Do you like Wayne "WAR" Reynolds?

[Hunter In Darkness]

love his stuff .love the fact hes doing pathfinder and the 4e covers look great the eberron books are by far some of the best i have seen

 

[frankthedm]

WAR is one of this era's best D&D artists.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

sorry, i'm not a fan of his hard shadows, and lack of highlights. sure their are times when you need muted colors, and then their are times when that just doesen't work.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

and his style is very cartoonish and (dare I say it?) anime-looking to me.

There really needs to be some sort of button I can press to make knives sprout from the keyboards of people who make ridiculous comparisons like this.

You cannot find me a single anime or manga image that actually looks anything like Wayne Reynolds's work, because there are no points of comparison.

His use of colour is completely different. His anatomy, while exaggerated (no point denying it!) is exaggerated in completely different ways. His use of shadows and highlights is completely different. Reynolds's work is extremely stylised, but the way in which it is stylised is worlds apart from any anime or manga artist.

The only real comparison is that both often depict very physical, over-the-top action, but that's a matter of subject not style.

Again, knives from the keyboard. It's just so infuriating to see someone say such silly things!

 

[Wormwood]

I'm officially adding Wayne Reynolds to my Grognard Detection Kit.

 

[Odimax]

I love it. It's dynamic, colorful, in-your-face at times... it evokes fantasy, wonder, and epic battles. It makes me want to play. I can't think of a better compliment, honestly.

I agree exactly.

I especially love his style, detail, and equipment on the characters.

WAR is my favorite D&D artist.

 

[Sound of Azure]

I'm sure he's a very nice person, but since he's a stranger to me... I can't really say whether I like Wayne Reynolds or not.

His artwork, however? It's really hit and miss for me. By and large I like most of his depictions of monstrous beings. His style seems to suit inhuman/exaggerated physical characteristics more than it does for baseline human(oid)s.

That being said, I've liked a number of his human pictures. Every single one of the ones I've liked are ones where the characters are not in motion and/or screaming*. I don't really know what it is about it that turns me off of the action poses in his images, but it really does. I've never been a fan of "graargh!" imagery though, so maybe it shouldn't be so surprising.

The last thing that turns me off is this: over used. I like variety, so I don't like seeing too much of any one artist.

Anyhow, it's obvious that WAR is talented, and steadily improving in his craft. Unfortunately, it's generally not my cup of tea.

*One of my favourites was a black a white image in Defenders of the Faith where a priestess is giving a labourer some water. The character is smiling (not a smirk, not smiling and frowning at the same time, not smiling and trying to look bad-ass), as is the labourer. It's really nicely composed.

 

[WhatGravitas]

WAR's stuff is always a love-and-hate: When I encountered WAR first, I wasn't a fan of his style... but it was still able to push my "evocative"-button.

Now, after getting used to WAR, I get a similar reaction: His style is like a blunt hammer: It hits you, it hurts, but you're still blown away!

His artwork is stuff, I dislike a bit and totally dig at once - and this way, it never gets boring for me...

This is the reason, why I kind of like his artwork - it pushes my buttons! So more WAR for D&D.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Mephistopheles]

I'm not a fan of his style. I find a lot of the poses very stiff, a lot of his humanoids standing straight up but with a leg in the air so it looks like they're hopping, with the foot on the ground being at an odd looking angle. The overall effect for me is a very unnatural and awkward look which distracts me. Also many of them have oversized weapons and forearms and wrists, sometimes to a ridiculous extreme. As others have mentioned there are also the very hard shadows and flat lighting. Lastly, the overall feeling of his style to me is very angular and hard, which I find particularly noticeable with facial features ending in points rather than being rounded, also noticeable in the angular teeth evocative of rodents that someone else pointed out. His pieces that don't emphasise these elements I find okay to look at, but in quite a lot of his work I'm distracted by these things.

I guess they've locked Wayne in for the covers for all three manuals but I hope these aren't the finished covers. The figure in front on the PHB has the awkward pose, additionally the choice of who they've put on the cover seems random. Orcus on the MM has the oversize wrists. The DMG piece I can live with, but these really aren't covers I want to be looking at every session for the lifetime of 4th edition.

 

[The Merciful]

I do like his older black and white illustrations. They had some nice Mike mignola like feel to them. For added bonus older inside ilustrations in general depicted actual scenes during an andventure, rather than just dull macho-fight-poses. His later color work has stuck seemingly permanently to 11, thus losing dynamism. And the faces - always screaming, screaming and screaming, or occasionally constipating like Max Payne. Works out well sometimes, but in my opinion more often not.

He can be very good, but someone should say "no, that does not work" or "get over your mannerisms" to him from time to time.