D&D General D&D Art across the editions

[Enrico Poli1]

But also Caldwell's

 

[Ulfgeir]

But also Caldwell's

I did not recognize the one with the man and woman almost coming to blows. Her chin looks weird though.

As for Elmore, don't forget the wonderful image where Laurana protects Sturms body against Kitiana.

 

[Parmandur]

I'd actually kind of forgotten how pretty the 5e DMG is. And, honestly, the 4e one. Although, to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the 4e style. There's just something ... off about it. Not sure what.

The big coffee table book Art & Arcana did a pretty interesting analysis of the overall art direction if 4E, and makes the case that during 4E WotC made the concious decision to follow the prevailing trends in fantasy art in the mid-Aughts rather than set the trend. And the visual trendsetter at the time was World of Warcraft.

 

[Enrico Poli1]

I did not recognize the one with the man and woman almost coming to blows. Her chin looks weird though.

As for Elmore, don't forget the wonderful image where Laurana protects Sturms body against Kitiana.

They're young Tanis and Kitiara from a flashback. And, they're not coming to blows...

 

[Ulfgeir]

They're young Tanis and Kitiara from a flashback. And, they're not coming to blows...

Ah. Had never seen it before. And my memory was appearently bad regarding her name.

 

[happyhermit]

Thanks for this thread, I bought Art and Arcana which does some of these comparisons but this has shown me a few things by laying them out by edition rather than side-by-side comparisons.

For instance, one of my biggest issues with 4e art is that; 90% of it was "One or two characters, holding weapons and posing aggressively for the camera", then maybe a quarter was "fighting monsters" and 10% was characters doing anything else (and even that was probably only "exciting things" like dealing with a trap). Math. Now I see that it isn't quite so pronounced in the Big pieces, and the DMG even less so.

Still not a fan of the style generally (reminds me of pathfinder and WAR which typically doesn't really do it for me), but there are a few pieces there I like, and one or two that could be in 5e without noticing. And I do get that the 4e PHB art made sense given their overarching focus and initial strategy with the edition "Skip to the "good stuff"" and intentional focus on combat, it just isn't inspiring for me or indicative of what people I play with want out of D&D (and I still listen to a podcast where people play 4e and it isn't indicative of that either).

I find a lot of the pictures people criticize for being "boring" or "lacking action" are some of my favorites, but more that anything I like the variety and I think 5e has struck a really good balance overall. It shows all levels of action from real to epic, large groups to solo, and it shows a good chunk of non-combat stuff that I really enjoy. From an (even more) subjective point of view I appreciate the relative lack of "posing for the camera" and more naturalistic images.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Man the 5e PHB is under appreciated.

The guy fighting atop a rock formation is one of my favorite dnd images. The final couple I never even saw before (I never read rpg books cover to cover), but I love the rainbow of lights (color spray?) and the webbed bruiser (ogre, maybe?)!

Prismatic Spray. All the art in the Spells section are close to the spells depicted, other than Magic Missile as the opening art for the chapter.

 

[cbwjm]

I do like a lot of the 5e art but I've always thought that the elf ranger with the hawk (or is it an owl) looks like an elf with down syndrome.

 

[dave2008]

I do like a lot of the 5e art but I've always thought that the elf ranger with the hawk (or is it an owl) looks like an elf with down syndrome.

That one is a bit peculiar. It popped out to me as I was posting them.

 

[Parmandur]

I do like a lot of the 5e art but I've always thought that the elf ranger with the hawk (or is it an owl) looks like an elf with down syndrome.

Half-Elf.