What was so magical about 1E/OD&D art?

[Raven Crowking]

Before I head off to my parents for christmas vacation, I'd like to point out that this is not about being "clever".

I merely give you the benefit of the doubt, that you are seeing some subtle (but actual) indications from the artwork that I cannot see.

And, have a good vacation.

Each and everyone has a lot of baggage with us when judging a picture.

I feel certain that this is true. Yet I also feel certain that some interpretation of art is more valid than others. When, for example, one looks at The Scream and sees a man in pain, anxiety, or fear, that seems to me a more likely interpretation than seeing a message that apples are tasty.

Likewise, I do not expect that the average person flipping through a PHB (or any book, for that matter) is going to assume that nothing is what it seems, and that innocent objects should induce gut-wrenching horror, unless there is something that clearly indicates that this is the case. IMHO, the message conveyed by successful artwork should be examined first in light of the most common shared background of the society creating it, rather than the most esoteric. Especially when one creates art to be used in marketing.

My thesis related to the PHB/DMG art not only acknowledges that expected and pereceived messages conveyed by art may alter the way one views art; it says that exactly.

(And, BTW, I started with the Blue Box, and have played every edition.)


RC

 

[Darth Shoju]

Darth S: "The size of an elf's ears don't speak even one whit to the quality of a piece of art." Your right it doesn't. The problem with the ears being that large on elves is that "many" of us don't picture elves that way in D&D. We picture elves, more or less, the way they are depicted in 1E, or the LOTR movies, or any other number of sources.

Fair enough.

...or guys running around with modern hair cuts, soul patches or tattoos.

Hey I dislike the "dungeonpunk" effect as much as the next guy when it rears its head. I just don't feel it is as prevalent in 3ed as some people claim. I don't have a problem with tattoos though as those have been around in real world history for a long time.

So, is one kind of style or art superior to another. No. But you can make comments on what is depicted, does it set the mood, does it help you picture the world your playing in. Does the art do its job in that way?

Sounds close enough to a consensus to me. Like I said before, I like art from all editions (and dislike from all editions as well). One of the advantages of the modern age is that I can collect a bunch of art that I feel evokes the mood of the game I am trying to run (gathered from a variety of sources), burn them to a cd and have a clip show playing on the tv while we game. And when I want to evoke an old-school, dungeon-crawling goodness feel, I know where to look.

 

[Qualidar]

I also wonder if the artwork from 1e looked somewhat the way it did (and I'm not saying it was bad as I like a lot of 1e artwork) due to printing costs.

I mean back in the day 4 color art was like WHOA! 4 Color artwork!

So I wonder if Otis kept his pieces a lot of times somewhat "cell shaded" looking in order to cut down on amount of colors/ink/cost?

No: 4 color is 4 color. You get the whole rainbow. That was just his style. The fact that there were so many b&w illustrations would have been due to cost, though.

~Qualidar~
(Graphic Designer)

 

[Darth Shoju]

[off]Darth Soju: I always thought the fighter on the colour Hommlet cover was a woman. Judging by the legs, anyway. [/off]

LOL could be. YMMV as it were.

 

[Scribble]

No: 4 color is 4 color. You get the whole rainbow. That was just his style. The fact that there were so many b&w illustrations would have been due to cost, though.

~Qualidar~
(Graphic Designer)

Shrug. I'm assuming you'd know better then I would. I just thought it was easier now to get more colors then it used to be.

 

[Henry]

No: 4 color is 4 color. You get the whole rainbow. That was just his style. The fact that there were so many b&w illustrations would have been due to cost, though.

~Qualidar~
(Graphic Designer)

I don't know if it's ever been this way in the printing industry, but in screen printing and such for t-shirts, you pay by the color, or you can pay for full CMYK. I have a feeling that a lot of the 1970's mono- and duo-chromatic stuff had something to do with printing costs. Later modules in the early 80's saw a dramatic shift in print quality.

 

[tx7321]

Don't knock cost constraints. Some of the best television and movies were made on shoe string budgets. And they likely wouldn't have been nearly as good if they had bigger budgets. The original Star Trek is a good example.

If the reason TSR didn't have color interiors was cost, then I'm glad they didn't have the money to do it "better". B&W is still chosen over color btw even when the costs are identical. Color has its place, but with things like monster interior artwork for a game like AD&D 1E your probably better off with B&W (giving the viewer enough to get the jist, but allowing them to "color it" with thier imaginations.

Darth, it sounds like were pretty much in agreement then.

 

[Scribble]

Don't knock cost constraints. Some of the best television and movies were made on shoe string budgets. And they likely wouldn't have been nearly as good if they had bigger budgets. The original Star Trek is a good example.

If the reason TSR didn't have color interiors was cost, then I'm glad they didn't have the money to do it "better". B&W is still chosen over color btw even when the costs are identical. Color has its place, but with things like monster interior artwork for a game like AD&D 1E your probably better off with B&W (giving the viewer enough to get the jist, but allowing them to "color it" with thier imaginations.

Darth, it sounds like were pretty much in agreement then.

Oh I'm not saying something is better just because it cost more. I'm simply wondering if the style he chose to work in was partially influenced by cost factor.

Like if you were an indy film maker you might make an awesome movie, but most likely it won't have a huge amount of special effects.

Whereas if you had a huge multi million dollar budget maybe you would flex your muscles a bit and pull out the special effects...

Doesn't make either of the movies better, just a different style of storytelling...


thats all I meant.

 

[Numion]

Well, my experience is the opposite. The younger me had a harder time appreciating Picasso, Dali, Mondrian, & Otus than the older me. Also, there's a lot of children's books in my house these days, & I don't think I'd call any of them similar to Otus.

There's something common to all four you listed, and it's not artistic skill

The real connector is that none of those would make for good fantasy illustration. Wait, scratch that, Dali probably would. Mondrians works could be a basis for a random dungeon map (no disrespect to his art).

 

[I'm A Banana]

Then you aren't following the guidelines in the DMG, where a percentage of encounters should be with creatures that are beyond the party's means to simply fight and resist and win against.

Myself, I follow a design philosophy that says "If epic creatures are in the world when the PCs are epic levels, it follows that epic creatures are in the world when the PCs are 1st level." I have no problem whatsoever with introducing creatures that the players should realize are beyond their characters' means to deal with. Likewise, when I have the King deny the PCs something that they want, this doesn't mean that I expect the PCs to fight, resist, and defeat the King.

Mind you, I don't prevent them from trying. Just because I think something would be hellishly difficult doesn't mean that the PCs won't be hellishly clever in overcoming that difficulty.

The point is, when I run a game, the outcome is not predetermined. The PCs may win. They may fail. That is up to the players, their cleverness, their tactics, and their luck.

You missunderstand me. I didn't say an *encounter* the PC's couldn't eventually overcome, I said a *threat*. Individual encounters are a game element, and thus a randomization of their challenge is an appealing trait. Threats are a campaign, story-building element, and thus their existence is only a measure of what the PC's are motivated to try and stop.

Yes, there are epic dragons flying around. But the suggestion remains that if the PC's want to kill an epic dragon, they probably can, once they have powerful enough characters. Not that there won't be things beyond that dragon that they can't kill, too.