D&D (2024) Here's The New 2024 Player's Handbook Wizard Art

 

[Chaosmancer]

Um, no. They show that she is a good-looking youngish adult, an accomplished magician, who needs to or has chosen to wear half-spectacles. They could be mundane corrective glasses or magical lenses of some sort, we don’t know. But mostly young people who wear glasses aren’t trying to look wizened, and nothing else about this image suggests an interest in doing so.

A young person trying to look wizened would probably go for a furrowed brow, wrinkles and mottling on exposed skin, greyed hair (likely constrained so as to look more homely), and so on.

I would also add to this, on the comments of white hair, that she may have greying hair, but it is mostly the effect of the bright light washing through her floating hair.. She may be "brown and pepper" (Not sure what to call salt-and-pepper in brown hair) but that also isn't uncommon for people. My uncle had a head of grey hair by his mid-thirties.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Apart from this not being the same pose as Henry (hands are not at all in the same position…), not every pose a superhero can assume is superheroic, otherwise every single one would be…

But the "Divine Ascension pose" is superheroic because Storm, the woman who became a literal goddess at one point, is commonly shown floating and with her arms outstretched?

Heck, this is LITERALLY not even the first time a high level wizard has been depicted in that pose.

Oh wait, sorry, this is a completely and totally different pose of a wizard floating in the air, because she is holding her robes closed instead of having her arm outstretched.

 

[Maggan]

Neither of them is in armor, they are mucking through a swamp fighting what look to be mutant bugs, and the guy has a chipped shortsword without even a shield. These are low-level adventurers.

At least the magic-user takes good care to keep her skin clean! Even though she's in a mucky swamp she's as clean as a whistle. But I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she simply teleported into the swamp after getting dressed in the morning.

 

[mamba]

Of course it is an incomplete list, I wasn't going to go down and list every single world religion past and current just to prove a point. I thought I went a little overboard listing the NINE different mythologies I did.

the point was not that you should have listed more gods and demigods, but that there is mythology without them in the main role

So, how about this, tell me a mythology that DOESN'T involve these sorts of crazy feats.

no one was talking about feats… of course a wizard can do crazy things, I did not question her ability to levitate…

Then you weren't really paying attention to my post. The pose? The clean clothes with bright white and gold? The Glowing Eyes? It is all meant to invoke the idea of power and majesty.

sure, I do not think anyone disagreed with that being the intent, it still is a pointless superhero pose for the sake of posing, and that just does not sit well with my take on what I consider D&D to be and fantasy are more broadly

You wish you had something grittier?

I believe I said so, yes

That wouldn't be aspirational art.

I'm not saying that your taste in art is bad, far from it and I wouldn't mind seeing some lower power art myself, but would that accomplish the goal for the cover art piece?

depends on what you consider the goal of the art should be… I am not disagreeing with that being the goal of this picture, but I rather have it tell a story though than to be content with the message being ‘behold how awesome I am’. That does not inspire me, I’d rather have inspirational than aspirational

You'd very quickly lose the elements you LIKE in this art to increase it to a piece invoking power and majesty.

no, none of the changes you mentioned have to lose what I like about the art (they can, but so would low level sci-fi art), it still tells a story, it still is a realistic depiction (as far as powerful wizards can be that…) and it still is not a context free superhero power pose

Something like this maybe

you don't think she is posing in this? My dude, her shirt is practically falling off of her, and she is sitting on her own leg, with her other leg dangling in the water like she is on the beach.

pretty much any picture has poses, I complained about it being a superhero pose for the sake of posing, with no context / story to it. None of this is true here

Yes, floating is important to the sense of majesty and power. That is why we have powerful beings float.

you can float and not power pose at the same time

 

[mamba]

Oh wait, sorry, this is a completely and totally different pose of a wizard floating in the air, because she is holding her robes closed instead of having her arm outstretched

yep, that is how poses work, if you arms or legs are in different positions then it is not the same pose (at most it still is a similar one). I hope I am not telling you something new here

As to ascensions, I see them as passive, something that is happening to you. You are caught in God’s tractor beam, ymmv

 

[FitzTheRuke]

With... gasp... GLASSES, too! Man, to think I could have been griping about this for years now and I missed it!!!

View attachment 356471

Are those glasses? I could swear that it's just sand shooting out of his eyes.

I appreciate that, but... Let's not go overboard, ok?

LOL.

 

[Reynard]

1400 posts in this thread. You all know this is why we can't have nice things, right?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

1400 posts in this thread. You all know this is why we can't have nice things, right?

It seems to be getting worse and not better, too.

I mean, are we seriously arguing that the "Heroic Henry" and "Superheroic Superman" hands on hips, legs wide, is NOT the same expression of manly power?

I can accept that it is a different pose than the Wizard's, but... this is getting seriously semantic.

 

[mamba]

I mean, are we seriously arguing that the "Heroic Henry" and "Superheroic Superman" hands on hips, legs wide, is NOT the same expression of manly power?

no one was arguing that, they clearly both aim to express power... I said it is not the same pose, it clearly is similar, and that neither is a superheroic pose as not any pose a superhero can assume is also a superheroic pose

I can accept that it is a different pose than the Wizard's, but... this is getting seriously semantic.

so every pose that is supposed to express power / strength / coolness is therefore a superhero pose?

 

[Maggan]

1400 posts in this thread. You all know this is why we can't have nice things, right?

Well you know the saying that a picture is worth more than a thousand posts? Hereby proven!