Monster Manual and re-used art

[Voadam]

The 3.5 mummy is in the DMG, a Prestige Class from Complete Scoundrel became a Paragon Path in FRPG.

The DMG also has that village scene with people being over run by rats and bats and wolves. I think its the third time I've seen that piece of art.

The reason the mummy and village scene stuck out so much to me is that the art style and coloring is significantly different from the new 4e art that is found throughout the rest of the book.

 

[Desdichado]

For the flagship monster product for the highly-anticipated, long-in-development next version of the world's most popular RPG, I think it's disappointing. If it's a trivial number of the total, then the effort and expense of the extra few shouldn't have been a sufficient reason to re-use art.

It's not a deal-breaker, certainly, and it doesn't detract from the book as a whole. I only recognized a couple, but it's been a while since I looked at the original MM.

It's not a trivial number, though. I mean, yeah, it's not a huge number, but it's not trivial. So if it's 6-8% or so (I don't think the percentage was adjusted for the latest the Klaus listed)... try giving 6-8% of your income away each paycheck and see if you think it's non-trivial. That's actually a fairly sizeable number.

 

[Shemeska]

Some other devils use recycled art. However that's off the top of my head, and since I don't own a copy myself, it will take me a day or so to look at one to say for certain.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I was pretty surprised that they reused any art. Have any previous editions reuesed art (aside from the 3.0>3.5 of course)? I'm pretty sure the 3E art was all new.

 

[Nebulous]

What i don't understand either is why? There's no shortage of excellent artists dying to see their work professionally published. Hell, people would probably do it for free just to get the credit added to their resume. So why is there a need to put old art back into a brand spanking new edition?

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

It's not a trivial number, though. I mean, yeah, it's not a huge number, but it's not trivial. So if it's 6-8% or so (I don't think the percentage was adjusted for the latest the Klaus listed)... try giving 6-8% of your income away each paycheck and see if you think it's non-trivial. That's actually a fairly sizeable number.

To be fair, it wouldn't be 6-8% of my paycheck, it's an additional one-time expense (assuming this is all internal or work-for-hire, not royalty-based). And if it's a substantial amount of the artwork (say, 25%) then I'd be *more* inclined to get upset, not less.

It just strikes me as odd to reuse art when so much effort went in to doing everything else new from the ground up.

 

[Desdichado]

That wasn't supposed to be that solid of an analogy, though.

My point simply is that 6% isn't a trivial number. It's actually suprisingly high.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Spinagon is recycled.

My big issue is not when art is recycled, but when it's recycled badly. The War Devil/Malebranche picture is amazing, but it's in the wrong position on the page and way too small, so it looks bad.

In general, it seems like most of the recycled artwork was really good, evocative artwork, and I see no compelling reason to commission new artwork when you've got good old stuff. Even the MM3.0 did that with the Sahaugin picture.

 

[Umbran]

try giving 6-8% of your income away each paycheck and see if you think it's non-trivial.

Outside of math and physcis, "trivial" is subjective - context matters. Six to eight percent of the M&Ms I consume in a year is trivial to me, while the same percentage of my paycheck is not.

This is below ten percent of the artwork. Not the total content, just the artwork. If fully half the book's useful content were art (I don't believe it is, but let's just use that for demonstration), we would be talking about 3% to 4% of it was not new. For a $30 book, we are now talking about one or two dollars of value.

Basically, you're paying a buck or two more for stuff that has already been seen. You may not own the products it was seen in, or may not see the art in those products again, as you won't use them while you are playing 4e.

This is an issue?

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

I was pretty surprised that they reused any art. Have any previous editions reuesed art (aside from the 3.0>3.5 of course)? I'm pretty sure the 3E art was all new.

I could've sworn there was AD&D 2e used in the 3e MM, but off-hand I can't say for sure.