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

[GrumpyOldMan]

DungeonPunk! I like the term, I hate the artwork Too many oversized weapons, ludicrously unusable shields and armour. All in all, a general feel of Chaos-spiky-death-nonsense.

GOM

 

[WayneLigon]

3E art is the best D&D art I've seen so far, in terms of overall quality. There were some good peices in previous editions but this is by far the best. I don't mind the 'static' art at all, either. It just means it's more likely to get used as 'You see this person' art for the game, or pasted onto the character sheet for 'this is me' art.

 

[S'mon]

Most of the artwork in the core rulebooks leaves me cold, it's bland and static to my eye

Ditto - it's the static, stagnant 'posed' look of so much of the WoTC art that really annoys me. I like some 3e art a lot - Mongoose's artists especially; vivacity & enthusiasm beat out technical proficiency in my book any day; I particularly like Quint Fighter, Quint Rogue is pretty good and a lot of the Conan art is very good too. There seems no life or real emotion in the 3e WoTC art; my favourite art is from the 70s and 80s (I got into D&D ca '84), stuff like Erol Otus is always dynamic and a lot of fun, but even the Caldwell & Elmore stuff from the '90s is far superior to 3e style in my book. I give WoTC's 3e art a very definite 2 thumbs down. I also dislike some 3rd-party 3e art - the Sword & Sorcery in-house grayscale style in my Creature Collections & Necropolis really sucks, leave that to Vampire.

 

[S'mon]

My favourite fantasy artists would be Luis Royo & Jim Burns - they rarely if ever do RPG stuff though, I think Burns did spaceships for Traveller 4e.

 

[Jupp]

What really is a good thing is that the quality of the art in the core books itself has improved beyond words compared to the old source books of D&D and AD&D. Planescape and Ravenloft source books aside the core books and monster manuals of old were horrible when it came to the art in them.

What really bugs me is the style of the 3E art. For my taste it looks too much like a comic. Its a bit of a mix between too cute and marvel comic style. Both have their moments but I do not think they belong into D&D. But what I would have liked to see for 3E art is stuff like from Brom, Jeff Easley or Keith Parkinson (his ToEE cover is still one of my favorites). I'd like to have the art grittier and more threatening, especially when it comes to Monster Manual art. Some of the critters there are drawn almost cute at times. The same applies to the art in the adventure modules. When I bought Sunless Citadel the first time that turned me off was that first picture in the module of the ledge on page 5. Please? That looked like right out of a comic book, exactly the same style. Dunno but it's certainly not my taste and vision of RPG art. A good example of in-book art (is that even a word?) were the drawings of Return to the Tomb of Horrors. There were some nice pencil drawings in there.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

I like a lot of the 3e art, especially compared to the lousy stuff that predominates earlier editions. The 2e PHB has some really, really cool art though. The Elven Chain picture is really good, and the only real hates I have for 3e's art are the way WAR draws feet and Rebecca Guay. Especially how she uses color. Good Lord, the awful colors. *shudders*

EDIT: Not that I could do better.

EDIT: And Eberron really seems to have an almost completely different style compared to the other 3e books.

 

[Klaus]

I think the term "comic-style" is often used erroneously.

Take the original Dragonlance modules, for instance. The interior artwork (by Larry Elmore, no less!) was line art, sometimes posed (as in the main representations of the Companions), sometimes with action (like Verminnard astride Ember flying above Goldmoon and Flint). Did it look comic-booky? Yes! It reminded me a lot of artwork like Curt Swan's, Tom Grummet's or a less-detailed George Pérez.

The interior artwork for the 3e WotC modules, otoh, remind me of BAD comic-book artwork. The last half-page image of Sunless Citadel (the one with the frog) is badly arranged, composed and executed. What, is that the hypnotic frog from Futurama, controlling his minions? No, that's just a lame animal companion sitting this one out...

And Jeff Dee's artwork? Comic booky! Awesome, too! Being comic-booky isn't bad. Being badly done is the real downside.

Dennis Cramer/Crabapple Mclain is the one artist I can't figure out. IMHO, he should go back to his Mara of the Celts R-rated graphic novels.

 

[JeffB]

And Jeff Dee's artwork? Comic booky! Awesome, too! Being comic-booky isn't bad. Being badly done is the real downside.

Exactly. Dee's (and Willingham's) art was definitely comic-book style..but It was excellent comic book style art.

Dennis Cramer/Crabapple Mclain is the one artist I can't figure out.

Agreed...his work is by far the worst in 3E as far as my tastes go. And thats OK..everyone is different, but after his gigantic hissy fit over on the WOTC boards when he started saying how great of an artist he was and talking down to the message board folks I can't even have any respect for the fellow (this was around the time of the halfling bashing the orcs brains out art in Dragon).

 

[Sado]

DungeonPunk! I like the term...

Almost sounds like it should be a game of its own.

I hate the artwork Too many oversized weapons, ludicrously unusable shields and armour.

Still not as bad as Warhammer though. Those weapons are ridiculous.

 

[JeffB]

Still not as bad as Warhammer though. Those weapons are ridiculous.

That's like saying Cow Poop is better than Dog Poop...no matter which way you cut it (ewww), it's still poop