D&D General How do you picture your D&D game in your mind?

[Vaalingrade]

I'd just like professional artists to have some basic understanding of human anatomy and perspective, so that at least they can make a stylistic choice to draw things the way they do...

I'd just like to not see feet.

 

[Stormonu]

Elmorean Realism. Though I must say the new D&D movie is much in my head for its aesthetic.

Yeah, Elmore, Parkinson, Easley, Roslof - their style is pretty much how I imagine my worlds.

 

[Retreater]

I know it's not exactly answering the question, but I see it removed from the fantasy. I see numbers, character sheets, charts, dice on the table, books, computer screens (if playing online), minis and grids.
For me all the wonder of imagination is gone. The curtain has been pulled back, ripped from its rod. There's nothing between the Great Oz and Dorothy.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Consider the classic, Golden Age superhero. Bright, saturated primary colors in bold, often simple designs. Shining ideals untainted by doubt or fault or questions about their motives or nature.

Then consider the deconstruction of this superhero. Gritty. Desaturated. Restrained. (Ignore the boob windows, pretend being risque isn't relevant here.) Often jagged or ruined or at least grimy. The dark, fallen mirror of the previous.

Now, consider the reconstruction of this superhero. Still bold colors, but a little softer, perhaps not quite so saturated. Somewhat restrained, but willing to be bright again, striving to approach the shining ideals even if sometimes they fall short. Sometimes getting dirty, but able to wash up after.

Finally, apply this concept to stuff like WoW, Pathfinder, and 4e D&D, but with Middle Eastern/Golden Age of Islam clothing.

That's what I imagine the outfits of my world looking like. Ordinary folks wearing realistic but colorful outfits. Those of stature, money, or prominence having more signature, detailed looks. The PCs being perhaps a little outlandish, but not to a distracting degree: you could mark them in a crowd if they aren't concealing themselves, but you wouldn't find their outfits cartoonish in isolation. Just distinctive and perhaps slightly melodramatic.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I know it's not exactly answering the question, but I see it removed from the fantasy. I see numbers, character sheets, charts, dice on the table, books, computer screens (if playing online), minis and grids.
For me all the wonder of imagination is gone. The curtain has been pulled back, ripped from its rod. There's nothing between the Great Oz and Dorothy.

That's...terribly disheartening to hear. You have my condolences.

 

[Minigiant]

OTHER

SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS!
+
90s-00s JRPGs

All my adventures have a late 80s early 90s metal, rock, rap, or electronic back ground wusic.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

To be honest - it changes from game to game. From character to character. Even session to session. Comes down to my mood, what I've watched recently, what other people in the game are describing their characters as looking like, style and genre of the game. Although I rarely picture anyone as cartoony.

One thing I like to do is pick an actor (and a role they played) to describe what my character looks like.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

As much as I bag on Liefeld for his art... and writing... I would be in favor of no one depicting feet ever again.

Ah we've found the one dude on the internet who doesn't want people to "SHOW FEET".

Nobody Was Ready For This Twitch Streamer's Answer To 'Show Feet'

Lobster floppers turned creepy comments into internet gold

kotaku.com

Belts, yes, there are perhaps an excessive amount of, though I think mainly that’s because the characters need somewhere to hang all their weapons and pouches and potions and whatever other baubles they’re carrying, so I see that more or less as an extension of the effort to actually depict all the crap that’s on a typical D&D character’s equipment list on their person. Spikes and shoulder wings… I don’t really see that? Not more than your typical fantasy armor, anyway. I suppose on top of the excessive equipment and accessories it might be too much. But again, that too much is very D&D to me. If your character has two swords, a shield, a bow, and seven different bags and bottles they’re luffing around, not to mention their backpack and the 30 lbs of whatever you can stuff in there… it should take them an unreasonably long time to get dressed!

It's a very overwrought and hyper-dramatic style that Wayne Reynolds uses. You've got huge, almost excessive detail, heavy, heavy anime influences (I mean one of the guys in that picture is Vampire Hunter D but with a bow), combined with Western comics influences, specifically 2000AD, which he used to work on, and was clearly influenced by the other artists there. It's definitely not at all realistic, so the idea that it's accurately depicting a D&D character is pretty far-fetched unless they have multiple costume managers (aka squires) following them around and helping them get dressed. On the other hand, you can see the realistic roots before it's taken to this excessive place if you look at British fantasy art in the 1980s and earlier 1990s. There's a sort of hint of this gear-fetishism even in stuff like Lone Wolf - and it took a while for Reynolds to get there - his earlier work was less wild.

That said, it's definitely more extreme in terms of how complex and funky their gear and outfits are than both the previous generation of fantasy art's armour, and the following one, the pink-and-purple "steampunk" one we have now. Even the art of stuff like FFXIV and WoW features less ornamentation typically (FFXIV is somewhat closer to Reynold's Pathfinder work than WoW is, I'd personally say).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm interested to see what art style supersedes the "pink-purple steampunk" one, by the way. It's hard to even guess at the moment.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

<SNIP> It's definitely not at all realistic, so the idea that it's accurately depicting a D&D character is pretty far-fetched unless they have multiple costume managers (aka squires) following them around and helping them get dressed. <SNIP>

That's a great character concept. Would definitely play.