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

[Mr. Kaze]

3e Art is like a neighborhood of front lawns without an HOA to ensure that property values aren't dragged down by rusty cars and broken bottles on one particular yard. Some products use art like the Ghostly Patrol in City of the Spider Queen to accentuate the original, iconic if you will, feel that the designer presumably conveyed to marketing which marketing then reflected in the price tag of the book. Other products use art like the Dark Hunter in Complete Warrior to... check that, I can't figure out what the heck they were trying to do when they printed the Dark Hunter artwork.

Compared to some of the older stuff that my neighbor has -- with umber hulks that look like anthropomorphized beetles shooting rays from their eyes -- I have to say that 3e art is okay.

But does it generally make me glad that some publishers (WotC) are marking up their products to cover the cost of color printing? I only bought Complete Warrior because it was 60% off because I wanted the hexblade class. Compare to MSRP on the Draconomicon because I wanted the pretty pretty dragons and you can see how the real estate values compare in the neighborhood of 3e art....

::Kaze

 

[Mouseferatu]

I think 3E art is probably better, in terms of average quality, than older editions.

However, I prefer the old edition style.

Call me a fuddy-duddy when it comes to my imagery, but I'm not a huge fan of the spiked "dungeon-punk" look. I find the old pics of Emiricol the Chaotic and the like far more inspiring than Mialee.

That said, I'm not advocating the elimination of the "3E look." Rather, I'd like to see a wider variety. D&D can handle many types of fantasy games; I'd like to see many types of fantasy art to go with it. If we've got Regdar in his spiked armor on this page, let's see a classical mounted knight on horseback--with historical armor--on that page. If we've got Mialee here, let's see the old robed Gandalf/Merlin-type there.

I don't want to eliminate the new, but I'd like to keep the old as well. And it would be a perfect illustration of the variety of styles D&D is capable of.

 

[Strithe]

I'm neutral overall on 3e's artwork. I think a lot of the monster art is really neat, and having color illustrations in the monster manuals is great. The overall graphics design of the core rulebooks is a vast improvement over 1E or 2E.

Where WOTC has screwed up royally is in the clothing & equipment depictions. A lot of it just isn't realistic. I'm not talking about duplicating historical models, but just from a perspective of basic believability: Spikey armor (great for catching a weapon and directing it into the wearer's body), and so many buckles on some outfits it would take an hour for the person to go to the toilet. I can understand trying to get away from 13th-century Europe, but some of the characters look more at home at a techno-rave or S&M party than ANY fantasy novel I've read.

A lot of the weapons pictured look more like they were intended to advertise a minatures line than to realistically portray weapons someone would use. I'm all for dramatic embellishment but when I see a character holding an axe with a 4" thick head the size of a coffee table my suspension of disbelief is stretched a little thin ("Must take a pretty high strength score to swing that 150-lb battleaxe!").

Then there's some anachronisms: my favorite are crossbows with modern-style rifle stocks and pistol grips that crop up here & there ("Ya know, you need that 'cause them 12-gauge crossbows pack quite a kick!").

 

[T. Foster]

I don't like the art in the WOTC 3E books. Technically there's nothing wrong with it, and it's clearly superior to the amateurish work of folks like David Sutherland and Tom Wham (flavorful and nostalgic as their work may be...), but stylistically I find it grating -- the oft-mentioned non-medieval 'dungeonpunk' look with the spikes and tattoos and piercings and BDSM gear and so forth turns me off. I also dislike the current propensity for 'portraits' and posed characters instead of 'action' scenes. My favorite rpg artists are Trampier (by far!), Erol Otus (especially his color/painted work), Liz Danforth (who worked mostly for Flying Buffalo), Lisa Free (worked for Chaosium -- Trollpak, Pendragon), David Dietrick, Rob Caswell, and Blair Reynolds (all GDW/Traveller). I liked Elmore's early work (like his cover to Dragon #62), but eventually became bored with it as it all seems to look pretty much the same. Parkinson and Beauvais were always good. Mostly I agree with the folks who would prefer to see a variety of artistic styles -- include perhaps some of the 'dungeonpunk' stuff, but put it alongside more traditional medieval/Tolkienesque pieces from the likes of Elmore, Parkinson, etc. and even some weird seemingly-LSD-induced work from Erol Otus.

 

[fanboy2000]

it sucks worse than the 2000ed bard.

Yeah, well, not all of us are lucky enough to have the obscure proto-alpha edition (.1e) where all the art was hand colored by Gygax with crayons.

Then he realized he only had enough money to print in b&w.

 

[Mystery Man]

I don't like the art in the WOTC 3E books. Technically there's nothing wrong with it, and it's clearly superior to the amateurish work of folks like David Sutherland and Tom Wham (flavorful and nostalgic as their work may be...),.......

Some of the "amateurish" works that you mention I find to be some of the best pieces in DnD history and not just for their nostalgic value. Sometimes a mood or feeling can be conveyed better in a simple line drawing, it's all in how you look at it.

 

[Sir Elton]

Art is subjective.

I'll agree. Take David or Diana. I see great art where others see pornography.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

My favs:

Wayne Reynolds (detailing and great poses!)
Mark Sasso (especially the Epic Blackguard!)
Ron Spencer (the king of vibrant coloring!)
F. Vohwinkel (lots of detail)

 

[Ron]

I'm not much of a fan of 3rd edition graphic design. The illustrations are ok, but I don't think they are actually better than the colour plates found in 2nd edition. Additionally, I don't like the video game mood they inspire, specially at character's clothes. Finally, core book covers suck and the page layout almost makes me cry after reading for a while. The trendy layout with horizontal lines, fake margins, and so on might work in a magazine, but it's really irritating in a rule book.

 

[Aaron2]

That said, I'm not advocating the elimination of the "3E look." Rather, I'd like to see a wider variety. D&D can handle many types of fantasy games; I'd like to see many types of fantasy art to go with it. If we've got Regdar in his spiked armor on this page, let's see a classical mounted knight on horseback--with historical armor--on that page. If we've got Mialee here, let's see the old robed Gandalf/Merlin-type there.

I agree variety is nice and that is one thing the old editions had. It would be nice to see an adventuring party acting like adventurers or pictures of monsters with an actual background. I can't get over how Eberron looks just like every other D&D book. At least I can regularly get stylish art in the Dungeon Crawl Classics. EO rules.


Aaron