D&D 5E D&D Next Art Column Discussion: May

[Kaodi]

Here is the link: Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (The Making of an Owlbear)

 

[Incenjucar]

The short story of my opinion: owlbears should be less shaped like American Godzilla and more shaped like a bear with an owl's head that's 1/4-1/3 of its body so that it can swallow a halfling whole.

It should have proportions more like a fridge with the ice box on top for the head.

 

[Dausuul]

I love both of the new owlbears, but like the second one a little bit better. It looks more unified, sleek and menacing. The skull-beak-with-teeth is a nice touch. I do kind of want the eyes to be a little bit bigger.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The only fob I'm not a fan of in the second image is that whole "skull-beak" thing. It's a bit of X-TREME weirdness that really doesn't seem necessary.

Otherwise, it's cool. I think the image above is ALSO very cool, though -- and given that it doesn't have the weird skull thing, my preference is for it.

I'm also a little surprised they didn't go back to the original Hong Kong plastic toy monster for inspiration! I remember the thing, though I don't have an image of it (though this page has a lot of images of things that became D&D monsters!)...that tail in the original illustration...that long, ibis-like beak...

 

[CM]

As I said on wizards site: It's an owlbear, it's got to have a beak.

One danger of drastically changing a monster's art is pissing off all the miniature collectors. Witness the uproar over the 4e green dragon.

 

[avin]

Both arts are very well executed.

Track 2 is a very interesting turning. Looks more menacing. I like it better.

I'm afraid that voters will be conservative, tho. We're still arguing about not having other races as options on PHB because will ruin their tolkienesque games, so...

 

[Klaus]

Track 2 is off to an interesting start, but as I said over at wizards, it looks a bit "top heavy" to me. I'd like to see it with more powerful/bulkier legs (at the moment it's more of a panther/bear). The peel-back skull reminded me of the krenshar, so I'd like to see it tweaked a bit to make the owlbear more unique.

 

[Mengu]

The second one looks more modern, sleek, and visually appealing to me. I'm trying not to let the color/texture choices influence me, but they do. I like the sheen on the feathers in the second one. I like the general contrast and sharpness.

Having said that, the first one is perfectly acceptable to me as well. As a matter of fact, it wouldn't bother me in the least to see one of them in the MM as the owlbear picture, and the other one chasing down a halfling in an action scene somewhere else.

 

[Alzrius]

First and foremost, I want variety in the art. A distinct lack of uniform aesthetics. D&D is informed and inspired by many different sources. I want the art to reflect that, and it would be nice if those artworks were produced by a diverse group of artists.

I want some wit and whimsy, too. Like we had in the AD&D-era. Though I suppose this could be covered under "wants variety".

Also, some naked, or at least partially-clothed, un-realism.

And while a bit of "cultural clarity" would be fine, I also want images that shock, confound, and delight, basically art that don't fit neatly into overarching systems, art that scribbles out of bounds (like Cy Twombly after bingeing on the Silmarillion -- well, perhaps not) .

Let's have a little wild rumpus, shall we? And not just illustrations from an imaginary survey course in Dwarven architecture.

I agree with pretty much all of this. My one worry is when people start talking about having different art "styles" all in the same book(s).

To me, different art styles in the same book results in having art that looks like very realistic on one page, art that looks manga-inspired on another, and something that looks like it came from Order of the Stick on yet another page, etc.

When the style of the artwork is that different, the book feels like it has no coherent identity (to me); it becomes a mish-mash of whatever happened to get thrown together, and there's little identity as to how the book wants to present the game it's describing. I find that rather irritating, and tend to dislike books that do that.

Now, I'm all for artwork with different methods of presentation. Some pictures of the characters clearly "posing" for the shot, others with them engaged in action scenes, some artwork that's just locations, some with funny scenes and others with grim and serious scenes, etc. That I like a lot - that, to me, is a great way to show diversity. Books with that sort of art are the books that I like.

In regards to diversity of expressing the same sort of monster - I'm against monster consolidation in terms of both their in-game identity and their stat block presentation. They have different lore already, why pare that down? Likewise, I enjoy different visual takes on monsters, presuming that I can reasonably think of a given monster as having such a wide range of appearances to begin with.

That is, I can see ghosts being depicted in wildly different ways, simply by virtue of the fact that they're ghosts. There aren't hard-and-fast rules for that sort of thing, either in the game world (unless it's specifically written somewhere), or in real life. By contrast, there's a degree of visual variance between "people" in real life, but not to such that I'd expect goblins to vary as widely in their appearance as ghosts can.

Finally, cheesecake art is like cheesecake dessert - a piece every now and then is enjoyable. Anything more than that rapidly makes you sick of it.

 

[Hussar]

To me, neither is particularly "bear"-ish. I can see the owl, but both look too humanoid to be bears. Track 1 is the owl-troll and Track 2 is the owl-gorilla. Both very cool pictures . . . but not bears, to me.

That was my first thought too. I know the original image is bipedal, but, it's also about as believable as a cardboard hammer, so, while I understand the need to keep tradition, I'm thinking this is one place where a bit of reworking might be better.

As hafrogman said, they both look too humanoid. Stick a different head on the first one and it's a feathery troll. The second one is a bit better but, still not seeing "bear" here.

I like big butts and I do not lie. A bear's got bootie. Let is show!