My one criticism of 4th ed: poor artistic style

[JustKim]

I love the 4E art. It's funny that you would say 4E art is tepid while pointing to someone like Elmore, because while Elmore certainly has technical skill, his trademark is that he refuses to portray one iota of emotion or context in his figures. Are the characters not really looking at each other? Is everyone staring off into nothing, looking like they were posed for a photo shoot? Oh, that's an Elmore.

To you Elmore represents fantasy- to me Elmore is a living parody of the worst sort of fantasy, the technically accurate but lifeless and boring. To me, Elmore is a hack. I hate his artwork.

 

[Jhaelen]

Well, PHB1 really made a bad impression when I presented it to my players.

PHB2 is a bit better. I think the portrayal of the races is excellent. And the ones of the classes are really bad. They're especially bad because they're in the same book. It's a clashing of styles.
But overall I think the art has improved, even most of the pieces from Wayne England look okay!

Looking through the online galleries, there's a lot of really great art in 4E. I'm looking forward to MM2.

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

Perhaps I should emphasize folks, that my real problem is lack of artistic style wihtin the books page LAYOUT and a coherence of a "D&D" feel

I don't like Wayne Reynolds as much as I like say, Caldwell, and I don't like 4th ed's, as folk noted, more cartoony look in general.
But that's a matter of taste, each to his own, maybe that's what younger folk like? I don't though.

But what hacks me off is the utter lack of the things that evoke STYLE inside the books:
no fancy borders, paragraph dividers, page number medallions (that look cool rather than functional, current ones are extremely functional but not evocative) or whatever :/

D&D is about fantasy, the layout art of a book massively evokes that, it's vital, IMHO.
Go look at the booklets for Undermountain, 2nd ed. The page backgorund is maybe a tad too much (it should fade to white from the borders liek 3rd ed PHB, IMHO), but the borders, page headings etc are all lovely, it helps evoke a mood.

MOOD is CRUCIAL to D&D! the emphasis cannot be over stated. A good layout helps set that mode, the tone, ya know?

Now, 4th ed has wonderfully easy to read/use page layouts. I'm not, paradoxically , complaining about that.
What I'm saying, is that by not having interesting borders, black and white line art, page numbers in gemstone jewellery effects, neat little paragprah diving art work, etc, they do not evoke the feel of what D&D *is* about.
It's just stats, numbers, details...see what Imean? it's far, far too "dry".

pardon the silliness of this statement, but, D&D has a flavour or a soul, as it were, you have to encourage that, it's not just "lets roll dice and take loot".
It's fantasy, not "Papers & Paychecks"

Whn it comes to specific settings, this is absolutely 100% essential.
Dark Sun, Spelljammer and so on, have a very specific feel, fluff IS vital, fluff IS what the hell settings are all about, the crunch follows the ethos of the fluff, when it doesn't, it doesn't gel.

I suspect 4th ed doesn't have such to save money! Those extra tweaks cost money, and as we all know, the 4th ed books were seemingly poor quality (smudging ink and thin paper)

What I would suggest, is that 4th ed books, have a unified border on the top, right and bottom margins. This margin to have a coherent style for each setting or book and even chapter.

For example, open the 4thed PHB, go to the wizard's first page # 157
it's neatly and very legibly laid out, no problems from htat score. But does it evoke D&D fantasy? not to me it doesn't :/
the details all need legibility, which they do have, so that's ok, but by adding a border, they could add in "feel".
there's lots of small white spaces at end of power's that could take neat little B&W art, or designs to give feeling.

ANother thing I'm not too happy with is 4th ed's extremley strong avoidance of humour :/ D&D is about fun, and if you cannot laugh at yourself now and again...see the 1st ed DMG's cartoons: it wasn't afraid to laugh at itself
Sure they had APril fool's stuff on WOTC's site...but...ther'es nothing wrong with silliness, such as humorous art/critters.

 

[Dragonbait]

ANother thing I'm not too happy with is 4th ed's extremley strong avoidance of humour :/ D&D is about fun, and if you cannot laugh at yourself now and again...see the 1st ed DMG's cartoons: it wasn't afraid to laugh at itself
Sure they had APril fool's stuff on WOTC's site...but...ther'es nothing wrong with silliness, such as humorous art/critters.

