tattoos, spikes, punk, and goth in D&D images?

[LostWorldsMike]

Doh! Bitten by the double post bug.

 

[rounser]

Not that I'm trying to denigrate illustration, but the two are very different beasts...

\Il`lus*tra"tion\, n. [L. illustratio: cf. F. illustration.] 1. The act of illustrating; the act of making clear and distinct; education; also, the state of being illustrated, or of being made clear and distinct.

2. That which illustrates; a comparison or example intended to make clear or apprehensible, or to remove obscurity.

3. A picture designed to decorate a volume or elucidate a literary work.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

By that definition, D&D I think needs illustration. The role of D&D art isn't just pretty pictures to be admired, but almost visual adventure suggestions (sort of like a "serving suggestion" ). A simple character portrait of a sorceror in buckled leathers might be art, but doesn't serve the same valuable purpose as staring at the gothic, dark, thunderstorming cover to the original Temple of Elemental Evil and having your imagination take off at wondering just what's in there...(and I'm not really a fan of ToEE - if only the adventure was as good as the cover, heh).

 

[David Howery]

As one of the old farts on here who has seen about every edition of D&D come through, I'd have to say that I prefer the second edition art; I like Caldwell, Elmore, and Parkinson over the rest (I also have a liking for Jim Holloway's art, but that's mainly because he did the illustrations for a lot of my articles in Dragon and DA, so I'm biased ). I'm not so crazy about the punkish look to 3E, but it doesn't inspire me to sneer or anything.. to each his own, etc. There's just one thing about 3E art that REALLY annoys me to no end though... the friggin' spiked armor. It's just so... impractical. Every photo of real medieval armor I've seen shows that they made it with angled plates so that blows would tend to slide AWAY from you (they make modern tank armor the same way for the same reasons). One amusing thought I had about spiked armor... wouldn't a sadistic DM set a bunch of cavemen with wooden clubs to fight the guy with spiked armor, have the clubs get stuck on the spikes, and weigh him down? That'd teach him....

 

[tetsujin28]

My hatred for the Caldwell/Easley years knows no bounds.

I like tatooed goth chicks. The world needs more of them.

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

While I don't think the 3e artwork is really all that anime, I do think that the oversized weapons and armor are.

More oversized weapons

One man's meat is another man's poison, as they say.

I couldn't agree more. You wouldn't ever catch me touching another man's meat.

I don't like Baxa's work... At all. Just ain't my bag.
Wayne England, after badly marring at least two FR books, should be restricted to inanimate objects. Seeing Sam Wood's excellent dwarf amid England's chapter full of... I haven't the words, in Races of Faerun made me want to hack up a furball.
I like Vinod Rams stuff better with each new book.
WAR does just fine.
Lockwood... Incomparable. Just really great stuff.
Sam Wood seems to be on equal footing with Lockwood in Black & White. But his finished stuff, notably his Deities & Demigods stuff, left me wanting.
G.Angus rocks.
I always loved Quinton Hoover's magic cards.
Terese Nielsen's picture of Moiraine in the WOT book is beautiful.
Matt Wilson's stuff is always excellent.
Puddnhead is off and on. I like some of it, some of it I don't care for.
D. Giancola - If you hear a knock on your door late at night, it's the Olympian Pantheon coming to reclaim their diginity.
Guay's art is top notch.
Critchlow gets a thumbs up.
DiTerlizzi and Planescape kept me in D&D until the saving grace of 3E came along. I loved his stuff.
Brom usually turns out good stuff.
I could go on, but I'm tired.

Edit: Artists from previous editions had at least one advantage over the 3E artists; they could do nudity. Whenever I see a creature that normally wouldn't be clothed, buttoned up like a nun it strikes me as seriously incongruous. It just doesn't fit. That takes me further from the fantasy world I want to create than the odd spike, piercing or tattoo. Third Edition, genesis of the modest succubus, shy marilith, bashful lillend and stodgy fey. We never saw a satyr in a turtleneck and jeans, but I'm sure it wasn't far off.
Thumbs up for the 3.5E dryad. You can see they're trying to sneak back to the way things were here and there.

3E=anime? I don't see it.

The purple ghoul, it haunts my dreams!

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

Quasqueton: Take a look at Mystra in F&P. Normally, I don't care much about the spikes or basic outfit but that is definitally not how Mystra would dress. She has a personality that's been defined by multiple FR books. The books, incidentally, have described her outfits on occation. That's not it. Or anywhere close.

You big silly, that's just an all around bad picture.
I have no idea what the artist was thinking when they were drawing that, but they may have been at a cosplay event...


EDIT: evildm duncov.jpg, love it. Love the brush strokes.

A question regarding the 'lack of background' critique:

Where are the iconic characters standing?
<SNIP>
Does lack of background stifle or stimulate imagination, and promote the creation of new worlds? And did the 3e dev team have this in mind when their ad campaign encouraged you to think outside the box?

I think background just takes up space where text should be. That's the bottom line. Full page art spreads eat up space where text could be. You can either keep the full page art and increase the page count and price, or you can leave the backgrounds out and leave the principle characters, which decreases page count and price.
Personally I always thought the full page plates next to text looked hokey. I like the 3E way.

Trampier: Some of his stuff from the AD&D Monster Manual was pretty interesting. I wouldn't want to see it in 3E, but for the time, it was neat. A lot of his pieces had a feel that fell somewhere between art deco and inuit/woodcut territory.
Salamander, Remorhaz, Rakshasa, Homonculus, Dragonne, Dragonturtle, Displacer Beast, those were pretty good. Even the harpy wasn't too bad, and the fire giant, though it looked like the village idiot, had decent anatomy. The weretiger transforming was pretty wild too. Most of the remaining artwork (of his and anyone else's) pretty much stinks. Hey, it was a different era.
A few of Sutherland's drawings are ok. A few of the Fiend Folio drawings are nice.

I much prefer today's artwork, but I'll agree with what was said previously; when it's good, it tends to be really good. When it's bad, it tends to be horrible.

 

[Anime Kidd]

Was on an art board earlier today and they had a short thread on what is art. We all know that art is pretty much subjective. Many people tossed this nudget around in here as well. This thread bogged down in "What is art". I think a better question would be: "Does the new art fit with D&D?"

Or maybe I'm just seeing something that isn't there.

 

[Lela]

You big silly, that's just an all around bad picture.
I have no idea what the artist was thinking when they were drawing that, but they may have been at a cosplay event...

I completely agree. I didn't mention how bad the work was because it's actually a lot better than most of the art in that book. From Cory (my group's nickname) cutting out Grummish's eye* to the water colors filling the later chapters. There's just so little life in the art and what is there doesn't quite grab you.

*And I mean cutting it out. As in he must have stuck the sword into his eye socket, spun his sword around, and flicked out the eye in one, whole, piece. Now, I admit that elves can be a bit flighty but Cory doesn't strike me as one who would pass up taking out Grummish when he had the chance. But, hay, at least there's some kind of story to it. That's more than can be said for most D&D art.