Monster Manual II Art Gallery!

[Upper_Krust]

Hi there!

It's hard (I'm no art critic), but I've done my best to pin down exactly what I hate about Reynolds's art.

Someone once said "I don't know what art is, but I know what I like." (or words to that effect)

I respect your opinion even though I disagree with it.

Overall his pictures strike me as crowded; there are so many tiny little details that it distracts from the whole.

He gives the illustration character. It feels 'alive' (or 'dead' in the case of undead).

I know that I always hate the way he does feet. He couldn't draw a realistic foot to save his life.

On the contrary, hes one of the few who even tackles feet.

He tends to rely on the same pose for a lot of monsters: one foot off the ground, moving forward,

He gives his illustrations more drama than most other artists.

hunched over to some degree (see the bugbear, kyton, mummy, and wight in the MM).

Giving them a sense of brooding menace as if they could lunge at you at any moment.

His color art is better than his B&W, because it helps him hide another of his weaknesses, shading.

Looking through the class books, his B&W shading is abyssmal; it lacks gradiation, just a couple shades of gray that are clearly seperated.

Thats ludicrous.

There is no other D&D artist that can touch his B&W illustrations!

He seems to draw in a more angular fashion than other artists, with fewer blended curves, and his lines tend to be sharp and unblended as well.

He gives fantasy an edge!

 

[rounser]

Planescape and Cthulhu are the same asesthetic?! I've never thought that before.

No, I meant that they're both different aesthetics, but both seem to have received more airtime in the core MM than they deserve.

That in mind, I recognise that cthulhuesque themes are ingrained in classic AD&D to a limited extent (aboleth, mind flayers, weird temples from old modules) and how much all of the 1E tomes loved to dwell on outsiders...yet somehow it all came out with a significantly different overall flavour to the mix.

I know that the monster selection in the MM is quota fulfilment ("we need big flyer of CR X, and we need another sonic critter....hey, we can do two birds with one stone - let's call it a yrthak"), but the basis on a need rather than the monster being a cool idea kinda shows, IMO. This is consistent with the 3E focus on practicality and keeping an eye on the game balance ball, and from that perspective is admirable....yet the feel and themes of the monster selection in the MM shouldn't completely run second pony to fulfilling quotas. Perhaps they felt they met that criteria too...it just doesn't quite meet my expectations for the D&D brand (heh).

Although now that I think about it, I think both aesthetics are certainly stronger than before.

Yup. But the core monster book should be more Threshold, less Sigil, if you catch my drift. There is time and page space for branching out into other themes elsewhere - and that is a good thing.

Unlike you, though, I think that's a good thing. Some of those monsters you rattled off are among my favorites

I think I have personal aesthetic problems with too much assymmetry, sonic-attack-based creatures, "add extra arms or eyes and it's new", seemingly redundant "DM special" undead, some grating names etc. and will admit my bias in that respect. The designers of past tomes have occasionally aesthetically rubbed me the wrong way too (the bhaergala in particular springs to mind), but not to the extent that 3E MM1 does. I'm not biased against all that is new, either, because I have no such problems with Monsters of Faerun (although the Tomb Tapper challenges suspension of disbelief as to how it manages to burrow with the mouth in it's stomach), and couldn't really tell you why I think that the Tall Mouther is a lot more D&D in feel than the Choker, but there you have it...

YMMV (and apparently, it does)...

 

[Stephenls]

Wayne Reynolds

I'm afraid I'll have to throw my opinion into the whole Wayne Reynolds debate. (Hey, look! My first post to these forums!)

He's done some good black & white illustrations, I think, and is far superior to the other major artist in the black and white supplements, but in general his art is too "comic book". His stuff creatures tend to look like objects.

He does excellent undead, I think, where feet that look like claws are appropriate -- I do so wish he'd done the picture of the ghoul in the first MM. But when he does living things, they don't come out vibrant; the colors tend to lack tint or gradiation. He's not in the same league as Sam Wood or Todd Lockwood in that regard. I can't say I'm impressed with his illustrations of the various fiends in the MMII. They don't look particularely scary to me, whereas the ones in the MMI look almost like photographs.

OTOH, some of his living stuff is quite good. Take the Hunger Spirit, for example. He seems to be improving.

 

[byxbee]

<sniff> no tentamort. Maybe in the new Fiend Folio <sniff>

 

[Grazzt]

<sniff> no tentamort. Maybe in the new Fiend Folio <sniff>

Can't comment on the FF 3e, but just as a side note...the Tentamort will be in the Tome of Horrors. Artwork and all...

