D&D 5E About the artwork...

[Charlaquin]

I agree. A couple of things stand out to me about the equipment and clothes. The boots are extra tall, almost oversized. The pouches are also oversized, the blade feels extra wide, the hair is voluminous. All of that with a slightly exaggerated head size gives you the sense of a small person without relying on external visual queues.

Well, the boots, the pouches, and the blade are all external visual cues. I’d argue the book looks kind of oversized too, which is also external. Her clothes are tailored kind of oddly too - everything fits her very loosely, and the sleeves come down pretty far.

The cues that are inherent to the character’s body are pretty effective though. Her shoulders and limbs are quite broad compared to her torso, which is very slender. Her right arm is a little long. Her head is very round, and her facial features small and pursed, with her eyes rather wide-set. It looks like she’s narrowing her eyes, but that if she opened them wider they would be pretty big. Her feet are a little large too, though not unrealistically so. Hypothetically that could be due to the boots being too big for her though.

Overall the effect definitely communicates her size well, but I do wonder how effective it would be if her equipment wasn’t quite as exaggerated in size. Not that I mind her equipment looking the way it does, I actually rather like the approach, especially since 5e doesn’t have specially-sized equipment for Small characters. The piece overall definitely works for me. I’d prefer an approach like this over what we ended up with in the PHB.

 

[dave2008]

-His eyes...
If he’s been in combat, there should be some sort of actual marker, like blood. There isn’t.
He looks like he’s got Down syndrome. That spreads a bad message to people with Down syndrome.

Or a good one. It can be nice to see yourself portrayed in a heroic manner.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Yeah, I know what you mean. Such iconic images in the old books like this one

Spoiler

View attachment 128229

Love it! I am also fond of the "Micky Mouse Wererat Infiltration Scheme"...you know the one.

On a more serious note...

The above cartoon is, imnsho, superior art for one reason. It tells a story and conveys an emotion. The OP's original two pictures, of the witch and the elf/hawk? Boring. They don't tell any story. They show no personality. They don't convey any emotion whatsoever. It's just like far, faaaaar to many "modern day artworks": technically proficient, but with no 'soul' and not anything to be proud of. They are almost all equivalent, in my mind, to something one would do for a freelance job where the potential employer asks "Ok, do you have a grasp on colour, lighting, texture, etc? Show us a quick sketch of that. Then we'll move on to other things like composition".

The witch, for example...it's just a chick standing there holding a magic book, casting a spell. So what? It's like taking a close up picture of your cat sleeping on a pillow. It doesn't SAY anything other than...."Here's a cat. Sleeping on a pillow". The above cartoon, however? Scene is set in a bar, folks are drinking, an adventurer at the bar is surprised, as well as bar-helper, and the bartender is DEFINITELY surprised! The axe in the wall next to the bartenders head shows that there is some action going on that needs attending. The story is obvious, even without the caption; "Someone in the bar is getting rowdy for some reason...and people are nervous".

I find that this new'ish "style" of art is what is I call "studio setting poser art". I can imagine there is a director and behind the artist is a bunch of people, like shooting a commercial product placement advertisement. There's the artist/director telling the witch... "Ok, Susan? Yeah, hold the book a bit higher...bit more....perfect! Ok, wind guy? Get some wind coming up from below...too much...still to much. Try half power. Great! Right...Susan, can you make that illusionary snake coming out of the book more dramatic? OH! Hey, make it fire! It will light your face, right? Yeah...excellent. Look down into it, like you're reading the book, the flames are from the writing in the book. Now, almost there. Oh, raise your left hand up a bit. More....more...more...too much. How about down, right below the edge of the brim of your hat! PERFECT! Oooo! Add some illusionary flames circling her left hand! Niiiice....! Ok, artist...paint that. GO!". ... ...



That's what I see when I see almost any art done by newer artists for D&D or Pathfinder or any other "modern, high-quality artwork RPG". Better than I could do...but boring and with no 'soul'.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[dave2008]

Hiya!



Love it! I am also fond of the "Micky Mouse Wererat Infiltration Scheme"...you know the one.

On a more serious note...

The above cartoon is, imnsho, superior art for one reason. It tells a story and conveys an emotion. The OP's original two pictures, of the witch and the elf/hawk? Boring. They don't tell any story. They show no personality. They don't convey any emotion whatsoever. It's just like far, faaaaar to many "modern day artworks": technically proficient, but with no 'soul' and not anything to be proud of. They are almost all equivalent, in my mind, to something one would do for a freelance job where the potential employer asks "Ok, do you have a grasp on colour, lighting, texture, etc? Show us a quick sketch of that. Then we'll move on to other things like composition".

The witch, for example...it's just a chick standing there holding a magic book, casting a spell. So what? It's like taking a close up picture of your cat sleeping on a pillow. It doesn't SAY anything other than...."Here's a cat. Sleeping on a pillow". The above cartoon, however? Scene is set in a bar, folks are drinking, an adventurer at the bar is surprised, as well as bar-helper, and the bartender is DEFINITELY surprised! The axe in the wall next to the bartenders head shows that there is some action going on that needs attending. The story is obvious, even without the caption; "Someone in the bar is getting rowdy for some reason...and people are nervous".

I find that this new'ish "style" of art is what is I call "studio setting poser art". I can imagine there is a director and behind the artist is a bunch of people, like shooting a commercial product placement advertisement. There's the artist/director telling the witch... "Ok, Susan? Yeah, hold the book a bit higher...bit more....perfect! Ok, wind guy? Get some wind coming up from below...too much...still to much. Try half power. Great! Right...Susan, can you make that illusionary snake coming out of the book more dramatic? OH! Hey, make it fire! It will light your face, right? Yeah...excellent. Look down into it, like you're reading the book, the flames are from the writing in the book. Now, almost there. Oh, raise your left hand up a bit. More....more...more...too much. How about down, right below the edge of the brim of your hat! PERFECT! Oooo! Add some illusionary flames circling her left hand! Niiiice....! Ok, artist...paint that. GO!". ... ...



That's what I see when I see almost any art done by newer artists for D&D or Pathfinder or any other "modern, high-quality artwork RPG". Better than I could do...but boring and with no 'soul'.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Ya the "soul" of a piece of artwork is pretty subjective though (as is the quality of art). I actually think both of the pieces of art in the OP tell a story and have a soul, but it leaves more up to the viewer than the cartoon. Which I think is a good thing. Now, do I think both pieces could do more on that front, sure. But I don't expect or want every piece of art to tell a grand story. For me there are enough of those for my taste in 5e art, clearly your tastes differ.

 

[dave2008]

Yes, art preference is mostly due to preference. I love Erol Otis and others hate him. I think the art in the 2e reprints is garbage, and others like it.

But sometimes it's objectively bad by any metric you're evaluating, like this.

I don't know where that is from, but it reminds we of a lot of 3e art and why I avoided that edition