Favorite art in RPGs.

[jmbrown]

As a collector of RPGs I noticed the art generally falls in 2 categories.

1. Really, really good

or

2. A seven year old could do better.

This topic is in appreciation to art in RPGs that you find particularly striking. Art that helps define the game's world as much as the flavor text does. Tony Diterlizzi's work on Planescape, Changeling, and the DnD Monster Manuals has always struck a particular chord with me. I'm a fan of watercolor and gouache but painted pictures in modern RPGs is getting progressively rare.

It makes me sad :(



(first image in Planescape)



(awesome Githyanki from Planescape)



(cover for the French version of Little Fears[/img]



(Mouse Guard cover. It's actually a wraparound so this is only half)



(Changeling: The Dreaming)

[AstralFire]

Mouse Guard has an unfair advantage in that it's a conversion of a wonderfully illustrated book to a game.

I don't have much to comment on here, just watching the thread for pretties.

[skywalker]

I really like the art from Exalted... White Wolf tend to do pretty well with all their art, if it isn't overcome by EXTREME SPOOKINESS!

I'm too lazy to post examples, tho.

[AstralFire]

I really like the art from Exalted... White Wolf tend to do pretty well with all their art, if it isn't overcome by EXTREME SPOOKINESS!

I'm too lazy to post examples, tho.

I only looked at the nWoD core book but I recall a lot of things that just looked like photos shot through grayscale and some photoshop filters... o.O

[The Rose Dragon]

I only looked at the nWoD core book but I recall a lot of things that just looked like photos shot through grayscale and some photoshop filters... o.O

That's the only example I can think of. Neither the oWoD books nor the Changeling books I own have such pictures.

[AstralFire]

That's the only example I can think of. Neither the oWoD books nor the Changeling books I own have such pictures.

That's very comforting to know, and I mean that non-sarcastically. I need to take another look at White Wolf's stuff. I just went over the core rulebook for nWoD for about a week when I was trying to familiarize myself with alternate mechanics for gaming as I developed Anteheroes.

[jmbrown]

I only looked at the nWoD core book but I recall a lot of things that just looked like photos shot through grayscale and some photoshop filters... o.O

New World is pretty lame and most fans can attest to that. They changed the flavor from gothic punk to straight up generic gothic and somewhere along there forgot to hire decent illustrators.

[WhiteHarness]

I like most things that aren't "Dungeonpunk." In particular, I like fantasy RPG art in which the armour, weapons, clothing, and buildings look like the real thing instead of some impractical, illogically asymmetrical and spiky product of some postmodern artist's imagination. I like it when the artists do their homework instead of just succumbing to "the rule of kewl." That's how pictures of armoured warriors with comically, unrealistically oversized shoulder-plates comes to be...

[Swordguy]

I like most things that aren't "Dungeonpunk." In particular, I like fantasy RPG art in which the armour, weapons, clothing, and buildings look like the real thing instead of some impractical, illosgically asymmetrical and spiky product of some postmodern artist's imagination. I like it when the artists do their homework.

All of that. I've found myself looking at armor in a LOT of RPG books and saying "they can't move their arms" because of the huge, oversized shoulders. "Spees Muhrines" have a similar reaction, for the record.

[AstralFire]

I like the rule of cool.

I can't stand Pauldron Marines. Or Spikes Make Everything Better.

[Zuki]

That's very comforting to know, and I mean that non-sarcastically. I need to take another look at White Wolf's stuff. I just went over the core rulebook for nWoD for about a week when I was trying to familiarize myself with alternate mechanics for gaming as I developed Anteheroes.

Exalted has different art direction than the nWoD line. There are a few artists that work in both, but you won't see the more cartoonish and manga-esque stuff in a Angsty Urban Horror Fantasy supplement, no.

...Admittedly, Exalted 2nd edition's art feels a bit...schizophrenic, to me. Several of its iconic illustration styles are very very different from eachother, and sometimes it feels like some of those artists should only be illustrating a few things. Ross Campell for weird exotic people with piercings, demons, and hell. Mellissa Uran for people looking pretty and exotic and a bit like calligraphy. That one other artist. So it kinda throws me off because I feel like some of the art is in a style I don't associate with the game at all, or a style I don't like. Other times, I really like what's being offered.

It also has totally different combat mechanics than nWoD, but that's a different kettle of fish and not a pretty visual.

[jmbrown]

Exalted's art ranges from flashy americanized anime stuff to straight up super hero thick-lines-big-muscles style. Schizophrenic is a good way to describe it because each picture is radically different from the last in style. The book is colorful and helps paint a picture of the world but I'm not a fan of the wide contrast in style.

[Terraoblivion]

The schizophrenic artstyle of Exalted is intentional, though. It is to allow the players to envision what is the true look of Creation on their own. Also i've noticed that there is some difference in who does what. You won't generally see the piercing guy draw a group of ordinary mortal peasants, while the more cartoonish artists rarely or never illustrate things pertaining to Malfeas and the Underworld. I am not saying it is a good call, just that there is an intentional reason behind it. And the artstyle i envision the setting in is generally Melissa Uran's slightly exotic looking people.

[Ashes]

New World is pretty lame and most fans can attest to that. They changed the flavor from gothic punk to straight up generic gothic and somewhere along there forgot to hire decent illustrators.

Generalization is bad. Everyone I know, who's bothered to look at nWoD with an open mind, prefers it to oWoD. Both mechanically and flavourwise.

To stay on topic, I really like the artwork in most of the Werewolf: the Forsaken books. It really captures that savage feel, that I think Werewolf should have.

On the other hand, Mage: the Awakening has some of the worst art I've ever seen. Especially the core book is crippled by this. The art is just painful.

[potatocubed]

Anima is a beautiful book. It's a shame the game feels so clunky and awful.

I second the Planescape art - Tony DiTerlizzi is the name you're looking for, who is also the artist behind the Spiderwick Chronicles.

[bosssmiley]

Saw in a Diterlizzi interview somewhere on the web (you google it, I can't be chewed) that if he were to re-do the Planescape art he'd have a lot more Albrecht Durer and Goya influences in it now: darker palette, more shading and linework, more detail.

As a HUGE Durer fan I have to say that I sigh for what might have been.

[Doc Roc]

I love anything from Iron Kingdoms\Horde\War Machine.

Planescape has a special place in my heart. It was the first time I looked at a fantasy world and felt like it was a distant and wondrous place. No sense of humans in funny suits, no feeling of complacency. Sigil felt beautiful, hypnotic, deadly.

Yoshitaka Amano is another stand-by of mine.

Thanks a LOT censoring protocols. God I hate this place sometimes.

[Mordokai]

Anima is a beautiful book. It's a shame the game feels so clunky and awful.

That it is. Also, too bad a lot of pictures are drawn like the target audience would be pre-pubescent teenagers. Not that I'm complaining, mind you, but some of the pictures in there are kinda... suggestive?

But all in all, I must agree with you, it is a beautifully illustrated book.

[Panda-s1]

This

I'm still upset they took it out of the revised edition of the PHB :/

[horus42]

One of my favorite pictures from an RPG book is from Promethean: The Created.

There's a picture of a Frankenstein monster fighting off a pack of werewolves with his own severed arm.

Awesome.