D&D is serious business! How dare you advocate humor!

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

Dragonbait,
watch it! Or the mighty Woolly Rupert riding his Tarrasque-ninja-flumph steed, will get you!!

 

[Nai_Calus]

See, my first D&D edition was 3.5, and I *hate* the layout of 3.5 books. It's filled with a million annoying overwrought page borders and those annoying lines in the background that make it hard to read some pages and it makes reading any 3.5 book a chore. The 3.0 books with their table layouts are even worse.
4e still has a bunch of frippery when I've read it, but it's a lot more legible other than that something about the way powers are laid out in the books makes them incredibly painful to read and difficult to grasp stuff about. (The character builder fixes that at least for me.)

I have a couple of Planescape things(The main CS box and the Inner Planes book) and I find those OK for the most part. The artwork doesn't usually get too obnoxious with the text and it's meant to be designed a certain way for the feel of the setting. That's great, for settings.

Rules? Ugh. No frilly stuff please. No annoying page borders or background elements or huge fancy dividers, just neatly organized black text on a white background that I can just sit there and *read*. I like the BD&D booklets I have for that very reason. White background, black text, some images, no frippery. It's nice on the eyes.

My eyesight also isn't the best and a recent eye injury hasn't helped any.

Now mind you, I hate the actual art used for 4e for the most part. Too many tieflings and dragonborn(I hate both), too martial-arts movie-ish, a lot of it is just plain ridiculous or bad, and since most of the reused art comes from 3.5 I notice most of it and it annoys me. (Particularly the Eladrin and Elf PPs in PHB2, neither of which in their original use had anything at all to do with what they're being used for. The Elf one isn't that great and would have fit the Eladrin PP better, the Eladrin one wasn't a good picture to begin with and doesn't fit at all.) But the design is at least better and it's easier to read.

 

[avin]

Okay, DiTerlizzi was my favorite artist from the 2ed era but there are issues when you say in one breath that 4E is too "cartoony" and then remeniss on the most "cartoony" of the 2ed artists. True, he helped creat Planescape with wonderful images but those images were whimsical and imaginative and VERY cartoony.

Good point.

I dare to say that DiTerlizzi is cartoon the same way Neil Gaiman's Sandman is a comic book. The difference between Planescape and early 4E is big. The tone in Planescape is darker and, even being cartoonish there was more anatomy and perspective there than some DMG images (look the picture of the party entering a goblin cave or the one in a village).

Except for Modrons DiTerlizzi art never look silly like some MM4E monsters, what's that boneclaw smile? Should I mention some of the new miniatures, such as War Devil? DiTerlizzi never reminded me of Scooby Doo like 4E troglodites do.

I have seen lots of people defending 4E art and I just don't get it. I DM for three different 4E groups ATM, 13 different people. Most of them think 4E is the best edition ever but none like its art.

I'm not saying that all art is bad. I like 4E demons, for example, far more than 3E. The new Marilith is perfect. And the art I have seen lately is getting better

 

[Filcher]

I think people who like traditional, believable fantasy just need to accept that WotC isn't interested in that for D&D anymore. They are married to the over-the-top stuff now, it seems. I really wonder if some great traditional art would have made the 4E rules seem less "Gamey" and more rooted in something believable.

Submitted for the jury: the PHB 1 image of the tiefling bounty hunter. No action, no x-treme, freakin' rocks.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Stephani Pui-Mun Law

I love you if just for knowing who one of my favorite artists are.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Okay, DiTerlizzi was my favorite artist from the 2ed era but there are issues when you say in one breath that 4E is too "cartoony" and then remeniss on the most "cartoony" of the 2ed artists. True, he helped creat Planescape with wonderful images but those images were whimsical and imaginative and VERY cartoony.

[sblock]

[/sblock]

Ah, but see, there's more then one type of "cartoony." ...Hmm. Let me put it this way.

GI Joe was a cartoon.

Batman: The Animated Series was a cartoon.

I don't think anyone will agree that they looked the same or had even remotely similar art styles.

Or to be more radical about it, GI Joe was animated, and so was Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. This is maybe a better example, since DiTerlizzi mentioned being influenced by Amano.

There's a difference between a Hannah-Barbara Saturday morning cartoon, and, say, something made by Don Bluth.