95: A Giant Toad swallows an adventurer, also another piece of a Trapper curling around an adventurer.
Page #96: A Treant grabs an adventurer, also another piece where a Triton rides a Hippocampus.
Page #97: A Troglodyte versus a Knight.
Page #99: Giant Wasp about to sting an adventurer.
Page #100: Water Weird leaping out ofa fountain towards an adventurer.
Page #102: Wizard lightning bolting a Xorn.
Page #103: Yeti versus two adventurers.
Page #104: FULL PAGE SPREAD - Adventurers opening a Treasure chest.
Page #110: FULL PAGE SPREAD - Lone adventurer facing off against a Giant Centipede, Naga, Gargoyle and Bugbear.

47 total by my count. Just to clarify that doesn't count the lone monster illustrations.

Lets see if the 4E Monster Manual had any Vignettes:

Page #4-5: CHAPTER INTRO PIECE - Adventurers being attacked by a host of monsters.
Page #38: Bulette erupting out of the ground having knocked over an adventurer.
Page #232: Shambling Mound engulfs an adventurer.
Page #251: Treant grabs an adventurer.

 

[sheadunne]

Less Character focused and more place focused. I want artwork of towns, villages, cities, caverns, wilderness, caves, dungeons, taverns, mountains, oceans. I want to imagine my character in those places. The character artwork detracts from my sense of place in 3x onward.

 

[avin]

One art style that I really like is from Icewind Dale CRPG (far, far better than Baldur's Gate):

 

[Scribble]

Less Character focused and more place focused. I want artwork of towns, villages, cities, caverns, wilderness, caves, dungeons, taverns, mountains, oceans. I want to imagine my character in those places. The character artwork detracts from my sense of place in 3x onward.

I agree mostly. I don't want JUST characters. Put them in a well detailed setting DOING stuff.

The background to me is just as important as the characters in it.

Earlier work always had a sense of place to me. The backgrounds were so well detailed that it just made me want to devise the story about what was happening.

 

[Yora]

One art style that I really like is from Icewind Dale CRPG

A perfect case study in the importance of backgrounds. The backgrounds are simple and without detail, yet they put the characters into a living environment. 3rd Ed art usually limited it to a tuft of grass next to the characters feet, but with no world that surrounds the characters.

 

[Kynn]

While 50% of all people are female, I don't actually see 50% of all people who take up weapons to fight monsters to the death to be so as well. ... And D&D assumes to be set in a premodern world, where gender roles play a larger part than in the 21st century.

So you're saying that you not only want D&D to automatically impose sexism as the default play style, you also want that baked into the artistic representations of the game just in case someone might maybe get the idea that you could play D&D without sexist assumptions about female characters?

Wow, I could not possibly disagree with you any more.

 

[Yora]

No, I just don't think it's a good idea to follow a 50% quota out of political correctnes that is not based with the realities of human life. I played with a great number of women and even while they enjoy playing fantasy RPGs and fighting villains just as much as the male players, I can't remember a single case in which a female player played a warrior character.
In Real Life much smaller numbers of women chose to become soldiers than men, even if they have the option, and even in RPGs women rarely chose to play warrior characters. So why should the artwork represent a world in which 50% of all adventurers and heroes are women? That just seems to me like having a token black viking on your ship.

There is really no reason not to have a large number of female characters appear in the rulebooks and adventueres. But I think it is silly to have pictures of armies or armies be 50% male and 50% female. I don't demand that 10% of all kings and nobles have a same-sex marriage either. That just seems unlikely in a medieval-themed fantasy world.

 

[Kynn]

No, I just don't think it's a good idea to follow a 50% quota out of political correctnes that is not based with the realities of human life.

D&D is not "based with the realities of human life" either.

Someone has quite reasonably proposed a 50% standard that is demographically sound and presents a default vision of the D&D universe as being non-sexist.

You object to that and are arguing that, by default, D&D must present a sexist worldview, in which women automatically play a lesser role in adventuring than men -- not because it's logical (it's not) but because it reinforces sexism.

I would much rather have "politically correct" (OH NOES) "quotas" (OH NOES) that give us a D&D universe which is not sexist than the one you demand, that relegates female adventurers to second-class status.