 

[Nightfall]

Thank you Jeff! I knew I was nuts but I'm glad it was the voices in my head telling me these things.

Btw, don't worry about revealing them. I'll just wait until I get my copy of MM2.

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

Sune from F&P is a great example of what Lockwood can do, though my guess is that he doesn't usually have that kind of time.

Demons and devils in the monster manuals have always dissapointed me. The illustrations of them in Planescape can't be beaten. In the MMs they always seem... Nondescript I guess. Or just plain bad.

Remember the Baatezu and Tanar'ri pictures from the 2E Monstrous Manual? Ugh! Looking at the Yugoloth pic from MMII it looks like we're getting more of the same.

The Boggle? I hated that creature because of it's picture in the 2E MMII, things haven't changed much.

Quinton Hoover was one of my favorite MTG artists, I said a long time ago that they needed some of his stuff in 3E. Happy Day.

Glenn Angus is a marvel.

The Lupinal and Cervidal don't look too bad, but I find Vinod Rams' stuff to be a mixed bag sometimes.

I'm not a fan of Thri-Kreens, but that is a great picture.
The Breath Drinker and the Bronze Serpent look like they were done by the same artist, so what went wrong with the Breath Drinker that didn't go wrong with the Bronze Serpent?

Frost Salamander looks pretty cool. Needleman looks too much like an insect and not enough like a plant. Effigy is looking good. Zodar and Death Knight look great. Catoblepas finally looks like a halfway respectable monster, instead of something you'd see on Sesame Street. I always saw the Hook Horror as having a more atrophied and insect-like body. This one looks like a cross between a bird and a body builder.

I will never understand why the Neogi and Grell keep turning up, I've never thought there was anything cool about them, they just look gross. Of course that has nothing to do with the quality of the illustrations.

There are a few too many tentacle covered, gaping mawed creatures devoid of any personality or distinguishing features in 3E for my taste. There's at least 13 of them in this book alone. Blah. They must be working their way towards releasing stats for 40 different anime schoolgirls or something.

Hehe, Myconids.

Anyway, No one wants to hear me critique every drawing.

 

[Desdichado]

Re: Wayne Reynolds

I'm afraid I'll have to throw my opinion into the whole Wayne Reynolds debate. (Hey, look! My first post to these forums!)

He's done some good black & white illustrations, I think, and is far superior to the other major artist in the black and white supplements, but in general his art is too "comic book". His stuff creatures tend to look like objects.

He does excellent undead, I think, where feet that look like claws are appropriate -- I do so wish he'd done the picture of the ghoul in the first MM. But when he does living things, they don't come out vibrant; the colors tend to lack tint or gradiation. He's not in the same league as Sam Wood or Todd Lockwood in that regard. I can't say I'm impressed with his illustrations of the various fiends in the MMII. They don't look particularely scary to me, whereas the ones in the MMI look almost like photographs.

OTOH, some of his living stuff is quite good. Take the Hunger Spirit, for example. He seems to be improving.

Don't be afraid, and welcome! Now, to have at your post!

Wayne Reynolds does look very "comic book"-- the way he inks his drawings is a good sign of that, as well as his use of almost overly dramatic poses and edges, which Tiefling complains about. I've said it before and I'll say it again, he reminds me sharpy of Marc Silvestri who used to pencil The Uncanny X-Men about 10-15 years or so ago when I was into comics.

And although Sam Wood is probably my favorite D&D artist, Wayne Reynolds is definately my second favorite. And Sam doesn't always do perfect work. You say the fiends in MM1 look like photographs (which I don't think is true, as the lines are too easy to spot) but Wayne Reynold's glabrezu in Defenders of the Faith is tons scarier than Sam Wood's representation of the same. And Todd Lockwood is great at dragons, but his people all look like paper-dolls that have been posed very awkwardly.

Although I do agree that both Lockwood and Wood do a better job with color than WAR in general. Despite the fact that WAR does a lot of undead and usually does them very well, he doesn't often do dark and brooding well: kinda a bright pastel instead.

 

[Psion]

AFAIAC, Wayne Reynolds is THE best 3e artist, bar none. All of his pictures have a sort of active feel to them, which makes most other artists work look boring by comparison. He has a certain distinctive style when it comes to armor. His work in the early classbooks brought many concepts to life for me; the later ones suffer for his absence.

 

[BOZ]

They must be working their way towards releasing stats for 40 different anime schoolgirls or something.

woohoo!