Serpent Kingdoms Art Gallery Is Up

[Rauol_Duke]

The Serpent Kingdoms art gallery is up on the WotC website here:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ag/20040709a

Overall, I feel that the artwork is pretty consistent with what WotC has been putting out of late, some good stuff... some not so good stuff. The bright spots, IMHO, are the work of Wayne England and Kalman Andrasofszky (I'm glad they're using his work more).

So, do you feel that this work on par, better than usual, or pure tripe...

 

[Henry]

Holy Shades of Conan!

Good artwork for sure. I especially liked the serpent dagger towards the end.

 

[Snoweel]

I love it.

I've gotta say that the production values of recent FR books has made me want to use them in my homebrew, particularly Unapproachable East.

But I've got so many damn options already that I'm trying not to introduce any new material.

I just know Complete Arcane is gonna throw a spanner in the works.

And I'm just gonna grit my teeth and take it.

 

[Richards]

I'd say the artwork is comparable to the "standard" D&D books that WotC has been putting out recently (by that, I'm pretty much just excluding Eberron, which has its own distinctive "art look").

Some of those monsters look pretty interesting. I'm glad to see some new nagas, although that naga-hydra looks kind of silly. And I'm glad to see horns on the amphisbaena! (Which, now that I look at it, is spelled wrong.)

I'll definitely be picking Serpent Kingdoms up.

Johnathan

 

[Rauol_Duke]

This is one of my favorites - The Serpent Sibyl

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/sk_gallery/82364.jpg

 

[Dark Jezter]

Cool artwork.

Oh, and Henry was right, a lot of the illustrations in the book do look like something out of a Conan story.

 

[Liquidsabre]

That's alot of green!

You'd think they could vary colors a bit as color naturally varies between all snake species, hmph, but I like! I've always thought of many (but not all) of the FR products being unusually above the design-curve as far as quality goes. Perhaps because it has so many good and rather dedicated designers for setting.

Here's another vote for Unapproachable East having my fav cover art of all!

 

[Gez]

I still don't like artwork by Dennis Cramer/Crabapple McCain, but this Ancient Master is not too bad. Other than him and Baxa, I like these pictures. The Sarrukh looks like my homebrew's ophidians.

 

[Derulbaskul]

I have to agree. I would really like to see both Dennis Crabapple McClain and also Jeremy Jarvis dropped from the roster of artists who work on D&D products. I struggle to find a single work from either of them that I like. I don't like bagging people for the things they do to earn an income, but I really dislike what these guys produce.

I'm really pleased to see that the bone naga has been updated, both in terms of the picture and also the stats, since its debut in the MMII (aka The Monster Manual with Bad Art and Bad Design; Yes, Bad Design Because It Didn't Follow WotC's Own Rules And Bad Art Because A Scrotum Should Never Inspire A Picture Of A Monster [cf page 104]... MMII is a much easier way of saying all that).

 

[Turanil]

I don't like bagging people for the things they do to earn an income, but I really dislike what these guys produce.

Ditto. It's not that Dennis Crabapple McClain is a bad artist (although there are better ones), but what he draws has something unpleasant about it.

Anyway, I have a question about Serpent Kingdoms:

I am really interested in this book, but I also really dislike FR and would use that book for my homebrew setting which is extremely different from FR. So, who knows about Serpent Kingdom's contents? Is it heavily referenced on FR, or just a few notes here and there about "serpents" in that setting that could be easily snapped? (Please a quick answer, as I have only 7 days to buy it with Share the Love on amazon!)