D&D 5E Post Your 3 Favorite and 3 Least Favorite Pieces of Art from Fizban's Treasury of Dragons

[Demetrios1453]

Do you know which artist did those? The Gem dragons/Deep?

For any piece of art, look in the lower inner corner of the page, and you'll see the artist's name in small print. Sometimes its on the opposite page if the art covers that corner.

 

[Scribe]

For any piece of art, look in the lower inner corner of the page, and you'll see the artist's name in small print. Sometimes its on the opposite page if the art covers that corner.

And there it is.

https://www.artstation.com/sgw

Fantastic, thank you!

 

[Ixal]

I love this new dragonborn with hair likr frills and tails.... I just don't like reusing MTG art, even more so for this f'n trap card in R/B draft

Sadly the new dragonborn do not have tails. WotC even went so far as to remove them from MTG art.

Least favourite art by far is the Champion of Bahamut.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I believe you are correct, that may indeed be a helmet.

But she's still holding it wrong. If you are holding a vessel (bucket/helmet) over your head to pour it on said head, you don't want to miss - you want to see what you are doing. Here is a very crude drawing of what I mean:

View attachment 145910

I don’t know the art, it it is quite common to look away (even now your head) before you pour something on it. We typically want to avoid things innour face / eyes.

 

[Bolares]

Sadly the new dragonborn do not have tails. WotC even went so far as to remove them from MTG art.

Least favourite art by far is the Champion of Bahamut.

Yeah, the bahamut dragonborn art is awful

 

[Demetrios1453]

And there it is.

https://www.artstation.com/sgw

Fantastic, thank you!

No problem. It took me forever to figure out what those names were, hidden in the corner on seemingly random pages. It's really nice that they acknowledge the artists in that way, so you can check them out after seeing pieces that particularly impress you...

By the way, thanks for that link. I very much like the full amethyst dragon portrait there over the one that made it into the book with the weird focus on the tail up front and center.

 

[Scribe]

No problem. It took me forever to figure out what those names were, hidden in the corner on seemingly random pages. It's really nice that they acknowledge the artists in that way, so you can check them out after seeing pieces that particularly impress you...

By the way, thanks for that link. I very much like the full amethyst dragon portrait there over the one that made it into the book with the weird focus on the tail up front and center.

The full size shot on the Moonstone, looks great imo.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

What's wrong with the Dragonborn of Bahamut?

It looks fine to me.

 

[Demetrios1453]

What's wrong with the Dragonborn of Bahamut?

It looks fine to me.

Same here. It's not like outstanding or anything, but it's acceptable, and without any horrific flaws like 5e halfling feet until recently...

 

[Demetrios1453]

So, I'm going to rant a bit about two pieces I particularly didn't like. And it's not that they are deficient in any sort of technical way, but because they get the whole concept of the creatures in question wrong.

These are the crystal and emerald dragon illustrations in the Bestiary.

Now, they look perfectly fine from a technique standpoint (although I have seem some complaints about them, but the issues brought up there don't bother me so much). But the problem is how they are depicted isn't much in the way of them being gem dragons. They look like weirdly shaped white and green dragons respectively. Gem dragons need to have some sort of gem-ness or crystalline nature to them, and these two just don't have that. A gem dragon can be translucent and look like it was formed from a giant gemstone, like the sapphire dragon illustration, or the illustrations of the gem dragonborn or the amethyst dragon egg. Or, they can look angular, like a bunch of crystals that have come together or have grown together into a draconic shape, like the amethyst and topaz dragon illustrations (although the topaz could have done this a bit better), or any of the various gem dragon adjacent creatures in the bestiary. But there's nothing translucent or crystalline about the crystal or emerald dragons - they just look like boring old dragons, and even the floating crystal bits don't look much like gems (for the crystal dragon, they could easily be mistake for bone). The crystal dragon on both versions of the cover rectifies this to a point (especially on the regular cover where it being backlit really helps bring out some translucence), but the illustrations of it and the emerald dragon in the bestiary - well, I'm guessing some artists didn't quite get the memo of what they were illustrating...