D&D 5E D&D Next weekly art column!

[Jon Schindehette]

And I also like that the current entry seems to talk about something we've been discussing here before. Makes us feel like we contributed something.

Trust me, you've contributed a lot. I love the conversations that are happening all over the web, but I've really enjoyed the open and non-hostile conversations that have happened here.

Thanks!

 

[Sunseeker]

What I sincerely hope this can be boiled down to is diversity, thematic, content, stylistic diversity. My biggest gripe with Pathfinder is their overreliance on Wayne Reynolds(particularly a very poor quality of his work), even 4e started to irk me as more and more of Kerem Beyit's art took up pages, I love his work, but overkill man. It's why I shake my head and sigh when I see responses saying the art should be made up of the "traditional" fantasy races. I like to think that D&D is a little more than "traditional fantasy" by this point.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Yeah, it's always bugged me that with all the truly great, world-class artists WotC has access to (M:tG favorites: Brom, Kev Walker, Terese Nielsen, Aleksi Briclot, rk post, freaking Volkan Baga), everyone in the RPG business always uses fricking Wayne Reynolds for everything. I don't want to insult the man, but I think it's well-known that his style is... not universally loved?

 

[Jon Schindehette]

What I sincerely hope this can be boiled down to is diversity, thematic, content, stylistic diversity. My biggest gripe with Pathfinder is their overreliance on Wayne Reynolds(particularly a very poor quality of his work), even 4e started to irk me as more and more of Kerem Beyit's art took up pages, I love his work, but overkill man. It's why I shake my head and sigh when I see responses saying the art should be made up of the "traditional" fantasy races. I like to think that D&D is a little more than "traditional fantasy" by this point.

An interesting example, Kerem that is. He has done less that 60 images for D&D over the course of more than 30 different products. Todd Lockwood, Brom, Jeff Easley, and the rest of the (then) house artists did many more images for D&D, and yet I haven't heard anyone tell me that we shouldn't use them because they were overkill. So I'm having trouble understanding this argument.

Can you give me a little more detail into your thinking?

 

[Yora]

What I sincerely hope this can be boiled down to is diversity, thematic, content, stylistic diversity. My biggest gripe with Pathfinder is their overreliance on Wayne Reynolds(particularly a very poor quality of his work), even 4e started to irk me as more and more of Kerem Beyit's art took up pages, I love his work, but overkill man. It's why I shake my head and sigh when I see responses saying the art should be made up of the "traditional" fantasy races. I like to think that D&D is a little more than "traditional fantasy" by this point.

Planescape is the one case where having everything done by the same artists worked out well. But then, it's Planescape, which should not be attempted to be used as a blueprint for anything. It just somehow works great even through almost everything about it says it shouldn't.

 

[Sunseeker]

An interesting example, Kerem that is. He has done less that 60 images for D&D over the course of more than 30 different products. Todd Lockwood, Brom, Jeff Easley, and the rest of the (then) house artists did many more images for D&D, and yet I haven't heard anyone tell me that we shouldn't use them because they were overkill. So I'm having trouble understanding this argument.

Can you give me a little more detail into your thinking?

Perhaps it's that Lockwood, Brom and Easley have a little more...variance to their styles. While Kerem's art is good, it all has a very similar tend to it, I'm not quite sure how to put my finger on it but this is my gut reaction here: When I see a selection of art, I can tell it's Brom because of the content, not universally because of the style. When I see Kerem's art, I can tell it's his art because of it's style, the method of outlining, the colors, it's almost a kind of heavy-lined comic book and cell-shading hybrid. I never confuse his art with any other WOTC artist. That's good in some regards, but it also makes it bad in that he stands out very easily.

Planescape is the one case where having everything done by the same artists worked out well. But then, it's Planescape, which should not be attempted to be used as a blueprint for anything. It just somehow works great even through almost everything about it says it shouldn't.

