D&D 5E Love the Halfling art

I owe gnomes an apology! I was working under a false presumption based upon Google searches. I have finally received my PHB today, and discovered that many of the peices were not in fact in the book!

Bearded gnomes: p291 (deafened condition illustration), and p292 (unconscious). The rest are, as you say, acceptably Fey and spritely.


The illustrations I was looking at were the Conceptopolis ones; ditto the halflings, though those are in the PHB. The only gnome 5e pictures I could find on google, that weren't from 4e, were old man gnomes. One in particular, in the 5e Races search I did, kept coming up over and over.

THAT SAID, and I mean this, I still like the halflings. I noticed something with my kids, who are very young, is that their heads and feet are in similar proportion to the big-head-small-feet halflings in the book. The proportions are closer to very young children, and in fact are closer to this than the Gnomes are in their sections of the book.


I do miss the unity William OConnor brought to 4e, image-wise. Oh well.

zoroaster100 said:

Sorry but I can't agree. I hate the tiny feet.

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It isn't just the feet - it is the hands, too. Look at how those arms and legs taper! Ugh! And, to be honest, the image is just... coarse and kind of ugly. Not that the person depicted is ugly, but the *art* is kind of ugly.

I can live with the ruddy faces and big heads. It makes them different. But the feet look so ridiculously tiny like they are about to topple over. I generally liked the art in the book, but hated most of the halfling art.

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If we want to talk about going back to old school art standards - Bakshi Hobbit! Big head, sure. But hands and feet that don't make one cringe.

this is the little old gnome that everyone seems to dislike. He is NOT in the PHB! I'm really happy, though he's well-drawn for what he is.



and another one. This one's charming.




This is a halfling female, same artist. Thing is, this is fine. I don't even mind the one in the halfling section. It's new. Also, the proportions are more like a human toddler, which is fine for me.


There are parts where the PHB seems like the old 2e PHB, though. Anyone else getting that vibe?

fireinthedust said:

The proportions are more like a human toddler, which is fine for me.

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Well, sure. I mean, when I'm rolling a new character my first concern is, "How toddler-like can I make this guy?"

DMZ2112 said:

Well, sure. I mean, when I'm rolling a new character my first concern is, "How toddler-like can I make this guy?"

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See? And now that concern, *your* concern, in enshrined in the official rules.


Truly a golden age!

As it is, Gnomes look almost identical to Halflings. The only difference seems to be the former's pointy ears.