D&D General Defining your campaing through art? Or how I learned to embrace anime elf ears (image-heavy)

[Mannahnin]

A far interpretation... it's just my view that I want to the non-human races to feel a bit more that just a different culture or race, but that they're an entirely different species that engages with the world in a totally unique, non-human way.

Nowadays, I even find Lord of the Ring's elves a little too much like humans, and standard D&D treats elves as much more like humans in culture than LotR does. Now I'm drawn more to Warhammer/Age of Sigmar takes on these races, which lean into the whole gonzo otherwordly natures of some races. They're Sylvaneth for example leans heavily into Wood Elves literally being part of nature.

Totes reasonable. Warhammer has always had some awesome aesthetics.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Huh. Could that have been done, I wonder, as part of the attempt to make them a bit less Hobbit-like and thus avoid running afoul of the Tolkein estate and their enthusiastic legal team?

I ask because the obvious inspiration for Halflings is and always has been Hobbits; and Hobbits are in essence small Humans with a less-indistrial society.

Bilbo, with pointy ears, drawn by Tolkien himself.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It's one thing to have Spock ears, it's another to have ears that are verging on parody. It's kind of like with Superman's powers. At one time he could leap tall buildings with a single bound (literally, he initially couldn't fly). Then it got to the point where he just flies around the galaxy at apparently faster-than-light speeds and is moving entire solar systems to a different sun.

I mean, we've gone from this - noticeably pointed ears that could be covered with a hairstyle in the PHB
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To these ears which to me are cartoonishly large.
View attachment 139387

I guess I just prefer my D&D art to be a bit more grounded.

Grounded in what, though? Those ears aren't even that big, once you look beyond primates. I can easily imagine them moving around as the elf listens to the wind. Also different species just have different proportions.

 

[Oofta]

Grounded in what, though? Those ears aren't even that big, once you look beyond primates. I can easily imagine them moving around as the elf listens to the wind. Also different species just have different proportions.

It's personal preference of course. If you want donkey ears on your elves, go for it. They also just look ... chunky to me. Take the mass of both ears put together and they're as big as the head.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It's personal preference of course. If you want donkey ears on your elves, go for it. They also just look ... chunky to me.

Nothing like donkey ears, obviously, but okay. Thanks for giving me permission to like things, I guess.

Take the mass of both ears put together and they're as big as the head.

LOL no

 

[Voadam]

There is some precedent for Hobbits with round ears visually

 

[Voadam]

I do like taking inspiration from all over.

For the Carrion Crown Gothic horror adventure path and Ravenloft I took a lot of inspiration from Tim Burton Batman movies and the Batman cartoons

 

[Thunder Brother]

Isn't that a Nightborne from World of Warcraft? Elf ears are far from the only thing exaggerated in that art style. You have to remember that is the same game that has armor that looks like this:

As much as I enjoyed Warcraft in the past, nowadays I really can't stand the styrofoam and plastic armor that you see in a lot of video games like it.

One of the ongoing trends in fantasy art that I'm grateful for is the increasing literacy amongst artists in depicting authentic-looking, or at least plausible, medieval era armor. We've come a long way from the days of chainmail pajamas and boobplate (although the latter crops up more often than I would like).

 

[Voadam]

In my Iron Gods game (D&D cross-over sci-fi and post apocalypse adventure path) I am taking some visual and tone inspiration from a number of non-D&D type sources and images.

 

[Oofta]

Nothing like donkey ears, obviously, but okay. Thanks for giving me permission to like things, I guess.

LOL no

There are very few animals that have ears as bit as some of the elven portrayals, especially those for some of the games like Zelda. Looking at the proportions of ear-to-head ratio, to me they look like donkey ears.

If you put ears as big as they have in MToF on Legolas I personally think they don't look right.

Personally? I think this looks better:

In any case, it's just a matter of preference.