For specific setting books, a unifying artistic style I think is beneficial, it gives the world a specific flavor through the art that is stylistically unique to that setting.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Personally I'm not utterly wedded to art being EXACTLY a certain style. There was plenty to like about SOME of the old AD&D art for instance. A bit light-hearted now and then (often really) and usually telling a story. I do think in a lot of cases less is more there. The simpler piece can often tell a better story. It can also HINT at more without spelling it out. A lot of slicker and more elaborate pieces that started showing up around 2e or late 1e are less effective that way (and less iconic too).

I'd kind of like to see things that are evocative of exploration and discovery. I don't really care about bad-arsed looking adventurers with improbably large and spikey weapons and armor. I don't usually get much out of a picture of a figure posing with no context, that kind of thing.

The 1e books in particular you'd leaf to a page and there would be some little drawing of a couple bottles on a table, or something like that. It begs you to ask "what's in those? Where did they come from? What story is behind this?".

I think much of the later art is too much concerned with outright action and loads of fine detail. That's certainly not BAD, but I think a shadowier and slightly more expressive style that suggests things more than it beats you over the head with them could be interesting. Things not quite expressed but suggested.

 

[Mengu]

I think expectations from artwork have also changed over the years. The same demographic might have given you a preference 20 years ago, that is no longer what they would ask for today. Regardless of style preference, and media used, there is what's "modern", and what's "outdated". This applies even to a pencil sketch. Of course artists are constantly revising what's modern and what's outdated, so it's not exactly black and white there either.

I am imagining myself, buying the next edition off the shelf, brand new, the pages are still crisp and the new book smell wafts into my nostrils before I even open the book. I'm filled with excitement. Let's assume for the sake of argument, there is no cover art (ala 3e PHB), and first thing I do, as with any book, is open it up and look at the pictures. If the first thing I see is a black and white drawing of a tubular dragon with a goofy football shaped head and buggy eyes, I will likely drop the book as though it's burning my hands. Having said that, this probably would not have been my response 20 years ago. So the dragon art failed to meet a current expectation.

For the sake of argument, let's say 4e art is my "current expectation". If the first picture I see in the next PHB is the iconic dragonborn fighter from the 4e PHB cover, cut and pasted exactly the same, what will my reaction be? Well, I'll probably put on a big frown of disappointment. But that was the base line for my current expectation, yes? Well, apparently not.

So ideally, the art direction has to take what might be the presumed current expectations, and drive them some distance, into a new neighborhood, that has not been fully explored, that is fresh, and yet, still in the same universe of what we want to find in D&D artwork. I obviously don't want to see Picasso or Dali in a D&D book (though when I think of planar travel a few Dali's might make an appearance in my imagination).

So, long and short of it, it's not about the style, or media, or culture, or generations, it's about expectations, and hitting the right balance of borrowing a subset of elements from those expectations, and building a new picture. Of course, good luck figuring out what those elements will be.

 

[Dausuul]

Great article! Lots of stuff to ponder.

Per your final request--the desire to create a grand vision for D&D art that will encompass more than anyone's individual vision--I agree that this is a worthy and indeed necessary goal. Perhaps a start would be for everybody to step back from details (I want this artist, I want the art to use that technique), and post what you want the art to do for you.

For me: I want the art to intrigue me. I want it to make me wonder what's happening, what has happened, and what's about to happen. I want it to make me feel that there is a deep, complex, living world out there that my character is setting off to explore. There's danger, there's opportunity, but above all there is the Great Unknown waiting to be revealed.

By way of example, my all-time favorite D&D cover art is this version of the 1E DMG. I can't much tell what's behind the guy in the green robe, but I really want to find out. As a player, this draws me in because I want to discover the answers. As a DM, it draws me in because I get to make up the answers.

 

[Kaodi]

I am not sure if I said as much earlier in the thread, but one of the reasons that I felt strongly enough about what sort of artwork I wanted to see that I tweeted it to Jon is that I feel some art styles have had some time in the Sun and that now we were due for a change.

My sentiment, that the artwork in each edition is part of a continuum rather than existing in a vacuum, is not necessarily one that is valid when it comes to art direction. It may very well be the case that the style(s) of artwork present in each edition is something that can be "perfected" in the sense that there is an optimal style or mix of styles that should be used in every edition rather than different styles taking turns or going through a cycle.

Edit: "Continuum" as in between editions, not between individual pieces.