I has it too
I got R&C today. No time to read it, but I thumbed through for the art. There sure is a lot of art, so I imagine the printing costs were not negligible. The paper is thicker than rulebook paper (to support the heavy printing on each page?).
First and foremost, there is no obviously bad art in book, but I do have a few comments:
THE BAD
I am not feeling the Tiefling's tail or horns (in concept its fine, but not as drawn). They are both way too large for a creature with an otherwise perfectly normal human physiology. They both feel "tacked on", rather than part of an integrated whole. As I mentioned in another thread, the horns look like carnival masks or funny hats instead of part of their body. And the tail (which is larger than either of their legs) should force them to walk at an angle or something, but somehow doesn't effect their center of balance at all? This is obviously a "design" issue though, and not a problem with any artist.
Whoever drew the "Human on horseback" on page 19 only has a passing familiarity with what horses look like. The human on the horse looks awesome though.
There's something wrong with the boots humans wear in 4E.
THE MEH
Halflings still look just like humans. Without any kind of context I can't tell what it's a picture of without the caption. I'm not sure if that's good or bad; and I'm not sure what I'd do differently; but it's on my mind.
Dragonborn boobs. I'm still not sure I buy that.
In an effort to give every race's weapons and armor a distinct "look" I think they made some of the weapons just unusable looking. The tiefling (too flamey) and the dwarven (too heavy) weapons are what I'm thinking of here. The elven weapons on the other hand are a good example of "different, but not impractical."
THE GOOD
The Dragonborn look good. I'm glad that the weird things on the arms of the dragonborn in the Michelle Carter interview are not a standard feature. Maybe they're some kind of bracer?
The Dwarves and Elves look good too, and the Eladrin's subtle difference relative to the Elves are well done. I think that as DM I will make a point though that anyone not an elf or eladrin will have a great deal of difficulty telling them apart (meaning, if you met one on the road you couldn't say what race it was).
The armor, weapons and clothes all look good. No buckle fetishists to be found. As mentioned above the boots on some pictures are weird (the heel is way too big and heavy), but that's minor. Although there are a few instances were the armor makes me go "WTF?" (like the Dragonborn on pg. 17 and the "Voltron Dwarf" on page 31 (you know which one I'm talking about)) this is the minority. We still have the occasional "chainmail bikini" issue (and you might think that a chainmail bikini on a dwarf-lady is a bad idea, but it's really more of a chainmail miniskirt and is not unattractive), but for the most part this stuff looks practical; something a "real adventurer" would wear. Even the examples of the "Epic Tier" characters make you think of something the personal Champion of the Emperor of Rome would wear in battle: fancy, really expensive and possibly magical, but in no way inhibiting his ability to kick your ass.
The rest. As I mentioned, there is no "bad" art in the book. Every picture is a more than competent rendering of fantasy art.
OVERALL GRADE: A
The only thing between R&C's art and an A+ are the problems I mentioned with the Tiefling. If all of the Tieflings had a tail like the tiefling warlock on page 70 (we've seen him before .. GenCon?) and better horn-skull matching, there would literally be nothing to complain about.
