D&D 5E DDN Concept Art

[Klaus]

I think C would be perfect as a Halfling. It looks like a small human, in fact it could be a human e.g. 5ft tall, but it also definitely looks short without looking pathetic.

I would be fine also with A as a Halfling even if it clearly looks like a child, and that might be too much of a shift (although at some point in the past I thought I've read that this has been in fact an idea).

C is a 3' 4" child (5-ish years old). E is a squarely 5' tall olympic figure skater.

 

[Zaukrie]

He proposed big halfling heads to make them distinct from just being short humans....while I do mot like any of the implementations so far, I do not have another way in mind. That is, if a halfling is not next to a human, how do you know it is not a human?

 

[Obryn]

The art is one of the first things about Next I've liked!

I especially love how the women are in practical garb or armor, with nary a cleavage-window in sight. Both dwarves are great, too.

The big monster mash is now my wallpaper; this is the first time a frost giant has looked intimidating in a while!

-O

 

[Ratskinner]

This suggests to me that you are unfamiliar with what bad kids cartoons look like.

Am I missing something, or is everyone complaining that the nonhumans have nonhuman proportions?

...got kids....trust me (although there's room to disagree on how bad any given cartoon is ).

As Li Shenron said, its not that they are inhuman, more that they are ridiculous.

If this was a game primarily about Fairy Stories, I think this art would be fine. However, I don't think it fits in a game of heroic fantasy adventure.

Then again, I'd be okay if they went back to the B&W line-art styles of the older editions for most of the art.

 

[Klaus]

Here are the answers to the proportions experiment.

 

[Ratskinner]

Children, and short people, have small heads proportionally, and that is the point of this experiment. If we want halflings (and gnomes, and dwarves) to look "short", we have to use tools our brains recognize. In this case, proportions.

For instance, actor Sebastian Saraceno, who played Wolf in the movie "Mirror Mirror", has great proportions:

View attachment 56077

If I had to slot him in a D&D race...I think I'd go Dwarf, although his lower body seems slender for that. Of the PC races presented the halflings are the worst offenders. Their feet and heads just look too cartoonish. I'm not for a return to round hobbits with hairy bare feet. (the 4e halflings were the most "heroic" looking IMO.)

Do pygmies provide any insight? These guys look pretty adventurous-yet-small, even if they average around 59" (I understand).

So they may be a bit tall.

 

[Prickly]

The humans look good
The elves look good too but I dont like the really long ears.

Halfings look utterly terrible.

I dont know why half the art is fairly realistic and the other half all cartoony (Halfings have this problem in the same image).
Really noticeable when you look and the monsters some of which look good and some not so much.

 

[Blackwarder]

I love those!!! Only ones I don't like are the elves, they just look like humans with pointy ears...

Warder

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[Li Shenron]

KEEP THE ANIME OUT OF D&D ART!

Indeed!!!

He proposed big halfling heads to make them distinct from just being short humans....while I do mot like any of the implementations so far, I do not have another way in mind. That is, if a halfling is not next to a human, how do you know it is not a human?

Who cares? I always thought that halflings were in practice just small humans, with minor differences, the name "halflings" coming from that. Being small is what distinguishes them from humans. I find it absurd that they have to change their concept because of problems in drawing them... It's just as absurd as changing the concept of an invisible creature to visible because otherwise they can't draw it

Another concept I've heard a few times is that halflings may look like human children who stopped growing but haven't stopped aging. That however may lead to some not-so-nice graphical interpretation.

Anyway the best detail to make them stand out is indeed the old barefoot with furry feet. No other human-like race has that IIRC. I would also make them never with beard or moustache, and never balding, with age manifesting only with wrinkles, curved posture and whitening hair (this is maybe what I have in mind when hearing they look like aging children*). Slight childlike proportions as in [MENTION=607]Klaus[/MENTION]' drawing C would be IMHO perfect, not cartoon-like and neither Kender-like as in 3ed.

*by contrast, I'd make elves never age at all and always look the same from puberty to venerable age