D&D 5E Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft Art Preview

SageAdvice.eu has compiled a bunch of art shots from the upcoming Ravenloft setting book. I've featured a handful below, but click through to the link for the full set of nearly 30 pieces.

ART Van Richtens Guide to Ravenloft26

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www.sageadvice.eu

 

[Charlaquin]

Pretty average art IMO, nowhere near creepy enough. The Strahd one looks positively shiny

What were you expecting, Geiger?

 

[Coroc]

I don't know what that dancer is, but I like it.

I would like to know what it is, actually.

 

[Remathilis]

A lot of these look straight out of Innistrad

Not a bad thing. 2e era Ravenloft was nice, but mostly b/w (or r/w) and ranged in quality from great to very hard to see. The less said about 3e era art, the better. Innistrad though was some of the best M:TG art in all the sets. I think it's a good match for both settings.

 

[Remathilis]

Coooolnessss.
I'm not a fan of Strahd wearing bright colors, as they like to paint him recently. It makes him look like a Vistani. Strahd favored conservative tailored layers of black over red. In fact, I'm not a fan of how they have been visually portraying Strahd at all, with the long hair and such; Stephen Fabian's brooding portraiture will always be how I picture the Lord of Barovia.

View attachment 136218

Meh. I know it's his Classic look, but he always looked like a CVS cosplay Dracula. I've grown too like the long-haired version with the coat and fur trim, it gives him a unique look.

 

[Istbor]

Not a bad thing. 2e era Ravenloft was nice, but mostly b/w (or r/w) and ranged in quality from great to very hard to see. The less said about 3e era art, the better. Innistrad though was some of the best M:TG art in all the sets. I think it's a good match for both settings.

Agreed. I very much enjoyed Innistrad card art. It was also a pretty good block.

 

[The Glen]

What were you expecting, Geiger?

Another art style would have been nice. This isn't any different from the Forgotten Realms. It's still the same formula. A distinctive visual Style for the setting would have been very nice like the curse of strahd with the characters and their trademark angular faces.

It wouldn't have been out of ordinary to do this. A large number of settings had artist that defined them with a unique Style. Dark Sun had Brom. Planescape Di Terlizzi, Mystara Caldwell and Dragonlance Parkinson. A little variety would have been refreshing.

 

[Mind of tempest]

View attachment 136260
In the attached link

do they drain my monk's ki points as I would be so happy if they did?

 

[BookTenTiger]

The pointed ears are signs of wisdow and a long life. In Spain there is a tradition of pulling the ears of the children in their birthday.

The old canon said Strand had got pointed ears.

Oh man, what if Strahd has pointy ears because they keep getting pulled on every year on his birthday? A few thousand years of ear pulling would really stretch them out.

 

[ART!]

Look at this! Look at the composition, the color values! The way saturated and desaturated colors play against each other to make the fire look brighter and more dangerous even though it takes up less canvas retail than any other component.

LOOK AT THE MAGIC. Look at how ethereal and delicate it looks. So light you could blow hard across her fingertips and disrupt the spell.

Look at the attention paid to these beautiful natural curls! The springiness and soft cloud combo that is their hair.

Loving this art dump!

All that, plus you know what I just love here?

The eye patch.

The face is turned away from us so that we have even less than a profile view of the character's face, but the artist included an eyepatch anyway. That's a great, evocative detail that would have been easy and perfectly reasonable to skip or not even think of.

 

[ART!]

Pretty average art IMO, nowhere near creepy enough. The Strahd one looks positively shiny

The book is going to cover a lot of different kinds of horror, so hopefully the art is appropriately different for each kind.