Rate the PGtF Art

[Bran Blackbyrd]

I just checked out Wayne Englands pics from the book and they seem pretty good to me, I know that beholders are beautiful and all but that seems like a rather extreme statement. Care to expand on that....

Check out the gallery for Races of Faerun. When he's drawing things like swords and equipment he's not so bad, but living things are another story.
I've seen funhouse mirrors portray more believable anatomy. At least his monsters and (less so) his humans appear to be improving. Still can't draw a dwarf worth a damn though, and I'm not even a big fan of dwarves.
I didn't like the style of Ben Thompson's pictures, in addition to finding them simply boring.
I have never liked Baxa's style; I simply can't abide it...
Randy Gallegos, meh.
Steve Prescott's stuff is okay, sometimes decent, sometimes not so. I can't help but look at his racial line-ups, then look at the ones previously done (masterfully) by Lockwood and Vinod Rams and feel a little twinge of regret; you can't win 'em all I guess. I'd also like to know why no one can draw an interesting aasimar or tiefling anymore. WAR's planetouched in the 3.5MM looked great, but they didn't look like anything more than badass humans. Call me a Planescape fanboy, but back in 2E the planetouched races at least looked unique.
Raven Mimura: Shadow Disciple, Incantatrix, Yathrinshee all very good. The Morninglord of Lathander isn't bad, but something about the perspective and the dude getting fried in the lower right strike me as slightly funky.
Rafael Garres Cervantes Sunrise and Hathran illustrations were especially nice. All of his work in this book is pretty good.
Joel Thomas' Evereskan Tomb Guardian is very nice.
Carl Frank's Harper Paragon and Ball Lightning weren't bad at all.
Beet has an interesting style that sometimes hits and sometimes misses with me. There are artists whose illos are quite good, but sometimes the style doesn't mesh well with that of the other artists.
I, of course, couldn't draw my way out of a wet paper bag. But then, no one's paying me to either.

PS: I hate criticising someone in an area where they earn their money but I just think the "art" by Jeremy Jarvis and Dennis Crabapple is so bad that, really, it's time WotC made some changes.

Yeah, I hear ya.