Is it just me or do others think that the cover of Libris Mortis is atrocious?

[Gez]

Not my favorite cover art... in fact they had a small art piece in the preview section of the wizards site that I thought would have made a much better cover.

I think this image is for the in-game Book of the Dead. Like this, below, is the in-game Book of Vile Darkness.

 

[Gez]

At least it's better than the one for the aberrations book ...

Have you noticed, by the way, that this (hopefully mock-up) cover is not a full cover like Draconomicon and Libris Mortis?

 

[Phineas Crow]

I think this image is for the in-game Book of the Dead. Like this, below, is the in-game Book of Vile Darkness.

One of the Books of the dead... however, it still would have made a better cover than the one wizards is using.

And I have to agree that the Aberrations book cover is even worse.

 

[Hanuman]

Hey Phineas, I had not seen the art in the preview section. Now the question is what person in their right mind would choose the current art over the one in the preview section? I guess when a company starts losing touch with it's customers this is one of the signs..........(deep sigh).




Money can't buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.

 

[Gez]

That grinning skull is mightily cheesy, though. Downright silly.

Beside, with the precedent of Draconomicon, WotC wanted a scenic, full-cover, image; rather than a cover looking like a mock-up cover.

That's why the Codex Anathema cover is interesting: it has a frame, which makes it clash with both Draco and LibMor.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Yeah, I second the notion that the skull cover is plenty cheese-ball. I never liked the core book covers, except in an abstract kind of "hey, that's a kind of neat art style" kind of way. But I prefer, by leaps and bounds, a painted cover. Perhaps I wouldn't have chosen the painted cover WotC did...I haven't seen it up close yet so I can't say...but I think they understand that we're getting sick of boring covers, especially since the feedback on Draconomicon has been mostly "Wow! Art!"

 

[demiurge1138]

Actually, I'm not crazy about the cover, but I don't hate it. It's kind of impressionistic undead. As if Van Gogh had gone on a bender and decided to paint a lich. Or something like that.

Demiurge out.

 

[Gizzard]

Does anyone know who the artist is on that cover? I saw a Tom Kidd piece not that long ago that looks a lot like this; cool blue night with skeletons animating up out of a grave; also called "Libris Mortis". I wonder if the cover shown on the web-page is a color-study for the final piece.

In person it was a bit looser than a lot of Kidd's work, I looked at it and kinda wondered if he slapped it together for a commission. (I don't think he's done any D&D stuff before, though he did do a kick-ass illustrated War of the Worlds in the last couple of years.) This is what I usually associate with him; painterly in a way that reminds me of the Western American masters.

 

[Jupp]

Yep I really do hope this is not the final cover for Libris Mortis :\ Up to now everyone I know says that this cover is pretty "bad". Well it is a matter of taste but I think that this kind of art style is not really something that belongs to D&D.


They should have get Jeff Easley to make the cover This guy made some of the coolest paintings of undead critters, ever.

 

[Gez]

There are three things for which I am grateful to Wizards for having made 3e. The first was streamlining the system. The second was opening it for everyone. The third was not using Easley as a cover artist.