Art in books

[Tetsubo]

I've bought gaming books just because of the art. Good quality art, better yet good quality B&W art, can make or break my purchasing decision. I am particularly impressed by good illustrations of game elements: races, equipment, magic items, places, etc. Colour art is nice but I love good B&W work.

I'm not an artists, I'm more of a sketcher... But it does make me rather visually oriented.

 

[CarlZog]

I like for my books to have good art in them. Not sure I would pay more for a book that has really well done art though. I also agree with Diaglo and miss some of the older art, there just seems to be something missing from some of the newer books.

For most of us, what's missing is our innocence.

When we were 15 years old and rpgs were new, every crudely scribbled fighter and magic-user was a window into a new, amazing world. Now we glance apathetically at WotC's ridiculously over-stylized character art, shrug our shoulders, and yearn nostalgically for the sense of wonder we've lost.

We're all just a lot harder to please than we were 20 or 25 years ago.

Carl

 

[MonsterMash]

i miss the older art.

the new stuff makes me say: "MEH"

Trampier, Sutherland and Otus - hell yeah!

Got to admit for PDF i really don't want that much art - just a cover piece (maybe), any maps and maybe something that shows an important part of a setting. Art is not a big factor in why I buy a book so it is even less of a factor with a PDF where I'd rather have less to print out or occupy disk space.

 

[Ed Cha]

Bad art'll keep me from buying something.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Scott Fischer. Who incidentally has really impressed me with some of his more recent work, though I wasn't a fan of his earlier stuff. When he does backgrounds he tends to do very well in having good composition.

Ok. I stand corrected then..... He does do good work. I'm not sure if I'd seen him do any background work or not..... ::shrug::

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I'll pay a good $5-$10 more for a book with truly outstanding art, like that in Warcraft the RPG or Iron Kingdoms. In the case of the Warcraft art, I might actually buy a book that otherwise wouldn't have made my to-buy list because those are so gorgeous.

Short of that, I care more about a good layout and design than about art. Keep in mind that I'm not speaking of production values here - I prefer crisp black and white on cheap paper to full color brownish-black on tan with scratchy but unquestionably detailed lines and wildly varying margins. However, a book with no art at all should be smaller (like a Mongoose pocket handbook); from a design standpoint, RPG books are simply too big to look right with pure block text.

Adobe Acrobat locks up my computer often enough as-is; I'd just as soon have PDFs without art.

 

[Greylock]

I'll buy a bad book with good (prefer very good) art no questions asked. A good book with bad art is a hard sale to make with me, though. Guess a picture is worth a thousand words.