3E art and age
- Thread starter jgbrowning
- Start date
Mercule wrote:
Gothmog wrote:
I'm 30 years old.
I'm a big fan of Anime and Manga, but I'm not going to come in here and take offense because someone here doesn't like it. Everyone has their own tastes in art. If you don't like Anime/Manga style art then that's cool.
But, I just want to clarify something. Judging by your above statements I assume you don't like how Anime or Manga styles do fantasy costume design. Am I right?
Just to double check, you consider the pictures here from "Valkyrie Profile" & "Record of Lodoss War" to be bad?
Link: http://www.anime-genesis.com/pics/html/lodoss/lodoss49.shtml
Link:http://www.altogames.com/cgi-bin/preview.pl?/v/valkyrie-profile/g-000095-w1-000689.jpg,0,0,0
I personally think they're pretty cool looking. But that's me.
I enjoy the art of many Japanese & French artists. They've offered some really nice fantasy art in my opinion. I think I understand why you say some of the 3e art has a bit of Anime mixed in it. But I find it off the mark. I see none of the elements that make Anime art what it is in the styles of the WotC artists. If anything, I'd say the designs were more influenced by the BROM approach to costuming than the Anime approach.
As far as known artists out here, I like Keith Parkinson, Micheal Whelan, Alan Lee, and Frank Frazetta.
My least favorites are Clyde Caldwell, Boris Vallejo, and Darrel Sweet (who's covers on the Thomas Covenant books were awesome, but his WoT stuff is really, really.....not good at all).
Someone mentioned the beauty behind the LotR movie designs. I agree. But then, there you have professional costume designers doing that. RPG artists don't normally have any fashion design education in their background. Also, most male artists (I know there's some female ones too, but most in the RPG illustration world are male it seems) probably don't think that taking the fashion illustration class in art college to be 'something they can use'. But it makes a big difference. Learning how clothes are cut and function from modern day back to medieval times is very helpful indeed. Again, look at LotR. Look at the great costumes. Boromir's outfit in particular is a favorite of mine.
Regardless, I find the 3e art to be pretty good most of the time. Way better than 1e and 2e in my opinion. The best being from the whole Forgotten Realms line of books. I really wish the core books had the same level of artistic design put into them.
Gothmog wrote:
I'm 30 years old.
I'm a big fan of Anime and Manga, but I'm not going to come in here and take offense because someone here doesn't like it. Everyone has their own tastes in art. If you don't like Anime/Manga style art then that's cool.
But, I just want to clarify something. Judging by your above statements I assume you don't like how Anime or Manga styles do fantasy costume design. Am I right?
Just to double check, you consider the pictures here from "Valkyrie Profile" & "Record of Lodoss War" to be bad?
Link: http://www.anime-genesis.com/pics/html/lodoss/lodoss49.shtml
Link:http://www.altogames.com/cgi-bin/preview.pl?/v/valkyrie-profile/g-000095-w1-000689.jpg,0,0,0
I personally think they're pretty cool looking. But that's me.
I enjoy the art of many Japanese & French artists. They've offered some really nice fantasy art in my opinion. I think I understand why you say some of the 3e art has a bit of Anime mixed in it. But I find it off the mark. I see none of the elements that make Anime art what it is in the styles of the WotC artists. If anything, I'd say the designs were more influenced by the BROM approach to costuming than the Anime approach.
As far as known artists out here, I like Keith Parkinson, Micheal Whelan, Alan Lee, and Frank Frazetta.
My least favorites are Clyde Caldwell, Boris Vallejo, and Darrel Sweet (who's covers on the Thomas Covenant books were awesome, but his WoT stuff is really, really.....not good at all).
Someone mentioned the beauty behind the LotR movie designs. I agree. But then, there you have professional costume designers doing that. RPG artists don't normally have any fashion design education in their background. Also, most male artists (I know there's some female ones too, but most in the RPG illustration world are male it seems) probably don't think that taking the fashion illustration class in art college to be 'something they can use'. But it makes a big difference. Learning how clothes are cut and function from modern day back to medieval times is very helpful indeed. Again, look at LotR. Look at the great costumes. Boromir's outfit in particular is a favorite of mine.
Regardless, I find the 3e art to be pretty good most of the time. Way better than 1e and 2e in my opinion. The best being from the whole Forgotten Realms line of books. I really wish the core books had the same level of artistic design put into them.
Pseudonym
Ivan Alias
A few rambling thoughts, in no particular order:
I think by far the worst illustration of the iconics is the cover of Tome and Blood. Nebbin's shades are IMO so anachronistically out of place as to be jarring. Hennet's outfit is horrible. What's next a ball gag or a zipper mask? I think about the table in the PHB detailing the time it takes to put on armor and wonder about his getup.
Mialee has probably the worst outfit, Yeah I know she's an elf and all, so the leafy thing is in, but the exposed midrif just screams "disembowl me" Yeah yeah, mages don't wear armor, but a complete lack of protection is just plain silly.
I'm hoping that the revised core books will include revised iconic artwork as well as a complete redo of the illustrations for the equipment section. I guess we'll see soon enough.
I think by far the worst illustration of the iconics is the cover of Tome and Blood. Nebbin's shades are IMO so anachronistically out of place as to be jarring. Hennet's outfit is horrible. What's next a ball gag or a zipper mask? I think about the table in the PHB detailing the time it takes to put on armor and wonder about his getup.
Mialee has probably the worst outfit, Yeah I know she's an elf and all, so the leafy thing is in, but the exposed midrif just screams "disembowl me" Yeah yeah, mages don't wear armor, but a complete lack of protection is just plain silly.
I'm hoping that the revised core books will include revised iconic artwork as well as a complete redo of the illustrations for the equipment section. I guess we'll see soon enough.
Sulimo
First Post
Fenros said:
I dont know about that generalisation. In any case I dont know if I would blame artists per se rather than the deliberate choices the art people at Wizards took.
Of course one of my alltime fave artists is Angus McBride , although he's an artist who dabbled in roleplaying stuff rather than anything else.
Victim
First Post
Quite frankly, I don't see why realistic looking armor is that important. Let's take helmets for example. Helmets are essential for the protection of the head and face. How many people would want to go into battle with a vital unprotected area sceaming "Hit me here, I'm undefended and will cause a deadly wound!" However, the helmet separates "viewers" from the character. People see the armor and not the person. For example, in Star Wars, only the evil Storm Troopers and Darth Vader wear full face helmets, and Darth Vader takes his off when he stops being evil. The heroes don't wear full helms, and usually take off the helmets that they do have. When envisioning my characters, they either don't have helmets, even if they wear full plate, or have a stylized, cool looking helm that doesn't offer that much protection.
What's realistic and what looks appropriate on heroic characters are two different things.
What's realistic and what looks appropriate on heroic characters are two different things.
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