Planar Hanbook excerpt and art gallery

[buzz]

You know, I can live with Dennis Cramer/Crabapple McGee, but can someone please tell me why WotC continues to use David A. Roach? Does he work really cheap?

I think we just have to get used to the fact that any book WotC knows won't be a huge seller is going to get the short end of the art-budget-stick.

 

[Klaus]

Doc Awk beat me to it, but yeah...



Um... as oppposed to what, exactly?

How's about this?

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/hosted/Pozas/Pictures/Iconics/mialee.jpg

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Sorry, multiple post. Something wrong with the posting window, I think. It took 10 minutes to acknowledge that I had posted, but posted multiple times when I tried again.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

multiple post

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

multiple post

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

How's about this?

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/host...nics/mialee.jpg

Um...it's Lois Lane as an elf. She looks like all the female characters from G.I. Joe mashed together. I want to see Wayne Reynolds draw Mialee. At least he'd have her swinging a severed limb at a mob of undead or something. Maybe Steve Prescott could make her look statuesque. I think that she was just a bad idea from the beginning.

As for the art, we've seen better (Draconomicon, even Dennis Cramer had good moments there), but we also saw worse (Races of Faerûn).

I'm with you on Draconomicon, but I didn't think RoF was that bad. Sure there were some pretty huge duds in there (arctic dwarf comes to mind), but all the art by Vince Locke is pretty charismatic, and the planetouched illustrations by Vinod Rams are sweet. For comparison, I almost didn't buy the 3rd Ed PHB when I first encountered it because the art in it was so bad (except the Todd Lockwood).

 

[Sejs]

How's about this?

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/host...nics/mialee.jpg

Getting there. She's still in desperate need of a tailor and a good hearty meal, but the picture presented is easily one of the best of Mialees out there.

No blame to place, honestly - it's not that good a character design in the first place.

She looks like all the female characters from G.I. Joe mashed together

Yes, but that would be something we approve of, because the women from G.I. Joe were babes. Particularly Lady Jaye, and the Baroness.

Rrowrr.

 

[Kai Lord]

I want to see Wayne Reynolds draw Mialee.

Check out Tome and Blood. WAR drew Mialee as the Candle Caster and also as the recipient of the Absorption spell. She looked pretty cool. But then, its WAR, so no surprise.

 

[Sejs]

There's also a picture of her on p81 taking notes from a big book.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I located a copy of Tome and Blood, and as it turns out, WAR manages to make her look...kinda okay. The illustrations are pretty good, because he does a good job of directing the eye away from her, toward the tome stand on p. 81, or toward the crazy goblin caster in the Absorption spell illo. But while it's not actually painful to look at her, it's not exactly a pleasant experience either. You'll notice that on the cover of T&B, Todd Lockwood even has trouble making Mialee look good.

I'm beginning to think that Mialee is just a kind of messed up design. Really, if she, you know, ate something, got a haircut, and got rid of that awful costume (this goes for that leather-fetish iconic sorcerer too) it might be possible to make her look good...or at least cool.