I so agree about crediting artists. We really deserve to be able to find and follow those artists that created our favorite pieces in the books. And they deserve recognition for the beauty they add to the game.
From what I have found Eberron Rising From The Last War is the only book to credit Artist on the same page as the art. (Edit) Explorer's Guid to Wildmount also credits it's artists on the page of their art pice.
@@jerubaal101 They still credit the artists at the front of the books so the only thing stopping people from highlighting the good ones is being too lazy to look them up and see which pieces they did.
You know what's worse? It's a tendency. Games Workshop has not been crediting individual artists NOR game designers on their latest releases using just the tag 'The Game Workshop Design Studio'. It's at least disrespectful.
It seems that in the previous editions, the Marilith had an extra weakness, in that it had to use at least one of its swords to cover its nipples at all times.
I like it when i dont have to point out something myself in comments.Thats absolutely what it is.And with this and especially things said at the videos beginning comes the loss of personality imo.
@@ILoveEvadingTax D&D has always been a bit of a pendulum. it started very much as a goofy tabletop game that eventually grew darker with new editions, books, and adventures. around 4th edition the pendulum started swinging back toward the lighthearted nature of first edition. i personally enjoy both, but i can definitely see how someone might prefer one over the other.
I get that sense from the gameplay of 5e as well. My friends and I need to throw what the book swears to be entirely insurmountable odds at the party for them to experience even the slightest challenge in victory. Even then, a party that has 1 half-capable healer will more or less never know hardship without the DM reaching in to make it worse, which isn't something you want to do. Even with a system like Battletech A Time of War that lets you create on hell of a bad-ass from the outset, regular combat is truly frightening. Bad decisions in DnD are inconsequential at best. A bad tactical move in something like Cyberpunk, or AToW will almost certainly get your character seriously injured, and maybe even killed if the bleeding can't be stopped in time. That expensive armor will only hold up to so many bullets, and one accurate burst from even a cheap SMG is enough to make two layers of high-end armor worth about three thousand C-Bills resemble a pre-distressed grunge rocker outfit worth about 30.
The great thing about this digital age of D&D is that I can search up and include any art from all over the internet in my games. Instead of relying on the art in the Monster manual to illustrate my games, I can include whatever scenes and depictions I fell best represent the image that I have in my head. Sometimes I even twist my games to better fit an amazing piece of art that I've found.
I think there's been a lot of times I look to fanart to capture ambience and tone, with the most recent example looking up a 'Lernaean Hydra' on Google images... Just really great stuff!
Some of the 3e artists were really great. A big part of what I'm missing in 5e is the environment. They are all floating in nothingness. That makes it really hard to give weight and atmosphere. Sam Wood, Wayne Reynolds, Todd Lockwood, Larry Elmore. - Artists I just know the name of because their art was recognizable and credited. That Ravenloft piece is amazing.
Yesterday my girlfriend bought me a 1988 AD&D Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide, and the black-and-White art is some of the most wonderfully inspiring fantasy fodder I’ve seen. It made me feel the way I did as a kid reading fantasy novels and imagining the vastness and ancient nature of the world. My favourite is a small, half page illustration of an enormous cavern, its roof supported by a towering column of natural stone in the distance, filled with an underground sea. There are a few sailboats in the water, but the foreground is a large gondola, carried along a guide wire suspended from massive poles that emerge from the waters. What? This implies so many things, and it makes me want to tell a story right then and there. The old D&D books are so full of this old-school nerdy art. I love it so much.
I also loved that illustration. I can see it now. I dm so many underground rivers just because of the feeling of claustrophobic fear and wide adventure those pictures inspired
5e art is showcasing the monster in an analytical scope Older art is showcasing the monster from a...well...monstrous scope. Not a case study, a menace
@@DeusBelli1 Yes, like someone was actually learning about these creatures in the world and sketching them out, but those illustrations were tainted by the researcher's own fear, and the fear that was carried through the second-hand accounts they were gathering.
