D&D General When Did Digital Art Become A Thing?

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

@Zardnaar

As has been mentioned here-and-there in this thread, there was a step in between fully-digital art and art that had some level (such as colour) of production done digitally.

For example, in comic books: To my knowledge, the Marvel Epic reprints of Akira were one of the first comics to be digitally colored. This would have been the late 80's. (The original Japanese comics often had the first few pages hand-painted, and then the rest were black and white). IIRC, the artists that formed Image liked how that colouring looked, and had their books done that way too. Then the rest of the industry "caught up".

But... the art was still produced by hand on paper until much more recently. I'm not sure exactly when the switchover occurred, but I'm pretty sure that most comics are done entirely digitally at this point.

I know several professional artists (some comic books) who have been all digital since late 90s or early 2000s

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

@Zardnaar , of some relevance to this discussion: Wacom, who is/was the industry leader in digital art tablets, was founded in 1983 and introduced the first cordless pen in 1991. These first products were targeted directly at professional arts.

This is just to say digital are has been produced by professionals for a long time!

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

OK, this art, War of the Dragons, from the 4e draconomicon 2 was all digital. So at least by 2009 D&D was using digital art.

 

[Zardnaar]

OK, this art, War of the Dragons, from the 4e draconomicon 2 was all digital. So at least by 2009 D&D was using digital art.

View attachment 353879

4E looks digital anyway on the interiors.

Alot of earl 3.0 looks hand drawn eg the sepia stuff but I'm not 100% sure.

 

[Zardnaar]

@Zardnaar , of some relevance to this discussion: Wacom, who is/was the industry leader in digital art tablets, was founded in 1983 and introduced the first cordless pen in 1991. These first products were targeted directly at professional arts.

This is just to say digital are has been produced by professionals for a long time!

I knew it turned up in 90s just wondering if anyone knew when it became standard in D&D or early examples.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I knew it turned up in 90s just wondering if anyone knew when it became standard in D&D or early examples.

Doesn't really help to much, but i just found a Jan. 2014 "article" on Wayne Reynolds that described him as one of the last traditional (pen and paint) RPG artists: Art of the Genre

 

[Stormonu]

4E looks digital anyway on the interiors.

Alot of earl 3.0 looks hand drawn eg the sepia stuff but I'm not 100% sure.

It's going to be difficult to tell, once the books were being laid out in the computer there is likely all sorts of digital manipulation going on - recoloring, recombining, cropping, overlaying, etc. before you even get into the artists themselves doing digital aspects themselves.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

4E looks digital anyway on the interiors.

Alot of earl 3.0 looks hand drawn eg the sepia stuff but I'm not 100% sure.

There is a lot bad art in 3.0/3.5 IMO, so I'm not surprised

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I know several professional artists (some comic books) who have been all digital since late 90s or early 2000s

That sounds about right.

 

[Zardnaar]

There is a lot bad art in 3.0/3.5 IMO, so I'm not surprised

I thought art from 3 0-4E was fairly bad tbh. Went from nice 2E colour hardcovers to poo brown windows and 4E WAR core books. Not a fan of his art.
There was the odd exception like 3.5 Draconomicon, Tyrants of 9 Hells etc.

5E was an improvement.