I miss Synaptic Dragon.

[RPG_Tweaker]

Didn't like the 1e PHB and DMG then I suppose

Hey...

Sutherland's stuff was pretty hit and miss (mostly miss). Much of it was too cartoony, but a few really hit the mark.

Now Trampier's stuff... was great. It isn't as "super-produced-slick" as today's art, but it was very fitting for a game that was suppose to capture a dark ages fantasy. His woodcut styling was very evocative... and Emirikol the Chaotic set the style for fun city adventures!

 

[Celebrim]

Didn't like the 1e PHB and DMG then I suppose

The best thing about the artwork in the DMG was that there wasn't much of it. The juvenile fascination with naked female breasts was the worst of it, but the big differences in style and tone were often jarring as well (particularly the ones intended to be humorous). I think if anything though, the art protected itself with its lack of production values because its simple black ink drawings often had an air of old woodcuts in ancient books. It made the book feel somehow more arcane and academic.

But for all of that, the 1e PHB and DMG had a maturity to it in its illustrations rarely seen since. For better or worse, that 1e feel of being arcane and academic is I think exactly the opposite of what they've been trying to achieve since. The characters depicted in the 1st ed PHB were rarely intended to seem 'uber'. There was a remarkably small amount of decoration for decoration's sake, and quite the contrary much of the hero's costuming seemed practical and even historical. There was a remarkably small amount of actual combat depicted. Many of the illustrations had a mundane quality to them, and would certainly be rejected on those grounds today. In short, almost none of it was suitable as the cover to a comic book and not just because the quality of execution was often lacking.

I think on the whole, that simple ink drawing characteristic of the 1st edition style is going to hold up better over time than much of what came afterward. The quality of the artistic execution and merit may have gone up (in some cases), but that doesn't mean its suitability as illustration improved. Certainly DCC has gotten alot of milage out of copying the 1st edition module illustration style.

 

[CleverNickName]

Hey...

Sutherland's stuff was pretty hit and miss (mostly miss). Much of it was too cartoony, but a few really hit the mark.

Now Trampier's stuff... was great. It isn't as "super-produced-slick" as today's art, but it was very fitting for a game that was suppose to capture a dark ages fantasy. His woodcut styling was very evocative... and Emirikol the Chaotic set the style for fun city adventures!

Larry Elmore was (and is) my favorite of the "old school" D&D artists. Not only is his art beautiful to look at, but he's a great guy. (Had the pleasure of running into him at a Con a few years back.) As for the more-recent artists, I really like Jeremy Jarvis's stuff...his work has a modern, almost spooky watercolor look to it that I dig.

I agree with the OP. As long as characters can still gain levels, and as long as characters can still 'be the cleric' without needing a thirty-page dissertation on What Being A Cleric Means To Me, I think I will enjoy D&D 4E.

 

[The_Gneech]

There will always be good pictures, and there will always be forgettable pictures.

I don't remember there being any forgettable pictures in previous editions.

-The Gneech

 

[Plane Sailing]

I don't remember there being any forgettable pictures in previous editions.

Ooo, too clever by half!