@@snoot6629 They pay $100 per art piece? That's... Wow, D&D makes so much money and doesn't even credit them except at the end of the book (and only sometimes)
The real issue, IMO is that the new stuff has no action in it. It's just stuff standing there. The older pieces you show feel as though the characters are doing something. The new ones they look like they are just standing there having their portraits painted.
For me, my biggest issue with 5e art is the (entirely understandable) "house style" that carries through all of their products. My understanding is that WotC has a style guide that each commissioned artist is to follow for each work. The end result is an edition, for all its championing of other kinds of diversity, without any artistic diversity. I would argue that contributes to a uniformity in play styles in new players, but I digress. I would prefer for each new book to have its own artist or two who would be free to develop their own style for that book.
The reason why the older art looks better is cause it has a more dynamic line of action, it's basically a line that guides the eye of the through the page and the artwork, the older stuff has more movement to it, the 5e stuff is very still, like it's part of an anatomy book, and it's actually rather boring to look at, cause the monsters are just standing there, just my 2 cents after 15 years of being an artist.
That but I also would say many of the new designs are really bland/oversimplified and many also look cartoony it looks like they belong in some kids show and not a dangerous fantasy world
I think you really nailed it. Especially with the portrayal of undead, i feel like the art is missing "character". It doesnt really convey the emotions of the subject like say pride or a sense of superiority or authority. I am reminded of something the game director of dark souls said to one of the artists who was working on the art for an undead dragon. He would stress that the art should still convey the pride and the majestic nature of a dragon , even though it was now reduced to a desiccated corpse.
@@goolabbolshevish1t651 not quite, you can get literally the same result with either, since digital tools can emulate ink and brushes, but it is undeniable that the older artists where on a league of their own, when compared to the modern artwork.
@@TheWall96 it's not terrible, just the older hand drawn stuff felt like they put allot more effort into it. Especially with the settings and background, really gave the feeling of "this is where and how this stuff lives and what it does"
For me Tony Diterlizzi work on the Planescape setting and Brom on Dark Sun are by far the best artwork in D&D, they both are instantly recognizable and very unique.
@@esperthebard Well get on it man! I can't think of artists that have defined an entire setting with just the art like Diterlizzi did. You see his art you automatically think of Sigil. That's a pinnacle of achievement.
And Brom's work on Dark Sun brought the setting into far more focus than anything else did. You saw his work and that's what pulled you in. The artist sells the setting.
"Safe and distilled" is a fitting summery of the D&D franchise overall now. What first drew me into the D&D universe as a player was that sense of danger I got from both my Dungeon Master's DMing skills and the "visual aid" provided by some of the early art works he'd let me peek at every now and then. (this was of course before I invested heavily in my own books). Going into each new session with lingering dread that my Hexblade might get impaled, acid-burned then eaten by some abhorrent monstrosity at any moment because I decided to go for a romantic walk at night was what honed me as a player. Now as as a DM, although I don't doubt my skills as a story teller it still feels more and more like I am simply narrating a cartoon universe. This is not to say the new art is bad. Just....different.
God forbid they show sideboob in the new edition, the artwork was heavily censored in my opinion, after all we had recently MTG artis Lizbeth Eden fired for making card illustrations too sexy.
@@RIlianP That was absolutely scummy. But the 5E art is actually pretty damn good when its not trying to shove diverse dwarfs and noms at your face. It just seems like a trend to draw those types of characters in unflattering ways to bait people because other characters look great. If you want to see something more gritty have your game shop order Midgar books. Its a third party setting for 5E thats has extremely bulky war and adult themes. Kobold Press is the publisher.
@@Rasengan9000ttt Hm, never commented on the quality of the art it self as I find it palatable with few very bland exceptions that just didn't do it for me but it is a matter of taste. My comment is more to point out that they had, probably, strict criteria on character forms, poses etc and did not allow the artist to be really creative and rejected anything outside of their list, shame really. My favorite artists are Luis Royo, Boris Vallejo, Frank Franzetta and I own physical albums with illustrations from them.
