Draconomicon: surprises ahead! (scoop + speculation)

[eleran]

Why should it? WotC certainly doesn't commissions artists to do book cover sized pictures out of fun and generosity.

I actually think it is highly likely to change since all 3 core books have gone thru cover changes since they were first revealed.

 

[fedelas]

just another splatbook, so we have 5 books(excluding FR) in a couple of month just a little too much for my taste.
About the dragons i bet yellow, indigo and gray.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

You can't beat the brown dragon for turning a PCs happy day of adventuring into... Sorry, Eric's Grandma.

 

[Hussar]

Why should it? WotC certainly doesn't commissions artists to do book cover sized pictures out of fun and generosity.

Umm this is not a book sized cover? It's a placeholder for the actual art that will be on the cover, just like they've done with EVERY other book so far?

But, feel free to loathe a book you haven't even seen yet.

 

[Cadfan]

And if you look at the 3.x art for dragons, you'll see that the red dragon has a bone-white underbelly, black stripes down its back and wings and frill that verge on the purple-gray. The other chromatics are similarly multicolored.

So feel free to forgive them.

Here is the Draconomicon art gallery . Below are individual links to the bio art of each chromatic dragon. These are perhaps the MOST non-monochromatic pieces of dragon art available from WOTC.

You will notice that, other than belly scales, translucence effects on wings, and sometimes horns, the dragons are basically monochromatic.

Prominent exceptions are certain metallics, which have effects designed to mimic oxidation. Essentially no dragon portrays its environment, character, or theme visually.

The bronze and red dragons have stripes. This is the pinnacle of the use of coloration and scale patterning.

The use of color basically in no way reinforces anything else about the dragon's design, except in the case of "red = fire" and "white = cold." You cannot look at, say, the Black dragon and know much of anything about its habitat.

Black
Brass
Blue
Bronze
Copper
Green
Gold
Red
Silver
White

By contrast, here are some famous painted dragon miniatures.

Reptar
Mountain Conflict
T'Char
Golden Chaos Dragon
Lava Dragon

On some of those pages you may have to scroll around and open thumbnail images. When you do, the contrast should be pretty clear. You don't need a statblock or a paragraph of flavor text to know basically what Reptar or Lava Dragon are about. Looking at them is enough. Mountain Conflict, T'Char, and Golden Chaos Dragon both feature use of prominent striping.

These aren't insurmountable works of art. But they're a start towards richer dragon art.

I'm not saying that all art of dragons that is essentially monochromatic is automatically bad. But locking yourself into a preexisting commitment to monochromaticism that is unrelated to any particular design theme (blue is not a theme) or artistic decision is definitely bad. If your artistic decisions lead you to conclude that a monochromatic dragon best portrays your goal, then that's the best thing to draw. But only if you have a reason behind it. The indiscriminate categorization of dragons based on color causes dragon art overall to suffer, particularly as other artists copy D&D's lead, and decide that "red" is all the thought they need to put into their work.

I will concede one issue alone. Having locked themselves into a long term commitment to dragons with uninteresting color patterns and essentially monochromatic pallets, WOTC has done everything in its power to differentiate its dragons in terms of body shape. While some fans disapprove of the various horns and fins and such, I personally favor anything to make the different dragons more unique.

Sincerely,
Cadfan,
Who concedes NOTHING in the fight against monochromaticism!

 

[Pour]

Yeah I'm with Fed all the way on the guesses for the three new chromatics. Yellow, Indigo (sounds so much better than purple), and Gray.

I kind of hope there isn't overlapping breath weapons. I doubt there will be though. Any guesses or knowledge on yellow, indigo and gray breath weapons? I seem to recall something about yellow being scalding sand. Indigo could be some sort of mind-blowing hallucinatory agent, and gray a straight up cyclone (or maybe jet stream of water if the cover tells anything).

And I agree the cover needs to be changed, and I think it will be.

 

[Set]

I don't like breath weapon overlap, so I had Green Dragons use a Sonic breath weapon.

The primary Green Dragon in my setting runs a small forest kingdom of decadent elves, who have served her so long that they've lost their resistance to mind-affecting spells, and spend most of their time intriguing against each other and doing various 'chivalrous' things that look pretty fancy, but not really accomplishing much, other than keeping their queen (whom they have no idea is a dragon) happy.

The Red also has his own mountain kingdom, consisting of Fire Giants and Kobolds, with slave armies of Fire Hobgoblins, all armed and equipped by Azer smiths who work for the Red's vizier, an Efreeti Lord.

For the most part, only three or four dragons are known to exist in the world, and none of them are pushovers.

 

[Guild Goodknife]

Why should it? WotC certainly doesn't commissions artists to do book cover sized pictures out of fun and generosity.

Oh I don't know...perhaps because placeholder art is not uncommon in the world of publishing? WotC has released quite a few book previews with temporary placeholder covers. Just look at the new FRCS...

 

[Dausuul]

I actually think it is highly likely to change since all 3 core books have gone thru cover changes since they were first revealed.

Yeah, and look how that turned out. The final cover art was even worse than the placeholder art, at least on the PHB.

Me, I think the Draconomicon cover art should look more like this...

 

[Exen Trik]

A storm-and-lightning themed dragon who happens to be blue is compelling.

Blue is not compelling.

I think a dragon that is both blue and breathes lightning because it has a fundamental tie to specific elemental or natural forces is plenty compelling.