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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rounser" data-source="post: 1452827" data-attributes="member: 1106">I know you're trying to articulate something negative about the 3E artwork, and I think it's a poor selection for D&D too...but I disagree with your criticism.For starters, a lot of D&D artwork is cartoonish since the earliest editions, and suits it fine, IMO.  Some of the best D&D artwork is comic book style in the extreme (I recommend checking out the Brothers Fraim - google them up sometime).  Secondly, there's a recent thread where it was firmly established that D&D artwork isn't anime.  What it does have is too many lifeless shots of a character posing for the camera, and photoshop artifacts which IMO look lousy.The odd thing is that the preview sketches for 3E looked great.  The art direction and the photoshopping and colour sucked all the life out of it IMO.  WAR is capable of fantastic black and white work in a 1E style (look at Deep Dwarven Delve) but for marketing reasons (i.e. colour sells, iconics to get sentimental over presumably) the artwork has been compromised in it's ability to produce what D&D needs from it's artwork.I think ENWorld established on some artwork threads that D&D needs artwork which features adventures in progress, or otherwise excites the imagination.  Kitted up iconics posing for the camera fail this test; they lack context, which is incredibly important when trying to imagine a fantasy world.  The only piece which truly set my imagination on fire in the core books, and had me studying it for some time and wondering is the battlefield scene in the DMG with soldiers and spellcasters at war...whereas 1E core books are full of such stuff, a lot of it seemingly arbitrary, but at least it fired the imagination.</blockquote>

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