Find the Anime Challenge

[mhacdebhandia]

Wow, this would be the first piece of art posted in this thread I would actually agree is anime-inspired. Of course, there are all kinds of influence from other sources (art from children's books, maybe?), but it is fairly anime-styled.

Nope, the use of colour is completely different.

 

[Celebrim]

This, to me, is the most anime-influenced piece of artwork I've found so far - Gnome Alchemist from Races of Stone:

Hmmm... Big widely spaced eyes? Check. The smaller the character, the bigger it's eyes? Check. Hair appears to be supernaturally animated? Check.

Yeah, I'd say that qualifies. There is a lot of finishing details and textures you wouldn't find in an anime cell, and probably not even in a manga (mainly because you wouldn't take the time to draw them in every cell). But, it's clearly feeling the influence.

 

[Keldryn]

So, does this mean that Elfquest would be a "bad" influence on D&D?

(In the BECM D&D GAZ5 The Elves of Alfheim, the three pictured leaders of the Longrunner clan look almost exactly like Cutter, Leetah, and Skywise).

 

[GreatLemur]

No, they don't mean that at all. Thanks for the strawman. They mean that the art has become more stylized and less realistic, that the character design is more overtop (buckles belts and useless decoration), that the dynamic action is rendered in an highly exaggerated way, that weapon sizes have gotten larger, facial features have gotten more promenate, armor has gotten spikier with exagerated shoulder pads, muscles have gotten more exagerrated, hair has gotten spikier, surfaces tend to be rendered in more monochromatic ways, capes have become longer and more flowing, and so forth.

Potayto, potahto. That wasn't a strawman; it was a personal opinion.

Fifteen years ago, I thought Elmore and Easley's work was the best RPG art I could imagine. Today, it doesn't really interest me.

 

[Celebrim]

Potayto, potahto. That wasn't a strawman; it was a personal opinion.

I would accept it as a personal opinion of you were speaking about yourself, not labeling others. For example, if you said, "I find the objectional pictures interesting and dynamic.", that isn't a strawman, because its about you. The reason I called it a strawman is because you were characterizing other people's arguments in ways that they would not themselves use: "the definition is apparently so broad as to include dynamic art with interesting characters" How could anyone support people that are opposed to "dynamic art with interesting characters"? Strawman. You might as well have said that anyone who doesn't like what you like doesn't like things that are interesting and dynamic.

Quite obviously, people aren't opposed to dynamic art with interesting characters. They differ on what is interesting. It may well be wrong to be opposed to the things that they are opposed to, but it isn't 'interesting' or 'dynamic' which is being opposed. It may be that the things that they are opposed to are in your opinion 'interesting' and 'dynamic', but it isn't true that the things you like are the only things that are interesting and dynamic. The positive experession of your opinion is to try to demonstrate that the things people are in oposition to are interesting and dynamic.

What you said though was just a back handed ad hominem.

 

[GreatLemur]

I would accept it as a personal opinion of you were speaking about yourself, not labeling others. For example, if you said, "I find the objectional pictures interesting and dynamic.", that isn't a strawman, because its about you. The reason I called it a strawman is because you were characterizing other people's arguments in ways that they would not themselves use: "the definition is apparently so broad as to include dynamic art with interesting characters" How could anyone support people that are opposed to "dynamic art with interesting characters"? Strawman. You might as well have said that anyone who doesn't like what you like doesn't like things that are interesting and dynamic.

Yes, I realize the nature of your misunderstanding. As you yourself point out, it wouldn't make very much sense for me to accuse someone of disliking art on the grounds that they themselves consider it interesting and dynamic, so I didn't expect it was really necessary to wallow in this specific semantic mire.

 

[GreatLemur]

So, does this mean that Elfquest would be a "bad" influence on D&D?

Elfquest is a bad influence on the paper it's printed on.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Nope, the use of colour is completely different.

Huh?

Can't say that I think it is important... There are a huge variety of ways things get colored in anime, and manga is black and white, so I don't really agree that anime-style vs. not-anime style is well defined by use of color.

 

[Hussar]

This, to me, is the most anime-influenced piece of artwork I've found so far - Gnome Alchemist from Races of Stone:

Yeah, I gotta agree with Firelance on this one too. I can see that one.

The other ones, like the guy in armor way back when could be... but not really. If you have to kinda squint and turn your head sideways to see it, I'm not gonna count it. Unfair? Too bad.

For years we've seen people screaming up and down how 3e art is so heavily influenced by anime. Is there an anime influence beyond what you'd see in pretty much any comic book out there? Not really. Anime (or more properly manga, I've been using the terms interchangeably, my bad) has a relationship with western art, of course. Both feed off of each other and inspire the other.

Pretty much all of the "manga art" inspired stuff that's been posted would not look out of place in an X-Men comic. Certainly not out of place in a Dark Horse comic. Is that because western comics have been influenced by manga? Probably. That's fair enough, we've influenced their forms quite a lot as well.

But, as far as seeing clear cut examples of "manga art" in WOTC (and NO, Paizo does not count) books, we're 5 pages in and have exactly one example that might pass.

As to why this is in the 4e forums, meh, bump it to 3e if it bothers you. We're already seeing the "Oh NOES! 4e art will be BESM" crap making the rounds, so, I figured to nip it in the bud right here and now.

Looking at the recent Dragon article on the Ecology of the Death Knight, I'm certainly not seeing a whole lot of Anime/Manga inspiration.

 

[Hussar]

Oh, and something else that occurred to me. I'm seeing some proxy edition war art discussion going on. What art occurred in earlier editions is beyond the scope of this thread. It doesn't matter if Di Terlizzi is your personal god, if it doesn't appear in a 3e book, it's not up for discussion.

Please stop crapping in my thread.