Post your Top 20 D&D Illustrations of All Time!

[Klaus]

You want "cheesecake" look to Caldwell! I don't think he's painted a female adventurer with pants/without bare legs and low-cut thrusting bazooms EVER! Look, even, to Easley. Just about every female he's one, even fully clothed, seems to have a chest waiting to burst through the cloth covering it.

Caldwell did do some great covered females. This is my favorite:

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I also loved the ranger's outfit!

 

[Yora]

To be fair, the greek painted their contemporary soldiers in very ridiculous ways. Because it looks more cool!

 

[Scribble]

Caldwell did do some great covered females. This is my favorite:

She IS still suffering from the awkward pose to show off her "ASSets" thing... Like that Avengers poster that went around recently.

13 year old me LOVED this artwork... especially since it was pre-internet... 35 year old me can understand why some find it offensive. (While secretly still harboring a boyhood crush on some of the fantasy females of his youth... )

 

[steeldragons]

Caldwell did do some great covered females. This is my favorite:

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I also loved the ranger's outfit!

True enough. I forgot about this one...and I HAVE that module! lol. But, ok, he gets credit for ONE covered female! lol. Who is, obviously, ready to burst out of her tabbard in the front and seems to have a scale-mail wedgey in the back. But still, yes, she is covered. I stand corrected.

As for the "ranger's outfit" (and almost entire look) strikes me as an almost direct rip-off of Elmore's Tanis Half-Elven (though, yes, I know, Tanis was not, technically, a "ranger").

 

[Savage Wombat]

OK, clearly we need a separate thread for people to post pictures of cheesecake art, and we can debate in detail whether it qualifies.

That way we can definitively point to the thread to say how much is too much.

And not for any other reason.

 

[I'm A Banana]

But when I think of Elmore, "cheesecake" is not what comes to mind.

Eh. Context is everything. For the era, he certainly wasn't any worse than 90% of the other fantasy artists (he DID do SOME women that WERN'T cheesecake!) but if I were to see that kind of art in a D&D book today, I would be really, really annoyed. There's plenty of women who hold poses that are entirely about exhibiting for adolescent males to drool over, and that's a problem now.

Personally, dodging cheesecake is part of why I'm a fan of some of of DiTerlizzi's art. That Cat Lord picture, or the picture of the the Mercykiller Factol, is beautiful, but it's not exhibitionist (the mystery and secret in the character's eyes and smile are much more enticing than a bit of leg). Of course, that tiefling picture above is pretty effin' cheesecake, so it's not like he's immune.

But I do like a lot of Elmore: the use of seasons, the sense of scope, the depiction of a scene, rather than just an isolated creature...all of that is really solid.

 

[Klaus]

OK, clearly we need a separate thread for people to post pictures of cheesecake art, and we can debate in detail whether it qualifies.

That way we can definitively point to the thread to say how much is too much.

And not for any other reason.

Well said, SW!

Let's try and keep this one on-topic (your Top 20 D&D Illos!). If anyone wants to start a "D&D Cheesecake" thread, please go ahead so I can bookmark that!

 

[steeldragons]

Well said, SW!

Let's try and keep this one on-topic (your Top 20 D&D Illos!). If anyone wants to start a "D&D Cheesecake" thread, please go ahead so I can bookmark that!

Quite right. Apologies.

Here's some fun stuff...
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[Hussar]

I note that DiTerlizzi has been mentioned a couple of times. I don't know why, but, he's the primary reason why I never got into Planescape. I just do not like his art. It leaves me totally cold. I once saw it described as "too twee" and I think that nails it pretty well. I can't knock his technical skills, because he's got lots of them. And, the images certainly are evocative. But, wow, I look at them and they do absolutely nothing for me.

Ah well, to each his own.

I'm totally drawing a blank on a name of an artist though and I hope you guys can help me out. Who did a number of the illos for the Savage Tide AP for Paizo - the guy that worked on Lord of the Rings?

I really like his stuff, but, my brain is just not functioning.

 

[Yora]

Planescape Art is Planescape art. It looks quite different from the other stuff he does and you usually wouldn't notice that it's the same artist until someone points it out.

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Planescape art is great, but I don't want it for 5th Edition. But less freaky pictures by him would certainly be welcome.