How do you feel about 3e's art style?

[Testament]

I agree that the Cavalry Charger and the Paladin-averting-breath-weapon full pagers weren't up to par. Specially in a book that had WAR's Phalanx vs. Horde image.

Have to disagree with you there. A Cavalry charger one was average, but Spencer's shot of Divine Resistance in action was amazing. Then again, I'm a huge fan of Ron Spencer, especially his b&w work on Werewolf: The Apocalypse for WW.

Yes, WAR's Phalanx shot is probably the best piece in that book though.

 

[Pants]

I would also like to recommend an article in Imazine #37, a free web-zine, which examines the failings of modern RPG art. Here are a few choice bits:

Any article that has trouble reasoning out why a picture of Tordek doesn't 'titillate' young boys like a picture of a hot demoness already has some problems going for it...

There is one substantial difference: Otus was and still is a good artist, as he can take these elements and make something magical and "out of place" with them... [/b]

Says who? Last I heard, art quality is pretty subjective. What makes Otus an objectively good artist?

I doubt anyone in the 3e team could do that.

Them's fightin' words!

Come to think of it, and breaking away from the art discussion, this is probably one of the most important reasons I ceased DMing 3e. Because the designers can't do it either. They just don't call a world of make believe "millieu" anymore.

And you base this on what?

 

[David Howery]

well, as one who started gaming back in 1E days, I can say that I'm damn sure not nostalgic for that artwork... the artwork was crude at best and horrible at worst.. the original Fiend Folio had some of the most god awful line drawings I've ever seen. 2E though... a whole different story. Elmore, Caldwell, and Parkinson created, IMO, the best D&D based art of every edition. While I don't particularly care for the Dragonlance world, the artwork for it is extraordinary (I picked up a signed print of that poster by Parkinson with Soth leading his skeleton warriors in a cavalry charge... gorgeous!). So far, I've found the art in 3E to be... uninspiring. Not bad, not good, just... there. The whole dungeonpunk thing makes me shrug.. that's not how I ever imagined a D&D world to be, but to each his own.
And on the whole spiked armor thing... when I first saw those pictures, two things occurred to me. First, anyone dumb enough to wear a set should be penalized by giving his enemies a bonus to hit him, as all those spikes would tend to drag a weapon into him (real medieval armor was smooth and sloped for a damn good reason). Second, wouldn't it be cool to attack that guy with a bunch of enemies armed with big wooden clubs? I figure there'd be a good chance the clubs would get stuck on the spikes...

 

[Type2demon]

No Imagination, no inspiration = bad art.

Adventure art has to be imaginative!

It must inspire the viewer, It must hold your attention and fire your imagination.
If it does not do these things then (despite its technical quality) it is POOR art.

While 3E art has shown an increase in technical quality, The core rule books have shown poor imagination in thier artwork (with the MM3e being a little bit of an exception to this, but still not meeting the grade).
1Ed art was admittedly less advanced in its technical ability, but showed fantastic imagination.

Lets face it. Even if an artist can draw or paint a man with a sword with photorealistic quality, unless it contains a subject of interest and can hold the imagination of the viewer, then it has no more value than a decorative scrollwork around the page borders.

It seems that over time, role playing art as a whole has become more like draft work or technical illustrations than true art.

WOC have proven that they have access to quality art by the work found on the MAGIC(TM) cards that they produce. So the only thing that I can conclude is that the job of illustration of the core books went not to the top talent, but to the lowest bidder.

One must not forget that fantasy artwork was as much an influence on the birth of D&D as the literary works of Howard, Tolkien or Moorcock. If RPG companies would remember that, they would put a lot more effort into art than they have.

Here is a prime example of an artist who helped form the D&D model and who should be the benchmark for role playing art quality.

I present, the grandmaster of Fantasy art himself :

Frank Frazetta
http://www.wadhome.org/frazetta/