D&D 5E DDN Concept Art

[Chris_Nightwing]

Let's do a quick experiment. Here are six females, drawn with the same hairstyle and clothing (to avoid judging someone by their dress). Each is based on a photo of a real person. I know the heights of each. Can you guys put them in order from shortest to tallest?

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The purpose of this experiment: Jon has expressed a desire to have the short races *look* short, without resorting to drawing a barrel, a helmet or some other objec lying about for reference. And for my own education, of course. So, go for it!

Fun! I'm going to go with.. A C B E D F and I will say that's mostly on head/torso/legs proportion - but halflings shouldn't look like children; children have large heads, proportionally, because heads don't grow as much as everything else whilst they mature, so they start out big, but not so big they can't fit between one's hips.

 

[Ratskinner]

Not a big fan.

At all...

the halflings....ugh. Just no.

Some of the monsters are fair to middlin though.

Proportions! Proportions! People. Jeesh, everything looks like refuges from kids' cartoons....bad kids' cartoons.

 

[Ratskinner]

Let's do a quick experiment. Here are six females, drawn with the same hairstyle and clothing (to avoid judging someone by their dress). Each is based on a photo of a real person. I know the heights of each. Can you guys put them in order from shortest to tallest?

View attachment 56076

The purpose of this experiment: Jon has expressed a desire to have the short races *look* short, without resorting to drawing a barrel, a helmet or some other objec lying about for reference. And for my own education, of course. So, go for it!

Nifty. I would say.... A C B E D F.

 

[Klaus]

Children, and short people, have small heads proportionally, and that is the point of this experiment. If we want halflings (and gnomes, and dwarves) to look "short", we have to use tools our brains recognize. In this case, proportions.

For instance, actor Sebastian Saraceno, who played Wolf in the movie "Mirror Mirror", has great proportions:

 

[Ratskinner]

You're right! What happened to the monsters' legs? Maybe WotC is going to start a marketing campaign that legs are badwrongfun, too much of a sacred cow to slay because the game must continuously evolve?

Besides joking, I do find those excessively short legs not just unrealistic but also disturbing (see the halflings, but even a bigger offender is the fire giant!).

Out-of-proportion heads, legs, weapons, muscles are all clearly design choices. They can do what they want of course, but IMHO they should really listen to the fanbase, and current polls in those articles are really not well presented at all.

Thirded (or whatever number I am at this point.)

 

[Li Shenron]

Can you guys put them in order from shortest to tallest?

View attachment 56076

I think C would be perfect as a Halfling. It looks like a small human, in fact it could be a human e.g. 5ft tall, but it also definitely looks short without looking pathetic.

I would be fine also with A as a Halfling even if it clearly looks like a child, and that might be too much of a shift (although at some point in the past I thought I've read that this has been in fact an idea).

 

[YRUSirius]

A - C - B - E - D - F.

Atleast that's what I feel would feel "right".

-YRUSirius

 

[am181d]

Proportions! Proportions! People. Jeesh, everything looks like refuges from kids' cartoons....bad kids' cartoons.

This suggests to me that you are unfamiliar with what bad kids cartoons look like.

Am I missing something, or is everyone complaining that the nonhumans have nonhuman proportions?

 

[Li Shenron]

Am I missing something, or is everyone complaining that the nonhumans have nonhuman proportions?

No, everyone is complaining that nonhumans (and some humanoids and humans too) have dumb proportions.

A beholder is a totally wacky creatures that doesn't make any sense. How can it possibly eat, move, float... how can both the mouth and eye fit in the same head? It's nonsense, but it's an aberration, it's supposed to make no sense, and if you don't like it (I accept the iconic beholder, but I hate wacky monsters in general) you can ignore it.

But if the majority of creatures look nonsense, then you pretty much set the mood, look & feel of the game to "wacky". They can rationale as much as they want, but if it looks & feels too stupid, a lot of customers may be tempted to stay away.

 

[YRUSirius]

Everyone is complaining about proportions that make the characters look like they are from "Zelda: The Windwaker"...



Hey, listen! There's even a fire giant sized Ganondorf character.

-YRUSirius