Why i switched to OSR games, there's no danger or excitement in D&D anymore, they have made the game safe and cozy so it's nearly impossible to lose a character, so i'm not scared of what's behind that door because i know i'll awlays win.
@@LordSathar Yup. I equate this to the video game industry. In the 80's arcade days most games didn't have a continue option. If you died, you died and the game ended. You had to start over. Then the "add another quarter to continue" option came to be amd gaming degraded from that point on to me. The skill was gone. The games got prettier but they lost some spice. D&D art is the same. Less spice, more cafeteria food flavour.
The DnD art from first and second edition is amazing! Keith Parkinson, Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, Brom, Clyde Caldwell etc! That's art made with love and it all tells a story. It's rough and beautiful! In my opinion it beats 3rd, 4th and 5th. Great video Esper.
5e feels sterilized. Past art feels otherworldly, like it takes place in a realm governed by laws unlike our own. The kind of place you escape to, not project upon.
Sterilized?! I'd say Disneied Back then, Liches were praticlly demons, a menace to be feared represented by its gory aspect, decaded flesh and dead eyes. Now its a Marvel Vilain....
"escape to, not project upon" is the perfect phrase for what fantasy should be. I want to escape _from_ 5e. It feels gross and not in a good, interesting artistic way - more like spoiled milk.
I noticed that a lot of the 5th edition monsters looked a lot more solidly human. I certainly prefer the more alien looking humanoid monsters to the more typical human like art.
I think the difference that really comes between the modern and the older art, is that the game is played quite differently. I feel like older D&D adventurers were fairly grounded professions, doing high risks jobs for a chance at freedom from the mundane life of a peasant. Now it's more like a fun romp out into the wilderness that literally anyone can do, so sure bring your inept wizard, your emaciated barbarian, your blase paladin, its about the story we tell and whatever we want to do. I'm not saying we need to go back to the wargamming DM vs Player, but I think the core idea of the game has shifted to something less grounded in the hard working background of original D&D. Sure eventually you got to be heroes (or villains if you so desired), but you started really small and you stayed that way a long time. The Dragonslayers might be the most ideal version of what I want my D&D to feel like. It's like a crew of fishermen showing off their largest catch. They're really celebrating killing a little dragon whelp instead of going and looting its cave and running off to find the next story beat or thing to kill.
I mean, in the end now its just open to what you want to do. Its said goodbye to the thematic restriction. I have a group of happy go lucky misfits, going out in the world and stumbling across one or the other quest to solve. For the other group I built a gritty, harsh setting where their characters choice was monster hunting or starvation. Both valid, both a lot of fun, for entirely different reasons.
same, also don’t like that now every second NPC from any generic town, it turns out, has magical powers. And not in terms of "abstract magic", which is essentially a metaphor, but just a list of the caster's abilities from the guidebook
I have ann immense affection for the art of rpgs in the 70s and 80s. They feel like either muralls you'd find on castle and temple roofs, or sketches you'd find in the notebooks of someone with no tools besides a pen and paper.
16:45 - this is when we realize that having beautiful backgrounds makes a big difference. Why, why why, does 5e now insist on the blank white and coffee stain backgrounds when you have AMAZING artwork like this? As a graphic designer, I understand white space and fitting text into format. But there is a way, when and WHERE to do that. Not on every single page, just to seem consistent. Ok, I will shut up now :) Thank you again for all of your videos!
@@WickedNPC Thanks for responding. I do realize that, but I was speaking specifically about the major portion of the MM book artwork. And even those spread art pages are not as good as the older editions, as Esper's primary point was.
