Eberron Art Gallery

[Laslo Tremaine]

I'm another fan of the Mignola-eque art style.

For me, pieces like this really set the mood...

On the other hand, stuff like this leaves me cold. I think I agree with the person who said it looked too photoshopped...

Oh, and if it helps, I'm not much of an anime fan (I can take it or leave it), but I used to be a huge comic book fan.

 

[Awakened]

This book looks worth buying for the aesthetic value alone.
Its nice to see Wizards trying some new talent. BTW, They have to get
Kalman Adrofsky to do more illustrations.

 

[Sledge]

I have to admit first off that my tastes are weird. I love reading Michael Moorcock, but I don't care for the pulp. The art in the Eberron gallery seems to have some high quality, but a lot of it turns me right off the book. The comic pages seem "cheap" to me. I've seen some incredible comic book interiors and these pages just don't make it to that level. However I have to admit that the most beautiful pages in comic books didn't look like comic books, and I'm really not interested in playing a comicy game.
Additionally I look at the race artwork and can't help thinking that there is zero variation in the appearances here. Again this is an old comic book mainstay. Everybody looks the way the artist wishes to look.
Otherwise the art is usually beautiful even if it makes zero sense. (The pentagon ID papers for instance, paper is generally cut rectangular because it is otherwise very difficult to do it efficiently. Obviously these are magical ID's.)

 

[nopantsyet]

I agree some of the art is a bit too photoshopped.

But I can get beyond that because overall I love it. After I got too tired to read last night, I paged through looking at all the art for another hour. I haven't owned or read a comic book in over 20 years, but I love the comic book panels. With those as with everything else, it just paints such a bold, exciting flavor that really accentuates what they're trying to evoke with the text.

Okay, maybe that was a bit too "fanboy," but you know what I mean. I just really like the book and the art.

 

[barsoomcore]

I find the "comic"-style art the best. Some of the smaller landscape paintings (like the one KL added to the initial post) are also excellent. The "detail" pictures (the races, the equipment pictures) leave me pretty cold. Agreed 100% with Michael Tree, above, and Laslo Tremaine.

What I like about the comic-book stuff is how evocative it is, in the way that old D&D illos were. I get a sense of story and potential, rather than a clear view of something going on. Pictures like this one, on the other hand:

Don't impress me. He doesn't look very worried about those arrows coming after him, does he? Just sort of "jogging" for cover.

Some good stuff in there, though. Much better than most of WotC's recent releases. Not up to the standards of Privateer Press or Mutants and Masterminds, but good.

 

[Sejs]

But then there's this one to balance it out.

I love the arrow stuck in the backpack. That's just gold.

 

[JeffB]

Some of the art is very good, and as others have said, looks way too photoshopped.

I don't mind comic book art at all if it's GOOD comic book art..after all, Bill Willingham and Jeff Dee are my fave D&D artists EVAH!

I don't think the comic art I saw in the gallery is that great really, however I do feel it does a great job of giving Eberron that "pulp" feel/style.

I'll pick it up..for every thing I've read that I hate, I see something that seems really, really cool too. So if nothing else I will mine it for ideas, and it should be an interesting read. Seems very Earthdawn-like, and I love ED.

I will be renaming the "XTREME Xplorer" if I ever use it

 

[Pants]

That being said, Eberron has some of the coolest art I've seen in a long time. The picture of the City of the Dead is incredibly evocative, with the picture of Sharn right behind. I love art that gives me a sense of the setting, and this one does that in spades.

Anyone else reminded of the Klingon Homeworld when they look at the City of the Dead?

The art looks gorgeous on the whole. I'm not a big fan of the Mignola-esque art, but the comic/anime inspired stuff is great. I'm glad that Kalman is getting some work in this. His Modern stuff is super great.

 

[s/LaSH]

Hm, looks interesting. That cliffhanging piece is very nice - it looks awkward, but hanging off a cliff by one hand while kitted down with a backpack and armour and someone hanging off you in turn isn't going to be comfortable - there's palpable action, something I think needs to be included more in art for adventure products - and the archer looks bad-as.

I'd understand if they'd done the entire product in that style, even though the cartoony-paint house style seems more popular. It's all about flavour, and a monochrome sepia photograph oozes more flavour than the latest high-resolution digital sterescopic life imaging (um, super colour photo, if you will) in the right place. Things happening always seems cooler to me than things that are.

 

[hellbender]

I'd understand if they'd done the entire product in that style, even though the cartoony-paint house style seems more popular. It's all about flavour, and a monochrome sepia photograph oozes more flavour than the latest high-resolution digital sterescopic life imaging (um, super colour photo, if you will) in the right place. Things happening always seems cooler to me than things that are.

Your last sentence sounds like it is from Scott McCloud's book Understanding Comics where he describes the manga style as being there over western style of getting there. All of the artwork seems very appropriate for the setting, although the Photoshop lensflare is overly used (this device is not regarded very highly among many illustrators) in some places.

hellbender