D&D Races and Creatures concept sketches.

tuxgeo said:

-1: Greatest nitpick: aarakocra shouldn't have that many fingers on their hands, because the bones giving form to their wingtips are their actual finger-bones. At most, those guys should have an opposed thumb (alone) as a kind of a grasping claw at the wrist joint where all those fingers are shown.

Click to expand...

They aren't limited to five fingerbones, though. They could easily have as many fingers as shown, and still have two spare to form the wings.

Elves wearing boots? Just say NO.

Click to expand...

Boots of Elvenkind.

I like the halflings, but I don't see how that male halfling can draw his main sword easily: the scabbard is on the right side of his butt, not hanging on the left side of his baldric where he can draw it easily with his right hand.

Click to expand...

Left handed.

Tequila Sunrise said:

Wow, just...wow! Truly, these put a sizable chunk of published art to shame. I especially like the aarakocra, the dborn (though I'm not sure how he swings that weapon), the goblinoids, the orc, and the gnomes. The halflings are good too, it's just that halflings aren't, well, particularly memorable. Overall though, very evocative!

My only critique is the kobold, because he's so dark all over. It's hard to make out the details.

Click to expand...

The dragonborn's weapon is my concept of the tratnyr. It is a spear, so he doesn't swing it, just stabs with it. The side protusions are wings, and the bottom is weighted to balance the spearhead, so the whole thing can be thrown like a toy glider (including making loops and curves, depending on how it's thrown). The wings, in my concept, can also be used defensively, to ward off attacks.

DonAdam said:

I thought it might be cool to have kobolds that look partly draconic, partly dog-like as an homage to the change over the years and adding an element of ambiguity to their claims to be related to dragons.

Click to expand...

Funny you should say that, because this kobold is pretty much just a Chinese Crested Dog or Chihuahua, but standing upright and with scaly hide. Oh, and wearing a rat's skull as an epauldron.

My only small nitpick comes with the dragonborn, which look strikingly similar to Everquest Iksaur. I liked a lot of the 4e dragonborn, including Predator dreads. Heck, could you somehow make dragonborn more along the Predator vein, I mean not the mouths so much, but the overall kind of big, imposing, reptilian hunter. I imagine mixing a dragon's maw with a human's face would be horrifying all the same, though.

Pour said:

My only small nitpick comes with the dragonborn, which look strikingly similar to Everquest Iksaur. I liked a lot of the 4e dragonborn, including Predator dreads. Heck, could you somehow make dragonborn more along the Predator vein, I mean not the mouths so much, but the overall kind of big, imposing, reptilian hunter. I imagine mixing a dragon's maw with a human's face would be horrifying all the same, though.

Click to expand...

I wanted to tie the dragonborn to the brown dragon, as I think such an association would strengthen both creatures. Instead of making Arkhosia this huge primeval empire, I wanted to have ancient brown dragon sorcerer-kings ( ) that created a servitor warrior race, and the result were the dragonborn. The brown dragons' desert realms fell to ruin, and the dragonborn are mostly left to fend for themselves in nomad tribes, a mix of samurai and tuareg cultures. They would clash often with the savannah gnolls. And they give birth to live young (they're dragonborn, after all).

Klaus said:

A few months back, I got inspired by the talk of D&D Next's concept art, and decided to do a little concepting of my own. Some of these have already been posted on EN World, but others haven't, so I'm putting them together here.

Click to expand...

Wow. I think regardless of peoples' individual preferences for what races in D&D should look like, there is no denying you have some serious skills and these look awesome. That is just consistently good art. I especially like the colors you used.

Klaus said:

The dragonborn's weapon is my concept of the tratnyr. It is a spear, so he doesn't swing it, just stabs with it. The side protusions are wings, and the bottom is weighted to balance the spearhead, so the whole thing can be thrown like a toy glider (including making loops and curves, depending on how it's thrown). The wings, in my concept, can also be used defensively, to ward off attacks.

Click to expand...

My favorite Dragonborn weapon is the Khopesh we made up a superior Khopesh and named it War-tooth in the dragon language (I think it was like Aryatoth). It also seems a common weapon for them in the 4e art.

OK not necessarily a realistic Khopesh... but rather like


or maybe

or

Or for reality is sometimes stranger than fiction... the blade on the left in this
View attachment 56476

Bedrockgames said:

Wow. I think regardless of peoples' individual preferences for what races in D&D should look like, there is no denying you have some serious skills and these look awesome. That is just consistently good art. I especially like the colors you used.

Click to expand...

Yep, Klaus has a good art style. That's why some of us occasionally pick on his design choices: his art is consistently good enough to make it matter to us.

Klaus said:

Boots of Elvenkind.

Click to expand...

(underlining added)

Sure, but not "Wellingtons." Such half-calf pull-ons are human-style boots.

Sturdy boots with thick soles are great for jogging across plains in search of game, but not so great for climbing trees. A tree-climber might ordinarily choose a soft, supple sole most days -- something closer to the "boot" token in the Monopoly(R) set: ankle boots that allow for maximum flexibility, not calf-boots with thick heels.

Personally, I try to imagine a distinction between elves in-game and the elves as portrayed in the LotR movies, because the actors in those movies are all human; and their humanity imposed human postures, stances, and proportions onto the costume designs. I think fantasy elves could alternatively be portrayed with slightly different bone proportions to put their stances resting more on the balls of their feet instead of on their heels. (That might require shorter calves and metatarsals to be comfortable for them, plus longer toes, but I imagine that it might work; being no artist myself, though, I can't test that.)