@@darklightstudio I see, Esper was talking about the spread art in general so I assume you were as well. I would not be good judge of the MM since as a player only, I have barely looked through it. Although the heavy focus on single isolated monsters makes a whole lot of sense. They can easily be lifted out and reused in a different contexts. As tactical tokens, as player handouts, as licensed 3d party producs and so forth. If the old spread art is better seem like a matter of personal preference. I'm actually not very fond of Larry Elmores art and I have 0 nostalgia for it
I highly recommend checking out the Swedish-Chilean artist Alvaro Tapia. His art for the venerable Swedish RPG Drakar och Demoner (Trudvang Chronicles) is absolutely amazing. His paintings and sketches represent the penultimate fantasy art style for me.
@@esperthebard Absolutely! The game is heavily inspired by the Norse sagas and Swedish folklore that has been put through the lens of the Swedish classical painter John Bauer, which I highly recommend checking out.
@@philleW12 It's the X-tenth edition of Drakar och Demoner before they dropped that and went just with Trudvang and now they're making a board game and adapting their RPD setting to 5e and yes Alvaro Tapia is awesome and the dark celtic and viking fantasy of Trudvang is beautifully dark (though its prior system mechanisms have been uninspiring).
I could be wrong, I don't know anything about art or being an artist, but I suspect that some of it comes down to what has influenced the current generation of artists (and art directors). If you think about an artist working at the turn of the millennium on 3e, they were born in the early 80s at the latest, grew up with pulp fantasy book covers from the 70's and 80's and probably had their artistic style mostly nailed down by the late 90's. Thinking about the fantasy art styles I was exposed to as someone of that generation, Warner Brothers, Hanna Barbera, Looney Tunes, Marvel Comics, Disney, Tokien illustrations etc. I remember when I first saw Akira and Ghost in the Shell how mindblowing it was to see what a cartoon could be. The video games I grew up with had 8 bit graphics. Myst was jaw dropping when it came out. It made the news that Lara Croft had 3d boobs. Looking at people who have grown up since then, they have much more access to a wider variety of styles, DeviantArt exists, 3D graphics have improved, cartoons and comics and fantasy art now come from all over the world, photoshop has now become as fundamental to many people's skillset as word processing was 25 years ago. I suspect that's why you're seeing a lot more sort of "Digital Anime Video Game" style to the current art.
I love the Larry Elmore art and that old school style. It's simple, the armor is more inspired by actual medieval art (I despise the giant pauldron, three-inch thick armor that WOW popularized). I also like the comic-book style art, kind of Bernie Wrightson-inspired stuff. I used to pore over the old DnD books. I've still never actually played.
The crazy thing is the difference between cinematic art style and in-game art style. . . Tauren, wearing their tribal trappings and wielding their war totems, looks absolutely dope. . . in game, a tauren just dresses up like every other race of their class . . .
@@phillipelliott3372 And yet Warhammer has really damn realistic armour for its humans and is far less bulky than WoW. Blizzard basically made their own art style.
Yeah for sure. The character art was really stylized and his wide mural-esque pieces he did for sourcebooks were really great ways to open a book. He went to Pathfinder, guess it's too late to bring him back to 5e
@@willwaller657 The Pathfinder art in 1st Edition was truly excellent, especially in some of the hardcover books (Inner Sea Gods is still some of the best art work I've seen in any setting, hands down) and a lot of that was thanks to Wayne. I've not been impressed by the 2E art, however, and I'm not sure if that's due to Wayne's influence or not. Just compare the iconic barbarian Amiri in 1st Edition vs 2nd Edition. Yeah, there is supposed to be some "lore" behind the change, but you see the same loss in quality in the other iconics as well. I just like the 1E stuff better, just a superior style, in my opinion....
Thanks, this was really interesting. As an "old school" gamer, I agree with you. My favourite D&D artist, bar none, is Stephen Fabian, who always seems to get forgotten, but he did loads of 2E Dragonlance, Ravenloft, and Mystara art, and I love his style. It's like no other D&D art since and has this dreamy, vision-like quality.
