D&D 5E Vote for your favourite 5E cover art!

[TheBlueKnight]

Thanks, but that's not the one I was talking about.
On http://www.enworld.org/forum/conten...ng-Fundamentals-(D-D-Boxed-Game)-Hits-Amazon!
There is a nice image of combat with goblins
View attachment 62143

I'd really like to see this full size as it appears to be the sort of cover art that I like most.

Zustiur, Morrus did that mockup, as posted on the thread Thaumaturge referenced. You'll find it on page one of that thread.

If you keep scrolling down, you'll find a large version I did based on Morrus' design. Unfortunately I don't have a very high-resolution image of the background or I would have used it. I used the image from wizard's article on Basic D&D.

 

[Zustiur]

Thanks!

 

[thalmin]

This survey isn't really very telling. While I voted for one, I can't argue over any of the choices. I really like all of them.

For the record, I voted for Rise of Tiamat

 

[Jester David]

The Starter Set and The Rise of Tiamat covers are fantastic. They're simply perfect. They're well-drawn with a bright palette and dynamic images, although the images are a poorly cropped so you lose some details in the lower half of the Starter Set and a good chunk of Tiamat gets cut.



The Monster Manual is decent. The beholder is a nice choice for the cover, being iconic to D&D and only D&D (excluding the dozens of other games that rip it off). There's obviously some stuff going on off panel, but the cropping is less obvious.



The Dungeon Master's Guide cover is adequate. I imagine the idea is to have a mastermind style villain on the cover, and the lich certainly fits that bill. But having him be a physical threat to people just casts him into the role of "monster". This could easily have been the cover to the MM. If the lich was in his lair, perhaps looking commanding and in control it might convey some "mastermind" element. Or if he was directing monsters rather than wading into the fight himself.
The cover suffers from the need to provide an action shot. And the image feels poorly cropped.
(Looking at the cover again - having typed *just* the above - I can see the lich raising a fallen warrior not sucking his life out like I had previously assumed. That would be a better image made unfortunate by the choice of a not obviously zombified figure.)



Hoard of the Dragon Queen is alright. There's nothing special going on there. The colouring is poor, making what is presumably a white dragon look rather purple. There's not a lot of colour in this one so it seems rather bland and, paired with the MM and DMG, makes the books seem rather limited and dark in hue.

The Player's Handbook is terrible. A fire giant is a poor choice for the cover, taking up too much space relative to the heroes. You can only really see one adventurer, which doesn't convey the "team game" aspect nor the focus on the heroes. And while using a "Name" giant is a neat idea, the white dragon skin is distracting and seems contradictory for a fire based creature. The position of the adventurer's leg looks weird when paired with the giant's shirt; until I saw the larger sized image I wasn't sure what was going on. And the cropping of this image is particularly bad.
But at least it has a different colour palette.

 

[Pog]

All excellent ihmo.

Favourite two are RoT and MM.

 

[evilbob]

LOVE the Monster Manual. The Starter Set and the DMG are also really, really cool.

This is a great way to sum up how I feel about the PHB:

The Player's Handbook is terrible. A fire giant is a poor choice for the cover, taking up too much space relative to the heroes. You can only really see one adventurer, which doesn't convey the "team game" aspect nor the focus on the heroes. And while using a "Name" giant is a neat idea, the white dragon skin is distracting and seems contradictory for a fire based creature. The position of the adventurer's leg looks weird when paired with the giant's shirt; until I saw the larger sized image I wasn't sure what was going on. And the cropping of this image is particularly bad.

 

[pkt77242]

I really like the DMG.

 

[Quickleaf]

While the quality of the pieces is quite nice, I've finally figured out what bothers me about them.

The cover images are just too zoomed in on the action, or rather, one part of the action with just a couple of the actors. Also, there is a bit of a frenetic feel. Maybe this is the sort of art the WotC marketing gurus figured appeals to a younger generation?

I guess it wasn't realistic to hope for a nice scene of weary, battle-worn, but triumphant adventurers riding toward a town in the valley below towing a small dragon corpse and chests of treasure with them?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Could only vote for 1, but several are worth mentioning.

The Starter Set is just cool, with the classic image of a warrior deflecting dragon-breath with his shield like the memorable image from Disney's Sleeping Beauty. (That a shield offers no protection from breathweapons in the basic set, itself, notwithstanding. )

The Tiamat is a very dramatic, looming, almost Record of Lodos War, take on the classic monster. I saw the full image somewhere, and it was even more impressive.

The MM and DMG just don't look good to me. I'm no art critic, so I couldn't say why in any intelligible way, just don't like 'em. :shrug:

 

[evileeyore]

I'm really not a fan of any of them. The artists are too afraid to turn the protagonist or antagonist's backs to the viewer forcing an odd perspective or pose in the "not straight on" subjects..

The only one I even half like is Horde of the Dragon as being "a side on" it doesn't look as forced.*


* The DMG has a nice clear "they are coming at you" approach, but the interplay between the Lich and the foreground figure is confusing (is it an undead being regened/bolstered? is it an Antagonist being disintegrated?) and the foreground figures pose is really weird. Did he just drop his weapons? Is he gesturing to an off-shot table for the Party to be seated at? What is going on here?