Does art matter in a publication?

[FriarRosing]

...but the prize for the Worst Artwork Ever in a D&D Publication goes to the Rules Cyclopedia. Because damn.

The illustration of the halfling is awful. And it frightens me. His face is just strangely creepy.

 

[doppelganger]

are palpable. Same monster, same stats, but presented in such a way as to fire the imagination. Can you imagine being that guy on the front lines facing such a thing? Imagine the terror he has to feel? Yeah. Big difference.

I don't think those are the same monster. The top one is a chimera and the bottom one a thessalmera(sp?)

 

[Mallus]

Nice art is nice and bad art is irrelevant.

 

[Set]

Better no art than bad art, IOW.

I'm on his side.

There are a few kinds of art I like to see;

1) gorgeous stuff (Wayne Reynolds covers, Denis Beavais dragon-fight covers, etc.)

2) descriptive stuff (pictures of weapons and armor, or iconic characters, meant to get a feel for the idea being presented)

3) cartoony jokes (back off wizard or the familiar gets it!)

4) stylized art meant to evoke a theme and sense of setting-consistency (all WAR art in Eberron, all DiTerlizzi art in Planescape, all Brom art in Dark Sun)

I find most of the 3e and 4e core book art to range from cool (Todd Lockwood) to acceptable, with some exceptions.

Eberron cover art has been pretty amazing, with some less than stellar internal stuff (often full page 'comic book' style bits in between chapters that were murky and, to me, felt like wasted pages).

The art on many of the Forgotten Realms covers, on the other hand, leaves me cold.

Art for art's sake, such as a crappy non-descriptive picture of a monster, or lame drawing of Lydda getting blown up by a failed Use Magic Device check, annoys me, and would regardless of it's quality.

There are a few artists out there that, IMO, detract from a product with their artwork, and I'm not going to name names, because they still draw a hell of a lot better than I do.

 

[Wombat]

I have a split decision on art.

Most fantasy and sci-fi art does little to nothing for me. For every Tim Bradstreet or Stephani Pui-Mun Law (both amazing) there are, to my eyes, four boring or terrible artists. A lot of game art looks ... silly. People wielding impossibly large swords (compensating much?), unusable armour, no sense of style or perspective, many "beginners mistakes"; conversely, there are many static, dull artists who, while technically adequate, have no sense of motion or emotion. These all grate against my personal tastes.

Yeah, I have some strong tastes in fantasy art. Sure, I love Alan Lee and other luminaries, yet I dislike the Brothers Hildebrandt, who are also known and loved.

The problem: art is almost entirely subjective. There is no acid test that denotes "good" or "bad" art, only art that I, individually, like or dislike.

So, while I like the concept of art in game books, I would remove most (90%) specific examples.

 

[James Jacobs]

I don't think those are the same monster. The top one is a chimera and the bottom one a thessalmera(sp?)

Nah; they're essentially the same monster. The bottom one is from Dungeon, and is of an undead chimera (but still basically a chimera... but he's undead, hence the washed out color of the creature).

 

[CleverNickName]

The illustration of the halfling is awful. And it frightens me. His face is just strangely creepy.

The picture of the vampire and the...pimp?...colliding with each other in the "surprise encounter" section is probably my least-favorite illustration. What a pile.

But it's not all bad, I suppose. The picture of the Haunt is passable.

 

[Umbran]

I think of art as "nice to have", but not really essential for me. Like most, if I'm browsing and leafing through books in a store, I'll spend more time on the book with better art. However, once I have purchased a book, I don't spend much time or attention on the artwork.