Who Do You Want Illustrating 4th Ed.?

[ZoA2]

I think we need to see more of this:

and less of this:

I for one find it hard to understand how anybody can find that tin can beer belly and sieve masquerading as an armor and a helmet as better looking then 3e armors. I mean that armor is so dorky I get a greater urge to kick the guy inside then if it was wearing a pink dinosaur pajama. Ultimately there is no reason to force on 4e fashion standards that were démodé half a millennia ago; D&D is fantasy game so it is to be expected that armors take fantastic and unusual shapes.

As for artist:
Eva Widermann
Todd Lockwood
Jason Chan
Sam Wood
Howard Lyon
Ralph Horsley
Lucio Parrillo
and some new blood would be good too.

 

[Uzzy]

I'd say that Aribeth's armor is pretty much unacceptably retarded. Especially for a paladin.

Hmm, that wasn't exactly my point. My point was that it's an example of how much flesh I want from art of armoured women. I personally quite like it, but meh. YMMV, as they say.

 

[ArmoredSaint]

Bite your tongues, ZoA2 and wormwood.

I don't see a beer belly on that three-quarter harness anywhere. It boggles my mind that anybody could prefer the mish-mash junk in the 3e PHB to real armour. That's like the equivalent of thinking Strongbad is aesthetically superior to Rembrandt.

It's not about "forcing" fashion standards of five hundred years ago onto modern D&D. Armour was made the way it was out of necessity--that's what hundreds of years of experimentation revealed to be the best way to go about defending the human body with steel plates. Not all of its features were dictated by fashion; plenty of it is simply the only way it can be made to work!

I'm not saying that fantasy armour must look exactly like real-world armour, but I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect it to be believable. All I'm asking for is some verisimilitude, and I really don't think Lars Grant-West's stoner scribblings communicate anything remotely like that at all.

 

[ZoA2]

It's not about "forcing" fashion standards of five hundred years ago onto modern D&D. Armour was made the way it was out of necessity--that's what hundreds of years of experimentation revealed to be the best way to go about defending the human body with steel plates. Not all of its features were dictated by fashion; plenty of it is simply the only way it can be made to work!

Actually given how different armor designs were in different cultures I think it is a fair assessment that its appearance had as much, if not more, to do with local fashion and cultural standards as with functional and technological considerations.

I'm not saying that fantasy armour must look exactly like real-world armour, but I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect it to be believable. All I'm asking for is some verisimilitude, and I really don't think Lars Grant-West's stoner scribblings communicate anything remotely like that at all.

Well I agree that armors should look reasonably believable, this is why I can’t stand chain mail bikini or Aribeth's armor (aside of being demeaning to women), but I also think given the nature of the game one should not be taking “reasonably believable” to strictly and leave the artists enough space to express their ides. As long as body coverage is reasonable and armor looks as it allows sufficient freedom of movement my demands are satisfied and IMHO 3e armors have those two criteria covered.

 

[ArmoredSaint]

Actually given how different armor designs were in different cultures I think it is a fair assessment that its appearance had as much, if not more, to do with local fashion and cultural standards as with functional and technological considerations.

What few other cultures used anything close to full plate armour seem to have adhered to similar design principles as those used in European full plate. A case in point might be the c.1400bc Mycenaean "Dendra armour." Its pauldrons and fauld are constructed in a manner almost identical to those of Milanese armour made nearly three thousand years later. Neither culture could have influenced the other, but they arrived at almost identical solutions to the problem of defending the human body with metal plates. There's no reason to doubt that the situation would be any different in a realistic fantasy human culture.

Well I agree that armors should look reasonably believable, this is why I can’t stand chain mail bikini or Aribeth's armor (aside of being demeaning to women), but I also think given the nature of the game one should not be taking “reasonably believable” to strictly and leave the artists enough space to express their ides. As long as body coverage is reasonable and armor looks as it allows sufficient freedom of movement my demands are satisfied and IMHO 3e armors have those two criteria covered.

Without going into specifics, I strongly disagree. The armours illustrated by Lars Grant-West in the equipment chapter of the 3rd edition Player's Handbook do not have what I consider to be believable coverage or allow sufficient freedom of movement.

 

[Thunderfoot]

I dunno. I don't really understand what he's try to do with that right arm. Looks really weird.

"And in his old age Redgar finally realized why his master said to lay off the beer...."

Is it me or does he look like he has a beer gut and is slightly swaying?

 

[hazel monday]

Steve McNiven.

 

[ZoA2]

What few other cultures used anything close to full plate armour seem to have adhered to similar design principles as those used in European full plate. A case in point might be the c.1400bc Mycenaean "Dendra armour." Its pauldrons and fauld are constructed in a manner almost identical to those of Milanese armour made nearly three thousand years later. Neither culture could have influenced the other, but they arrived at almost identical solutions to the problem of defending the human body with metal plates. There's no reason to doubt that the situation would be any different in a realistic fantasy human culture.

Well I’m looking at a picture of Dendra armor and it looks quite different compared to typical medieval plate armors I have seen.
http://www.beloit.edu/~classics/Trojan War Site/Web Site/Archaeology Pages/Dendra_Armor_Larger.htm

http://www.ageofarmour.com/milan.html

 

[ArmoredSaint]

But the principles and components are the same: a breast and backplate, a skirt of articulated hoops, and pauldrons which articulate in almost exactly the same way.

And neither one looks anything like what one typically sees in D&D...

 

[ZoA2]

But the principles and components are the same: a breast and backplate, a skirt of articulated hoops, and pauldrons which articulate in almost exactly the same way.

Yet despite these similarities in function and design they look so different, which is pretty much point I was making.