I am a member of most of the RPG forums out there and I keep coming across negative comments when it comes to the art.
I'm personally not a fan of the art either, but I'm just wondering what it is about the art that causes so many people to dislike it.
Simple answer, "Art is subjective."
A bit too cartoonish for my tastes, but it's not so bad that I'd say I dislike it. The only art I can actually say I dislike are the Tiefling, and the Soldier background artwork. The later just looked awkward, for some reason, and the former was just poorly done, IMO. That, and I truly dislike the Tielfling artwork as presented since 4e.
The art defines the game in many ways. It's as important as the rules, IMO.
It also is what draws people into the hobby. Pretty much everyone I know that plays D&D got into it because of the art, and the novels. Plus, there's always debates and issues people have with sexism, racism, etc. in fantasy art. That's being discussed right now on another thread, in fact.
I like most of what I've seen of the 5e art, however. I'm also a big fan of fantasy, sci-fi, and horror illustration in general. Have been for decades, and it has a massive influence on the art I make. I am not an illustrator, but if you look at pretty much all of my painting, drawing, and photography over the years, you will see that influence front and center; but mixed with abstract expressionism, technical drawing, and antique photographic processes and techniques.
When I got my MFA degree, fantasy art (Like all illustration) was frowned opon where I went to college and grad school, but I sneaked it into my work anyway, LOL. It's silly, people who make 'art' dislike illustration, and people who do illustration for a living often dislike fine art and the gallery scene. It's kind of like an edition war on RPG forums, but about what counts as a valid visual expression vs. what counts as a valid crunch and fluff.
For me the inside PHB art fails to even remotely approximate what I'm imagining. It's also not D&D-esque art as tradition has defined it.
Yeah, I admit I don't get it, but that's because I love the art. The Ogre, the Tiefling, the Soldier and Hermit, the Dwarf, all of them just look really cool to me.
Alas, I'm not an art critic so I can't say exactly why.
People need to feel absued in some way, so bitching about the art (even if doing so reveals how little they understand about art or art crticism) helps satisfy their narcisisstic need to be the victim.
For my subjectivity, the art is too heavily color saturated and busy. Also, the branding and logoing feel dated, more reminiscent of the old VH1 Pop-Up videos than today's "modern", clean aesthetic. Does that help?
Grifford wrote:
You could take all the art out and I wouldn't care. I only care about the rules supporting the play agenda. The art's a "nice to have" not a "need to have" in my view.
I like the art. The only pic that hasn't been "sterling" for me so far for me was the Soldier background page. I think the PHB and DMG covers are awesome. The art in the Starter box is good too.
I suppose this doesn't answer your question though. Art is just a matter of taste. Maybe it's the drastic difference between this and "Dungeon Punk" of the past and of P.F. 
I absolutely love the art... It's something different than 3e or 4e and I absolutly love it.
I love the art. It's not over the top.
In fact the only art that I've seen people generally have qualms about is the warlock portrait.
dmgorgon wrote:
Some people made up their mind to dislike 5th edition before the first product was published. Attacking the art is the lowest hanging fruit on the tree.
Also some of the art isn't to my taste either. So even though I like most of the art and what I've read so far, even I can be less than impressed by some of it.
I'm a fan.
souldoubt wrote:
I think the art is great so far and that actually seems to be the consensus from what I read in other places as well. There are always some people complaining, but the majority of people seem to like the art.
JohnLynch wrote:
dmgorgon wrote:
Arithezoo wrote:
Arithezoo wrote:
I personally think every art style D&D has used has had something to say about the game. As the game evolved, so did the art. 1e art looks like the stuff in my middle school notebooks. Not something to be proud of, really, and certainly not professional. Even the first color covers were laughable. Cute, but laughable.
Older B&W stuff were for budgetary reasons, but many were still cool. Some were not, like the beach ball beholder, lol.
The 'dungeon punk' style is cool too, that seemed to have been started by Wayne Raynolds (who does PF covers, and a lot of 3e/4e art as well). Although, Brom did it for 2e Dark sun, and it was awesome. 2e Planescape was very punkish, and also very abstract/expressionistic at times.
Early 2e had Larry Elmore's naturalistic realism, which makes sense, as Elmore started out in WI painting woodland scenes and animals. Jeff Easley made monsters wonderfully viceral and gross, and Clyde Caldwell was a major proponent of the chainkini and keyhole cleaveage armor. He also pretty much painted himself as the 'leading man' or 'wizard' in much of his work. Keith Parkinson was a combo of Caldwell and Elmore, basically... Late 2e art really got interesting with Dark Sun, Plane Scape, and Spell Jammer. Brom is still out there, putting out his own books. His Dark Sun work is some of the best stuff TSR ever paid for, IMO.
3e shows more influence from video games and comic books (and MtG cards) of the early 2000's. The Eberron Campaign guide actually had graphic novel-style panel art in it. Also, the 'Tome' covers of most of the books was an interesting thing to do (As well as the parchment pen and ink drawings all over the interiors).
4e is where we see a lot more Raynolds. PF uses him exclusively for their cover art. 4e did too, for a while. Also, digital 'painting' became a viable thing for illustration at the end of 3.5/beginning of 4e and PF. This is mainly because digital drawing tablets (Wacom) and software (paintshop pro, painter, 2.5D rendering, etc.) caught up with it, and became all the rage amongst student and pro illustrators alike.
5e, from what I've seen, is using a lot of digital illo too, but they are trying really hard to make it look like oil, acrylic, and watercolor. Which is cool, IMO. Digital 'faking' analog is really popular now, in cinema, art, video games, music, everything. Being neo-retro is cool in the 2010's.
As many have said, though...It really does all boil down to personal taste.
I like it all, as I said. It all has its place, and it all has meaning in the history of D&D.
seti wrote:
Ramzour wrote:
dmgorgon wrote:
Alter_Boy wrote:
It looks like an MMO.
But seriously, I think all of the art has looked great so far. Not the greatest works of art in the history of everywhere ever by any means, but it more than fits the bill for the content it is expressing. The covers are pretty breathtakingly awesome in my opinion.
The art for me is a mixed bag, but none is terrible bad none great. Well the soldier girl seems just wrong to me.
Once was blessed to game with a real artist he could free hand draw/sketch just awesome fantasy art. He would often come to the table with drawing of our PCs, NPCs we were currently interacting with, or just scenes from previous sessions. It was truly awesome, really brought the game to life.
Because people are self-entitled jerks.
Some of the art is not that great butr the covers I think are decent looking to very good. And I do not love 5E as such but have not had the chance to play it yet as my starter set is hopefully in the mail. Its the best covers we have had since the TSR days IMHO and its better than Pathfinder as well. The only art I haveseen on "D&D" books that looks as good IMHO is some of the 13th Age, ACKs, and LotFP cover art.
"Cartoonish" and "like an MMO" are retreats for people who can't actually voice their issues with the art.
I'm fond of most of it, and what I'm not fond of is inoffensive.
Personally, I like most of the art shown thus far. I have nitpicks and critiques of some of the pieces (like the armor on the soldier illo looks oversized to me), but nothing is ever going to be perfect—so what the hell, right? In every edition of the game (no exceptions) there has been some of the art that is terribad (really, really terribad), I expect that 5e will be the same in that regard, but I certainly don't expect it to be any worse than any other edition, either. Either way, it doesn't affect me desire to purchace or play the game. While I rather have art in this rulebooks, I could even get by if there were none (as long as the format and layout are good).
souldoubt wrote:
The problem here is to do with art itself, how art is created today ( along with it's style and direction push ) and the fact that D&D is a brand name, that in the past...had some VERY high quality traditional art, that helped to define the "generic" ( and in some cases style of certain official worlds ) fantasy look and atmosphere that we have known the last some 30 years.
I will give you an example here, tolkien virtually created the "fantasy" modern genre as we have known it since the hobbit and lord of the rings came out, in those early days of the books release it was not really till about the 1970s that the world started to see high quality traditional art created not just for middle earth but a number of fantasy works in geneal.
When D&D came out it was mostly amatuer art, however when those people like parkinson, easley, caldwell and elmore came along....they were iconic and the overall majority of TSR publications had their work on the covers. This really tied d&d as a brand and quality visual presentation into one package that worked. This was already on top of that fact that such talented rare individuals such as john howe, alan lee, ted nasmith who were doing official tolkien art also existed so all of these people really did "define" fantasy and atmosphere for many years.
Once the late 90s rolled around, we started to see quite a bit of a cartoony and comic look entering into certain fantasy genres and rpg's this was because of the growing trend of anime in north america which is a very different art style vs what we have had traditionally ( and imo not even close to being suited to "fantasy" as we know it or have known it in the west ). Not only that once the 2000s got here....the push was towards very plastic and "new" digital art, which frankly to date really does not touch traditional art of a high quality, it's true some skilled people work in digital art design but a trained eye and artist can almost always spot what is digital ( too perfect and plastic looking ) vs what has been drawn, painted or created by hand.
With the style existing today as a semi hybrid anime cartoony comic look...mixed with SOME traditional art fantasy designs, for alot of people this simply does not define or speak to them as to what "D&D" is visually.
That's how I feel and I know a number of others do too, along with some who just feel nothing or don't care or feel otherwise.
Is all of the art bad ? no it is not....however it feels very generic and not really d&d.
http://index.rpg.net/display-search.phtml?key=magazine&value=Dragon&type=pictures
I leave this link for people to check out, it will give a very good example of visuals from the mid 1970s till today, on how fantasy art in general evolved, and yes I can say some of those covers are ok from today but you can easilly tell the transition of atmosphere and skill of an artist in the 80s and early 90s vs today, I dare say many of those covers each breathed originality of each artist vs the "boring generic" seen this before on the later end.
Azzy1974 wrote:
dmgorgon wrote:
Alynn wrote:
While the artwork isn't exactly as clean and sharp as I prefer it, I will say one thing that's given it higher marks from my perspective:
I have a 15-year-old daughter who sat down one day and paged through the Starter Rules while we waited for our new phones to go through processing. She immediately commented that she thought it was great that the artwork within didn't depict every female character as "half-dressed busty bimbos." For the first time in years, she's shown interest in D&D again.
For that, I appreciate the change in what's being offered.
I personally don't care for the art. But, you know what? I can count the number of gaming books where I loved the art on one hand, and I'm not afraid of losing some fingers. I'm just picky.
Its like.... the art direction for D&D 5e is retro. I think that's a good word. I think its deliberately meant to evoke older styles of art, found in earlier editions. For me, I much prefer a different approach. Take the art from the MtG cards. Its bright, cheerful, full of life and emotion. Its evocative. I think the new D&D art is supposed to evoke a nostalgic feeling, a good-old-days emotion. Take the tiefling, for example. I see the brushed style like that often in games or other media aimed at a more historical time.
Mephi1234 wrote:
Brightmantle wrote:
XunValDorl_of_HouseKilsek wrote:
LupusRegalis wrote:
Psikerlord wrote:
Psikerlord wrote:
seti wrote:
seti wrote:
I was thinking about this 2e Planescape illo. In 3e they seemed to have cloven hooves/goat legs. That's not quite right either, IMO.
She's not 'different' enough, but does have a nice thin tail. (Sorry, you know what I mean, I hope.)
She's also not quite what I want in a modern RPG illustration, but...that's another topic on another thread ATM.
I did appreciate the differences table idea, though. In fact, I played a tiefling rogue back in the day, and I didn't know about that table specifically...so I made my own up. He was alabaster white with pale reddish blotches in patterns on his skin, had grey/black dredlocks, and had eyes that blinked vertically instead of horizontally. Quite unnerving to typical humanoids. His tail was thin and useless, and he often wrapped it around his leg to conceal it within his clothes.
seti wrote:
I like tieflings better as a hodgepodge collection of traits inherited form whatever vile ancestry their blood lays claim to. Depending on player preference, it can be subtle or downright grotesque. . . and that's awesome. Small variations to the Super Devil model are kinda generic. Fortunately, there's nothing insisting upon the base model of tiefling in 5e (so far) so it's a simple enough thing to ignore.
MechaPilot wrote:
seti wrote:
dmgorgon wrote:
Art is an extra for me, I enjoyed the text only playtest packets, too much art distracts me.
I really would prefer more black & white line drawing.
Brightmantle wrote:
To me the art is by far the least important part of an rpg. I like there to be art but don't care much which style it is in,
Mephi1234 wrote:
souldoubt wrote:
dmgorgon wrote:
dave2008 wrote:
I'd like to see what cartoons these works of art are being compared to. Someone not liking it doesn't strike me as odd, but the comparisons seem ill-suited.
Brightmantle wrote:
The title of this thread could have ended six words earlier and still been accurate...
akaddk wrote:
seti wrote:
For the most part I like the new art. It does invokes a Sense of adventure for me, it stimulates my imagination and lust for adventure, so, for me personally it's a win. Of course it's not all good,but I like the majority of that I have seen so far. I would lover is we Elmore style art come back, or the kind of ar t yiu see with DCCRPG, but at the same time I think it's a good thing 5e is setting it's own distinct style, to eat it off from past editions and other games. Also, The art seems to fit the feel of the edition too, IMO. Also, I really like the graphic design of the pages, I like how it's often looks like the monsters or creatures are hacking their way off the pages. So, For me it's a win.
Psikerlord wrote:
But... But... Fat tiefling tails make the D&D world go 'round. 
(Apologies to F Mercury and crew.)
Azzy1974 wrote:
LupusRegalis wrote:
In general, I'm impressed with 5th edition art. The starter set is freakin' amazing! Love the historical armor and the layouts. Great stuff!
Now, that being said, like any book, there are pieces I really don't like. The soldier pic looks terrible. Not the subject matter (I'm fine with female samuraI), but the proportions are wonky as hell and it just looks silly. I also have no love for the Warlock pic. But the overall impression I'm getting is that 5th art rocks.
docdoom77 wrote:
seti wrote:
thehobb wrote:
GhostStepper wrote:
dmgorgon wrote:
I really want to see these cartoons. Given the comparisons, they sound like they'd be pretty awesome.
Brimleydower wrote:
h347h50 wrote: