Worlds and Monsters Art Gallery

[WhatGravitas]

That's not CGI, its digitally painted. Huge difference. Looking at the larger image I see what you mean. Its a preview book though, so it doesn't bother me at all. That's obviously just a very loose sketch. If that makes it intact into the final book, then I'll complain.

Yep. Digitally painted art involves the same skill as traditional art, it's just a different medium, like acrylics, oils, watercolours and so on. Also, read this article, it describes the difference quite well and shows that you cannot even distinguish them in every case - it's more a style choice than everything else. For example, this is also digital art. And none of them are Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI).
Cheers, LT.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I liked the artwork, but (there's always a but, isn't it) I found many of the pictures a little bit to dark for my taste. (Even though it makes sense for many of the pictures to have them dark, so I had trouble discering all details. And the artwork was good enough to want me to do that.

 

[AFGNCAAP]

The art makes me miss highschool...

Yeah... all it needs is Eddie in the pic... probably working along with or somehow pwning Orcus....

 

[Dragonblade]

Is it just me, or does it seem like there's an awful lot of unsafe bridges and walkways suspended in air? I always wondered why people in fantasy worlds could build clockwork robots, but never got the concept of the safety railing...

The SW universe is the worst. Its an OSHA lawsuit waiting to happen. As soon as those lightning fast doors take someone's arm off, lawyers will be coming out of the woodwork. The rebels took the wrong approach. They should have sued the empire into submission.

 

[AllisterH]

There's an interesting tidbit with regard to the art direction in World & Monsters.

They mention that they are explicitly moving from a preponderance of "character in action" shot that we see in 3E to more landscape/scenery shots.

So apparently, we are going to get less this,

and more of this,

Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about this art direction change. While scenery shots are nice, it is things like the former which I'm willing to bet actually get people (younger and older) saying "How do I do that/I want to be that guy" which makes them actually interested in the game.

The cave of chaos picture is more of a "What's the story behind that/Why are they there?" which wouldnt actually get people interested in the game itself....

 

[Dragonblade]

I vastly prefer the landscape art. For example, I consider some of the old Ralph McQuarrie landscape paintings he did for the original SW some of the most evocative sci-fi art ever.

It really helps me with that sense of wonder as I look at those paintings and imagine what it would be like to be standing there and seeing that in person.

I do like comic book/anime style artwork, but more for character poses and portraits. Its strange but I actually don't like action shots in my RPG books with one major exception, and that's superhero RPGs which IMO should be all portraits and action shots.

 

[Klaus]

Yep. Digitally painted art involves the same skill as traditional art, it's just a different medium, like acrylics, oils, watercolours and so on. Also, read this article, it describes the difference quite well and shows that you cannot even distinguish them in every case - it's more a style choice than everything else. For example, this is also digital art. And none of them are Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI).
Cheers, LT.

Just look at www.toddlockwood.com . All his artwork has been digitally painted for several years, now.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about this art direction change. While scenery shots are nice, it is things like the former which I'm willing to bet actually get people (younger and older) saying "How do I do that/I want to be that guy" which makes them actually interested in the game.

The cave of chaos picture is more of a "What's the story behind that/Why are they there?" which wouldnt actually get people interested in the game itself....

I'm not too sure of this. The Lord of the Rings movies cashed in an enormous amount of success with awe-inspiring panoramic shots. I think landscapes alone could be boring - but awe-inspiring, perhaps even otherworldly landscapes, give you a window into a fantasy world.

Which in turn will turn on your imagination. Furthermore, the "I want to be that guy" isn't a particularly good approach for a tabletop game. You only have your imagination to "see" that "guy", so it's already addressing more imaginative types - which will perhaps react better to contextual imagery than singular characters without backdrop.

If you now mix it with characters, which will probably happen - as W&M is a book about the world, I daresay that the landscapes are a good way to fire your imagination.

Also don't forget that the lack of backdrop was a criticism concerning 3E art that I have heard more than once here on ENWorld.

Cheers, LT.

 

[hong]

What was the art in Races & Classes like? More of the action shots?

 

[Kaodi]

The landscapes have certainly been taken to the next level. Almost makes it seem like a return to the days of full page quality art.