D&D 5E Art and Arcana: A visual History just arrived!

Quartz · Oct 30, 2018

MNblockhead said:
Fiend Folio.

Wasn't that by Games Workshop?

Salamandyr · Oct 30, 2018

What percentage of the book is dedicated to WOTC art versus TSR art?

Henry · Oct 30, 2018

Sacrosanct said:
For example, I never knew how Strange Tales was the inspiration for the early illustrations. This is the kind of gold you will find in this book...

I'm impressed somebody didn't get sued back in the day. ;-) Then again, D&D wasn't on anyone's radar back then! I swear, I used to trace art like that back when I was a kid!

For that last "swordsman" image, they didn't even change the positioning of the index finder that was on the trigger guard...

Thank you for sharing, by the way -- that is one fantastic-looking book.

MNblockhead · Oct 31, 2018

Quartz said:
Wasn't that by Games Workshop?

Started there but TSR ended up publishing it themselves and used it to start TSR UK. The story is in Art and Arcana. See page 127, where they reproduce an add from 1981 that advertises the Fiend Folio as "Monsters from England: The Fiend Folio Tome".

By the late 1970s, the international appetite for D&D had reached a level that required TSR to create a UK subsidiary called TSR Hobbies UK, Ltd....Between international expansion and the success of AD&D hardcovers, the stage was set for D&D products that came from outside of TSR's Lake Geneva headquarters. In August of 1981, the TSR UK Fiend Folio hit shelves with a distinct art and style, featuring primarily monsters submitted to the pages of White Dwarf magazine, a gaming publication of TSR's original UK distributor, Games Workshop.

Unfortunately, that page is the only one listed in the index's entry for TSR Hobbies UK, Ltd.

What UK-specific work do you think was overlooked?

MNblockhead · Oct 31, 2018

Salamandyr said:
What percentage of the book is dedicated to WOTC art versus TSR art?

Well I'm not going to try to calculate that, but it isn't until page 279 of the 433-page book that it starts getting in to WoTC stuff. I was very happy that a great portion of this tome was not only on TSR but on the early ODD and AD&D 1e art of the 70s and 80s. But it was also interesting for me to see the 3e and 4e stuff, which I missed entirely in my time away from RPGs.

This is a comprehensive work. Fans of all editions should be pleased. For me it allowed me to bathe in nostalgia while also getting me excited by the future. I can't recommend this book enough.

Quartz · Oct 31, 2018

MNblockhead said:
What UK-specific work do you think was overlooked?

Imagine magazine and the UK modules are the big ones.

Nebulous · Oct 31, 2018

It's a wonderful book, and in my opinion there is still plenty more artwork and history to mine for a sequel in a year or two, which I would greatly like to see.

Sacrosanct · Oct 31, 2018

MNblockhead said:
Well I'm not going to try to calculate that, but it isn't until page 279 of the 433-page book that it starts getting in to WoTC stuff. I was very happy that a great portion of this tome was not only on TSR but on the early ODD and AD&D 1e art of the 70s and 80s. But it was also interesting for me to see the 3e and 4e stuff, which I missed entirely in my time away from RPGs.

This is a comprehensive work. Fans of all editions should be pleased. For me it allowed me to bathe in nostalgia while also getting me excited by the future. I can't recommend this book enough.

This. This is exactly how I feel.

BookBarbarian · Oct 31, 2018

That cover art is one of my favorite pieces of Fantasy art ever.

I'll definitely be picking this up.

MNblockhead · Nov 1, 2018

Quartz said:
Imagine magazine and the UK modules are the big ones.

I'm not familiar with Imagine magazine and am unsure if I've every seen, bought, or played any "UK module" so it would have been nice to have these highlighted. Perhaps some example of foreign-language editions as well, but it is already a hefty tome and they can only fit so much.

D&D 5E Art and Arcana: A visual History just arrived!

Quartz

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Salamandyr

Adventurer

Henry

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MNblockhead

A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site

MNblockhead

A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site

Quartz

Hero

Nebulous

Legend

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Legend

BookBarbarian

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MNblockhead

A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site

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