D&D General Art in D&D

[generic]

Yeah I read your post. You said artists shouldn't be bashed simply for following traditions. There are a lot of abhorrent traditions, and if someone still follows them, then yes. They should be based. Depicting other races as inferior or subhuman has also been done for generations. But guess what? An artist doing that now should rightfully be bashed.

Fair enough. I take your point.

 

[Parmandur]

Eh... Sensuality has always been represented in Human art, for thousands of years in fact. Do I think that we should keep cheesecake? No, I do not. But, let's not bash artists who were only following an ancient tradition.

5E has sensual art, just not creepy art. There is a difference. Caldwell is very talented, but he would often ruin pieces with inserting inappropriate elements.

 

[generic]

5E has sensual art, just not creepy art. There is a difference. Caldwell is very talented, but he would often ruin pieces with inserting inappropriate elements.

Agreed.

 

[Wiseblood]

Yeah, the interviews with Caldwell in that documentary were deeply uncomfortable: I laughed out loud when he complained about how puritanical and anti-sex the art direction at 80's TSR was, and how they kept editing his work to tone it down...

I can see that. Clyde, it is a mass marketed tabletop game not a playboy subscription.

5E has sensual art, just not creepy art. There is a difference. Caldwell is very talented, but he would often ruin pieces with inserting inappropriate elements.

5e has sensual art? This is news to me.

 

[Parmandur]

I can see that. Clyde, it is a mass marketed tabletop game not a playboy subscription.

5e has sensual art? This is news to me.

Certainly! This piece from the PHB is, for my money, probably the most sensual (as opposed to titillating and objectifying) pieces of D&D art ever:

Then there is, of course, this piece:

 

[Wiseblood]

As far as criticisms of 5e art I would say I do not like the decision to put a picture at the beginning of each chapter. To me it feels like they just put that in between chapters in a limbo where the opposite page doesn’t have any meat so you aren’t spending much time there so they aren’t memorable.

The other issue I have is with the decision to put a picture to each class description. It is as if to say this is what you will be playing. Behold them as they pose for their portrait. Yuck. The Barbarian looks like a Viking lumberjack....boring. The rogue IIRC is a drow. It’s all very on the nose. Give me a class description. Somewhere else in the book have pictures of adventurers doing adventure things Camping, fighting, exploring casting spells, negotiating, resting and so on. Let me decide which adventurer I might identify with. Is that guy in full plate my ranger or wizard? Is my barbarian wearing furs? Or silk robes.

I really do not like the posing they look so inactive.

 

[Hussar]

Well, to be fair, that's been the style since 3e with the iconics. I don't remember if the 2e PHB had class art, it's been too long. The 1e PHB only had a couple, one of which is the iconic Paladin in Hell.

But, class based games having a "class" picture has been around for a while. Helps to identify what that class is, particularly to new gamers who really don't know what a bard or a warlock actually is.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

I, personally, don't too much mind cheesecake in art (although that pirate art was a bit beyond what I consider reasonable). However, I am one person, and if D&D art exclusively catered to me, it would probably be terrible, plus I'm only one dude in a community of what, like 5 million? My opinion might be (and probably is) in the minority, and I like non-cheesecake art just fine.

Although I do agree that if you have cheesecake, you should have beefcake as well.

 

[MGibster]

I'm one of those people who believes that context matters. Cheesecake is fine in some places such as a pinup calendar hanging in my office at home but it would be inappropriate for me to hang that same calendar on the wall in my office at work. Likewise, cheesecake in a game book designed for a general audience isn't appropriate.

Cheesecake is a bit more than just a woman wearing a revealing outfit. It's about body language, facial expressions, and attracting the male gaze (obligatory Wiki link). Very often a shirtless male warrior in a furry bikini bottom wielding a large axe is portrayed very differently from a barely dressed female warrior in a fur bikini.

For me, personally, I think cheesecake just looks silly in most game books because it's just not the right context. The pirate woman linked to earlier in this thread is a great example. A similar pose where she doesn't have her treasures hanging out for me to look at might have been fine. But if it's supposed to conjure up the image of an adventurer it just looks so silly to me. So I'm glad D&D moved away from cheesecake.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Well, to be fair, that's been the style since 3e with the iconics. I don't remember if the 2e PHB had class art, it's been too long. The 1e PHB only had a couple, one of which is the iconic Paladin in Hell.

But, class based games having a "class" picture has been around for a while. Helps to identify what that class is, particularly to new gamers who really don't know what a bard or a warlock actually is.

Early TSR went for a line up art depiction, rather than individual pics for each class or race. Like the races in the PHB and the classes in the basic book like this: