PHB, MM, DMG covers

[Klaus]

As much as I like WAR, I'd love to see Michael Kormack (Dungeonscape, Dragon Below trilogy of novels) do the 4E covers.

 

[blargney the second]

As much as I like WAR, I'd love to see Michael Kormack (Dungeonscape, Dragon Below trilogy of novels) do the 4E covers.

*Pavlovian response*

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

As much as I like WAR, I'd love to see Michael Kormack (Dungeonscape, Dragon Below trilogy of novels) do the 4E covers.

The awesomeness of that might just kill us, though.

 

[Wormwood]

I know they're trying to catch new players with the latest edition, but don't you think parents will feel a bit reluctant to buy these books for their kids in the...um...bible belt? The PHB and MM could almost be the Book of Vile Darkness is my only point.

You mean a ton of free press coupled with the reputation of 'game your parents don't want you to play'?

Somehow I think they'll survive.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Is there nay better pictures floating around out there?

The images attached are blurry when you click on 'em.

---Rusty

I grabbed them from the youtube movie clips (which is why they are blurred and the aspect ratio is sightly skewed too).

Hopefully better ones will become available in time !

 

[Plane Sailing]

Hopefully better ones will become available in time !

Better ones became available, so I've added them to the thumbnail list in my first post. The new ones are in a vertical strip of three, so look smaller in the thumbnail, but are better when actually viewed.

Cheers

 

[blargney the second]

Now that I can see it better, she definitely looks like she's doing latin ballroom dancing. It's all about the ribcage being in weird angles.

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

I know they're trying to catch new players with the latest edition, but don't you think parents will feel a bit reluctant to buy these books for their kids in the...um...bible belt? The PHB and MM could almost be the Book of Vile Darkness is my only point.

There's really no point in attempting to appease demographics who won't buy the product anyway. I believe Gygax made a similar observation long ago.

 

[Gothmog]

Honestly, these covers are stinkers. WAR is technically pretty sound, I just never cared for his work, style, ridiculous postures for characters, or general compositions- its always seemed very cartoonish. The PHB art is the worst- it just looks ridiculous. The DMG is the best of the three, but still rather plain. And the MM looks like Orcus throwing a temper tantrum...why Orcus? I know he's popular, but he's really overrated, and it would serve the purposes of a MM a lot more to use some more iconic monsters.

Brom covers would be cool- he has great composition and style, but he's moved on to other things now. From the looks, David Griffith is going to be illustrating some of 4E (the halfling cleric is his). I've always liked Griffith- he can bring a character's face to life better than almost any other illustrator out there, and his proportions and costumes/armor are great. He did a lot of work for FFG with their harback books, and recently has been doing quite a few WotC interior illustrations. Tony Scuzuldo is great too- his Brithright covers were among the best covers ever for D&D/AD&D, and truly captured a feel of action and tension. Arnie Swenkel would be incredible too- his interior illustrations for the old books were great, and the color work I've seem him do is very impressive.

However, the best fantasy artist out there now IMO is Pat Loboyko. His work has been featured in the recent Witch Hunter game by Paradigm, the new Changling: The Lost book (which is gorgeous), and WHFRP2. He does incredible scenes with a lot of detail and with a strong otherworldly quality, and facial expressions on his characters are also great. Unlike a lot of fantasy artists, his backgrounds are not just static placeholders to feature the characters, but have intricate detail and action as well.

 

[Arkhandus]

Yeah, the covers fit with the "more magazine style" that has been mentioned by David Noonan already...can I say that I find them simply ugly? The layout as well as the pictures? All a matter of taste, I know. But that's what you get when you talk about artwork. To be honest, none of the pictures shouts "Dungeons & Dragons" at me personally. :\

And on a second glance, I have to specify that to the PHB cover. The other two are more tolerable.

I gotta agree. The PHB does have the dullest art. Ooo! Two adventurers in action poses in the middle of nowhere! And the woman's wearing partially-revealing, barely-protective armor! With a cumbersome-looking, oversized broadsword! And the horned guy is zapping lightning off into nowhere!!! OMG!!!111!!1!

Look, a demon charging forward towards nothing, against an empty cavern or vault background! By himself! Oh! And a dragon! Coiling around a crystal ball by itself! In another empty room!!

Puh-leaze. They could have at least bothered to try making the covers look exciting and D&D-ish, rather than generic with one or two posing figures.

I don't mind WAR's artwork usually, but they really should've gone for a different artist. Plenty of cool artists have already been mentioned in the thread. WAR's more associated with Eberron and Paizo's upcoming Pathfinder material, I think.

I don't know if the artwork should be within a frame or not, but they shouldn't have half-arsed it with the two long, dull bars. At least move them to the upper and lower edges, and cropped on the left and right sides, if you're trying to make the artwork prominant. I'm partial to the style of the revised 2E AD&D covers, as that's when I started playing, but if they were going for art-centric it should have at least been closer to the Draconomicon in that regard.



The Player's Handbook should at least have FOUR adventurers on the cover. I mean, it's like a friggin' no-brainer. Even moreso with it being 4E.

There should be a friggin' adventuring party on the cover, not two poor, clueless berks looking like they think they're bad-arse and can handle the dungeon by themselves, with their awkward and more-flashy-than-effective combat gear. The warrior isn't even carrying a longbow on their back.

Four adventurers, the fighter, cleric, rogue, and wizard, doing battle with a red dragon, with lots of action apparently going on in the scene.....
in a cavern with stalactites and stalagmites being smashed and falling from the titanic clash of man and beast.....
a big honkin' mound of treasure in the background, and cave-tunnels leading out in various directions.....
three or four half-red-dragon lizardfolk trying to aid their draconic lord and master (and probably sire), maybe getting blasted by the party wizard or flanked by the cleric's summoned angels/archons/whatever and the party's rogue.....


The Monster Manual should at least show a menagerie of critters on the cover, not one lone demon, screaming and charging forward like a shmuck ready to die, skull-tipped wand held out to the side like a useless trinket that's no good for blasting stupid adventurers to bits.

Maybe instead a mage's menagerie, inside an elaborate, gothic dungeon vault......
with said mage being an arcanaloth, a fey'ri, or better yet (and more iconically D&D) an illithid, pointing down towards the viewer (and the four adventurers at the bottom of the picture), magic sparking to life at its fingertips........
as some of its monstrous thralls advance on the adventurers......
orcs, goblins, minotaurs, fire elementals, drow assassins, griffons, dire bears, ogre magi, vrocks, ghasts, monstrous spiders, thri-kreen, a beholder, a young black dragon, a wyrmling green dragon, etc.......
and other, more benign creatures locked up in cages in the background, some hanging from the ceiling.....
gold dragon wyrmlings, young bronze dragons, gnomes, hound archons, pixies, grigs, etc......


The Dungeon Master's Guide might show two armies clashing, perhaps through a crystal ball with the faint reflection of someone (or something) observing the big conflict.....
an old blue dragon fighting a vicious battle with a silver dragon, claws and breath weapons flying back and forth, each hovering in the air over a battlefield, with other, smaller dragons clashing in the background.......
and beneath them, on the ground, battle two great armies of men and beasts, artillery and spells......
a monstrous, chaotic swarm of orcs, goblin worg-riders, black knights astride nightmares, hill giants launching boulders with their bare hands, trolls charging forward and goading the goblins onward, lizardfolk hurling javelins, ogres riding triceratopses, monstrous shamans and witches hurling fire and lightning at the army of the silver dragon, etc......
and a host of humanoid soldiers marching up beneath their draconic allies, some mounted knights charging in, a unit of pikemen ready to stop the enemy cavalry, elven arcane archers launching a storm of ensorcelled arrows, dwarven halberdiers rushing forward behind the knights, a cadre of elven warmages firing bolts of acid and flame at the opposing trolls, cloud giants retaliating against the enemy hill giants, scattered mages and priests atop shield guardians and hurling Ice Storms and Flame Strikes, a gaggle of gnomes clambering about siege engines that launch a hail of darts, grapeshot, and pots of alchemist's fire, a pack of halfling outriders on warponies trying to execute a flanking maneuver as others bombard the enemy flank with sling bullets, while a small squadron of pegasus-riding elven lancers fly over the halfling outriders for support......