D&D 5E The 5E Art is Awesome

[Jester David]

better than the crazy dreadlock halflings of 4e IMO

Over all, I am really liking the 5e art. Its not the "Bondage Gear" look of 3.x, nor is it the "ACTIONALLTHETIMEADHDD&DSQUIRREL!1" art of 4e/Pathfinder.

Of the WoTC editions, its probably my favorite. None of it stands out as to what I see as D&D still though.

That is still D&D to me. Nothing by WoTC has come close to inspiring as this one simple piece of art.

Have you seen this:
http://www.5mwd.com/archives/1766

 

[Iosue]

I very much like the 5e art, in all books and products (with the exception of the NPC illustrations in Hoard of the Dragon Queen). I do wish they could have reused some TSR era art, or commissioned some work from the Otis or Easley or Elmore, or other former TSR artists.

 

[Jester David]

It's not necessarily the proportions that bug me, but the artist's style. I'm sorry, but just about every piece that artist did I really don't like. It looks half finished and amateur. The half orc and tiefling are other examples of art like that.

The halfing and tiefling race entry art are some of my least favorite pieces of art in the book. But given how many pieces there are, it's like 0.5%. That's a solid margin of error. And the more awesome pieces cancel those out. So it's mostly good.

 

[Staffan]

One thing I really like about 5e art is that it has backgrounds. In the 3e era, that was ridiculously rare, at least in the PHB. It turns the various portraits from "Here's a cool dude/dudette" to "Here's a person who belongs in this particular place."

 

[doctorhook]

Honestly 5E's art is heavily ruined for me by the Player's Handbook; some of it is excellent, but it's so inconsistent. I really liked that the PHs for both 3E and 4E used consistent styles throughout. 5E's races section has several different pieces by several artists, some good and some pretty awful: the Halfling is the ugliest beast I've seen, and the dragonborn pic is both unclear and looks obviously photoshopped into another artist's background. (The halfling proportions don't bug me half as much as the fact that all the halfling a are butt-ugly, though it's definitely odd that they chose to go with a "tiny hands and feet" design when traditionally halflings have been the opposite if anything.)

Let's not talk about HotDQ either. On the plus side, each book since then seems to be a much stronger effort.

 

[Blackbrrd]

One thing I really like about 5e art is that it has backgrounds. In the 3e era, that was ridiculously rare, at least in the PHB. It turns the various portraits from "Here's a cool dude/dudette" to "Here's a person who belongs in this particular place."

A good point. A complete scene instead of a character in a white room. Helps a lot when it comes to trigger the imagination.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

The halfling art was incredibly badly done.

 

[Reynard]

I tend to agree on the halfling art. I started playing in 1985, so the demi human races will always look like this to me:

 

[Jeff Albertson]

I tend to agree on the halfling art. I started playing in 1985, so the demi human races will always look like this to me:

View attachment 67742

That s so cool, what is that from (I started in 1986)?

 

[graves3141]

I really love the 5E art and think it's the best of any edition of D&D so far. I know a lot of people complain about how halflings look, they do look strange but that's sort of how I see them anyway, like weird, bizarre carnival freaks. The way I see it, halflings shouldn't necessarily look like small humans... they are another race entirely and it's cool to see a different interpretation of their physical features. Would I feel comfortable in a room full of them? Nope. Would I be constantly glancing at them out of the corner of my eyes? Hell yeah... because who knows what those little weirdos might be doing behind my back.

That aside, my only real quibble with the art is the covers of the core books. I really like the DMG cover a lot. However, I feel that the PHB and MM covers are too much "in your face". Actions scenes are great but I want to see more of what is going on in the scenes instead of just a huge beholder.

Still, I really love the 5E artwork. It's so much more traditional fantasy than 3E or 4E. Like others have said, it reminds me much more of 2E. Anyway, I'd buy a 5E artbook as well. I wish there were online galleries on the WotC website the way they featured the 3E art. But, oh well...