Lack of Backgrounds in Art?

[Scribble]

I was looking at some of the art from the previous couple of editions... and the other day I think I realized what really bothers me about it. There aren't any backgrounds. Well, there are- but they tend to be blury, and just kind of the "hint" of whatever they're supposed to be.

Why is this? Can any of the resident artists explain? Is it just lack of time vrs the amount they're getting for the image? Are backgrounds just out of style or something?

I look at a lot of the art, and I really do like the subjects, the creatures, the people... But without a background, I'm less impressed. To me it's like reading a story, but the author forgot to include any descriptions.

A well done background to put your well done main subjects in, tends to pull me, as a viewer, into the world you created for a moment. It makes my mind wander thinking about the world these things inhabit, and what brought them to their current point. What's over that hill? What's behind that door? Who lives in that house over there? it just makes the picture feel more-- "real."

Is it just me?

 

[Switchback]

I was looking at some of the art from the previous couple of editions... and the other day I think I realized what really bothers me about it. There aren't any backgrounds. Well, there are- but they tend to be blury, and just kind of the "hint" of whatever they're supposed to be.

Why is this? Can any of the resident artists explain? Is it just lack of time vrs the amount they're getting for the image? Are backgrounds just out of style or something?

I look at a lot of the art, and I really do like the subjects, the creatures, the people... But without a background, I'm less impressed. To me it's like reading a story, but the author forgot to include any descriptions.

A well done background to put your well done main subjects in, tends to pull me, as a viewer, into the world you created for a moment. It makes my mind wander thinking about the world these things inhabit, and what brought them to their current point. What's over that hill? What's behind that door? Who lives in that house over there? it just makes the picture feel more-- "real."

Is it just me?

I'm not sure if you are saying the previous editions lacked backgrounds, or viewing them made you realize the new edition lacks them?

To me, it does seem like 4th edition art favors focusing on characters and action more than locations. In past editions, I think you were more likely to find art depicting a traditional group, standing around, exploring, moving through a dungeon, etc. This style of art was more about the "who" and the "where", like take a look at these creatures/heroes, and take a look at where they are at, the world they are living in.

Going back as far as 2ed, characters often seemed to be posing in their environments even. This might be boring to some, but what that kind of "setting the scene" art did was let your imagination wander on the things that were happening *outside* of the picture, or leading up to it, or after it. It let the setting breath a little bit and conveyed a sense of atmosphere.

Nowadays, the focus is definitely more on the "what" is happening style art, characters flying through the air, action poses, attacking, firing off spells and the like. I think of some of the art from someone like Wayne Reynolds for example, there is so much going on and so many bodies that it almost seems like some kind of fantasy football match.

I still see some interesting environments here and there, but they are usually the smaller images buried in the corner of a page, and less used for full page layouts or covers.

I appreciate all different kinds of fantasy art, but definitely would not mind seeing more balance with environments and settings in 4e. Characters don't have to be the focus all the time, they can just as easily be minor elements, through which the viewer is exploring the scene vicariously through.

 

[Ariosto]

That is pretty par for the course with monster manual illustrations, but elsewhere I have noticed the difference especially from TSR's AD&D books and modules.

My theory is that it reflects, along with other artistic choices, the changing tone of the game.

In the iconic first Players Handbook cover, the looming dungeon chamber dwarfed the party of adventurers. In the first Dungeon Masters Guide cover, the front (dominated by an efreeti towering over the mortals) has no clear background -- but like the PHB cover the panorama wraps around to the back ... and a vista on the City of Brass.

That seems to me as appropriate to the nature of the game presented in the pages within as is the focus on "heroes" dissociated from their world in recent works.

 

[Ariosto]

Switchback, I prefer the second of your samples (and am curious as to the artist's name) -- but find the first evocative as well. The evocation for me is more of a super-hero comic book than of any classic fantasy literature, but again that seems appropriate to the latest version of D&D.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

One possible reason (I'm not part of any RPG publishing company, so I'm just guessing) is that art without backgrounds is more useful to the publisher, and they may be soliciting it in that format for that reason.

Say you have your illustration for an Iconic PC. Later on, you want to illustrate a point about equipment in a supplement, and it so happens the Iconic has the equipment in question in that initial illustration. You can reuse that illustration with arrows pointing out this and that bit of gear...but not if there is a background.

Without a background, it also makes it easier to edit the image- or parts of it- to fit a space or flavor in the book. A classic example of this is the art in the various Paranoia releases. There are countless uses of the original and variations of a pair of smoking boots...

 

[Switchback]

Switchback, I prefer the second of your samples (and am curious as to the artist's name) -- but find the first evocative as well. The evocation for me is more of a super-hero comic book than of any classic fantasy literature, but again that seems appropriate to the latest version of D&D.

I agree, the game has changed and the art reflects that. I'm probably nostalgic for a bit of the art I grew up with in D&D I suppose. The artist of the second picture is the late, great Keith Parkinson, there is a nice collection of his works here.

 

[JustKim]

More likely the issue is cost. Artists for hire charge more for a fully rendered piece, because it takes more time and freelance work is still essentially an hourly wage.

 

[Ariosto]

Cost coupled with the amount of illustration certainly could be a factor -- but that again reflects trade-offs; the decision to use more illustrations, and more color, is an art direction choice.

 

[Switchback]

I'm sure there is more art total in the newer books than past editions, and now every picture is color too. If you go back through something like the 2nd edition DM Guide, you will see a ton of black and white and other very simplified outline drawings on some pages. But when they did choose a color scene they went more all out, doing a full page layout or scene that included a background and surroundings, not just a character on a white background or a partially rendered scene (like only the ground below a character) that fades into white at the edges.

To further on the points already mentioned in this thread, when they do put a full scene together in 4th edition, even when it has characters in some environment, the image is almost always close in on the characters and they dominate a large percentage of the drawn area available.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Going back as far as 2ed, characters often seemed to be posing in their environments even. This might be boring to some, but what that kind of "setting the scene" art did was let your imagination wander on the things that were happening *outside* of the picture, or leading up to it, or after it. It let the setting breath a little bit and conveyed a sense of atmosphere.

This is something I do miss. I think a lot of the art nowadays has an "Extreme Adventure" feel to it: everyone is doing something and the overall scene is turned up to eleven. I'm fond of some of the old style pictures that might show an ornate set of large double doors being inspected by one character while another character surveys the surrounding, or a party of characters entering some kind of store room or laboratory and scoping it out. One trend I didn't like in 3E in particular was giving captions to pictures; I prefer unexplained scenes that leave it to my imagination to ponder the blanks.