D&D General Art in D&D

[generic]

I like the 5E Halfling art.

Why do you like it? I'm not trying to be interrogative, I'm just curious.

 

[Parmandur]

Why do you like it? I'm not trying to be interrogative, I'm just curious.

I find the imagery jolly. I like the pieces that people cite when they express their dislike, the pictures set the right Hobbit-y, Kenderish vibe for me. Also, never confuse 5E Halflings for Gnomes or Humans, which is nice.

 

[Parmandur]

Like, these guys fit my image of "Halfling" much better than most any previous Editions art:

 

[Hussar]

Everyone has their own taste.... I'm certainly not sold on the 5e halfling art.

However, thinking about it, the modules do consistently have some pretty great pieces in them. At least, the two modules I bought - Dragon Heist and Saltmarsh - and the couple that I've played in have had some pretty evocative pieces too.

I mean, from Dragon Heist:

Those are some fantastic shots of life in Waterdeep.

 

[generic]

Like, these guys fit my image of "Halfling" much better than most any previous Editions art:
[snip]

Actually, I quite like these two pieces, now that you've brought them back from the dregs of memory for me. I think, in general, it's the 5E Halfling from the Halfling race section that people hate so much.

 

[Oofta]

I like a variety of styles, even the early line drawings through 5E. While the cropping of the image on the front of the PHB was unfortunate, I like the action. But art in D&D has always been uneven at best.

For example the halflings in 5E all look like they were painted by Rob Liefield. Such tiny feet!

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I don't think that's the point. When you look at the actual cover of a PHB, the way the art is cropped looks awkward, and you can't see the extreme angle of the 'shot'.

I won't dispute that the cropping isn't as good as I'd like. But we are talking about the quality of 5e's art, not the quality of the art's positioning on book covers.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It's the titular boss fight from G3.

That may be the intention, but the piece does not convey it. I've run G3 twice and all I see is a random Fire Giant in a contrived position. The sense of space and movement is a mess. The central character appears to be trampolining upwards and is perhaps casting a spell but it's just a vague glow which conveys nothing. And that's the entire problem - this is a mediocre piece on any level (at least zoomed in like this) and it's a genuinely bad choice for the cover of the PHB. It will not be remembered fondly.

The DMG has a solid and appropriate choice, albeit it could stand to be sharper and more dynamic, and the MM has a good choice.

 

[jasper]

I forget which Dragon issue it was back in late 90s to early 2000. But it was a female Halfling thief roping down into a room. It took my group over 5 minutes to decide it was Halfling due to the end table being bigger than her.
I have see art from the same person which range from cheesecake, beef cake, I want it on my wall as a 8 foot by 10 foot mural, to that sucks so bad he needs to buy me a beer to kill my brain cells.
I do hate when a monster becomes drool cake. I do hate when it looks like the subject has been taken steroids since the womb. I do prefer a well done pencil art vs a standard action 64 color scene.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I won't dispute that the cropping isn't as good as I'd like. But we are talking about the quality of 5e's art, not the quality of the art's positioning on book covers.

Spoken like a man who doesn't understand how art and visual design work on a profound level, in my opinion.

You're in the wrong here. It doesn't matter what the original piece, zoomed out and uncropped looked like, because that isn't what is being presented. That’s almost completely irrelevant. What matters is what the cover of the PHB actually looks like. And that is a weird mess, I would say, and I suspect you at least partially agree, given this peculiar line of argument. An art director, himself an artist, made the artistic decision to make (or have made) this crop and this overall design, approve it, and have it printed. He took arguably decent art, and by editing it, changed it into bad art.

Anyone who has worked in actual image editing as a job, or heck, anyone who has done any kind of art involving other people's images has themselves seen that this is something that happens, something that with taste and talent and the right choice of source images, you can generally avoid (though not always). You will, quite rightly, be judged on the final image you deliver, not the source image.

At the very most you might argue that the original artist is more talented than one would credit from looking at the cover of the PHB. I might even concur. But "5Es art" in any honest sense is what 5E actually delivers in actual products, after the art director and editors have been at it. MtG has art director and even tricker space to use art and they do a great job.