tx7321 said:
Wayne: That's the nostalgia talking."
No, its not nostalgia its taste...there is a difference.
Sure it's nostalgia, and it's disingenuous to say otherwise. I mean, really. I was 13 years old then; I'm 40 now. The things I loved at 13 still carry a certain resonance, even if they don't hold up to my memory of how cool I thought they were when I first encountered them. I can still look fondly on some 1e artwork even though a lot of it was pretty crappy, not much better than I could do myself at the time. But it arrived at the right time and in the right place, and struck a nerve, because D&D itself struck a nerve. I knew even then that the art for D&D (and other RPGs) was just not that great compared to the art I was seeing on fantasy books I loved, stuff by Michael Whelan, Darrell Sweet, and, of course, the mighty Frazetta. What made D&D art special was it was for D&D, it was for this game not many people knew about, so it seemed like the stuff was being made for us personally as part of some kind of underground movement. It was directed specifically at us, the few who were in the secret club.
Certainly some early D&D art was legitimately good. Tramp had a style that was moody and evocative, and seemed to carry with it hints of medieval woodcuts and "Little Nemo In Slumberland." Jeff Dee was doing dynamic, clean-lined work that seemed almost like something from a comic book, bearing a resemblance to John Byrne's style. Erol Otus was...Erol Otus, his style bizarre to the point of surreality, perhaps the early D&D artist whose work was most uniquely suited to D&D.
Frazetta towered over all of them. But Frazetta wasn't doing art for D&D.
Had someone like a Frazetta been doing art for D&D at the time of D&D's ascendancy...hell, for that matter, had someone like Wayne Reynolds, Sam Wood, William O'Connor, or Todd Lockwood been doing art for D&D at that time, we'd all be speaking fondly of them now - but we wouldn't have to rationalize or qualify our fondness as much.
tx7321 said:
Infact I like alot of new artwork just as much as the best of 1E, some even more (and it generates the same kind spirit). Unfor. the styles I do like don't appear in 3E or D20 artwork (but rather in childrens books, movie preps (like those for LOTR battle scenes0 etc.) It makes no difference to me when artwork was made... I either like it or I don't.
I think the big thing is that the 1E artists painted and drew the same images I saw in my head already. They didn't define the mental image for me, they just re-affirmed it and added to it a bit. Now, when I started playing 3E I still saw the same basic world as I did in 1E (very similar to what you see on the cover of the 1E PH or DMG). I just NEVER pictured (and no one I know pictured) the crazy stuff depicted by todays 3E artists, for instance: tattoo covered, mowhaked, and giant eared elves walking around in skin tight pants with thighs so big they couldn't walk, standing in some wacky stiff almost cheeky pose in spikey armor. I mean, do ANY OF YOU GUYS picture these freakish things walking around in your imagination when you play 3E...tattooed covered, mowhawked elves with giant ears...?
Yeah, I did then, and I do now. D&D art was always a tad conservative, given the sheer range of possibilities inherent in a D&D milieu. It skewed a bit too much towards a Medieval baseline, and even as youngsters we realized that the default D&D "setting," as it were, was not simply the Dark Ages with magic. It was a place with a multitude of influences, not the least of them being all manner of nonhuman races and civilizations, as well as a slew of gods which were actively involved in the world itself, each of them wanting to differentiate their flocks in some way. Surely with all these various alien influences around, there would be a much wider spectrum of looks for the world's inhabitants. That's the strength of 3e art; it recognizes that there are implications of vast differences between Medieval Europe and any given D&D setting hardwired right into the game.
tx7321 said:
I think 3Es art isn't meant to be used as a tool to get into the game. If it is, I guess I'm just not hip to it. Of course this could be coming out of video games etc. I don't play.
Baloney. I don't play video games, and 3e art still resonates with me, and draws me into the game. I'm sure it does so for many others. Dismissing 3e art - or 3e in general - by comparing it to video games is an old, tired trope. It's the equivalent of people complaining that modern music just isn't as good as the music from the time when they were growing up. Simply not true. It's just like someone up-thread pointed out - our brains tend to ossify as we get older, so new stuff just doesn't appeal to us as much as the stuff we grew up with.
tx7321 said:
Oh, and I agree there were some real dogs in 1E art. I'm already assuming were talking about the better of each period when making comparisons.
There is a lot more of the better for modern D&D/d20, simply because there are more venues for such art now.