You noted Wayne Reynolds being busy with MtG, but you didn’t mention that he did *all* the iconic character art (and a bunch more) for Pathfinder 1e and 2e. His work is the *official* aesthetic for Pathfinder, and that’s one of the many reasons I love it!
Yea I never really looked into Pathfinder until I started to hear the buzz around 2nd edition, but I gotta say I love the 2e art. I always felt the 1e art was too 'busy' (to many tiny distracting details) but it really does have a unique aesthetic. I was unaware that one of the greats of fantasy art - Wayne Reynolds - was the one behind it. :)
my issue with the old firbolg art is that they basically just look like big human wild-folk, the 5e art makes them look different and a little more interesting
Ironically, the reason they look like bug human wild-folk is because they are an appropriated creature of Irish Mythology, like many things are in D&D. They are just people and came before the Tuatha Dé Danann. But D&D has mostly stolen and filed the serial numbers off of these things for the way their names sound and nothing else. It annoys me no end they're cutesy cow people now.
@@Amrylin1337 oh I'm well aware of their origins as the Fír bolg, and yeah they got nicked from Irish folk-lore, but honestly, I'd rather our lore was out there in some form or another rather thsn just vanishing into obscurity. I'd prefer if the bits of lore were closer in DnD to the folk stories, but they're not, and as they are, they fit better into the D&D setting
@@MrDinmaker Well, I recognize that this is 100% a personal opinion and a hot take for many, but D&D doesn't have a strong Setting. Whichever one becomes a flagship (Forgotten Realms for 5th) is always just as weak alone as the disparate 1st party choices are themselves. It's all Kitchen-Sink Fantasy. A melange of shit taking from everywhere with no cohesion. Sure, Eberron has magic elevators and airships but the same creatures get jammed into that place as do Greyhawk. I played WoTC products when I was 10 and first starting and I never will again for these reasons.
You mirrored my thoughts exactly! 5E looks so polished and clean for the most part. And as you said, everything is shown in a similar fashion. This can be seen in modern crpg's as well. Every single thing has to be shinning. Even at night, there would be all sorts of lights beaming everywhere. Spells will be over the top colorful and portraits would look like they were pulled out of a children's book.
Probably, my biggest gripe with 5E's "art style" is that it is a jumble of anything that somebody thought could be considered cool for as many people as possible. It never had an identity, it's not something you can't mistake for another franchise. Instead, it's bland and generic.
hmm, I tried to Google Image it, it says it's showing me results...where? I tried printing it thinking maybe it'd show up as a Watermark. Nope. How do I find it?
@@NoActuallyGo-KCUF-Yourself hmm, I tried to Google Image it, it says it's showing me results...where? I tried printing it thinking maybe it'd show up as a Watermark. Nope. How do I find it?
The size of the hanging dragon in "Dragon Slayers" is more like how the legends of dragons where depicted in real life. I like the really immense dragons too but this has more credibility I think.
If they do this to my boy Dark Sun, I'm not going too be happy. That thing is built for extremely hard-core art, anything less doesn't do the edge justice
the examples shown really have that 'modern concept art' look, whereas the older artpieces had the freedom to move into illustration territory, with less emphasis on showing every detail and more on character, mood, storytelling. And that 'everything has to look more "realistic"' thingy is just whats in today, its rare to see more unexpected and exotic designs
I feel like 5e art looks a lot more kid friendly kind of, as opposed to older editions which went all out. Even the nymph is a lot cleaner in 5e where as older editions had a seductiveness to it and I think even showed her breasts which makes sense for a nymph. The creepy gory monsters feel more cleaned up. Yeah the frog thing has an arm in its mouth but the older stuff hit you in the primal fear and makes you truly fear it.
I think one of the other issues is that it is trying to be... realistic. Take gargoyle for example, in older editions, it has teeth jutting outwards and comically large ears/horns, and it looks more lean than strong. In the 5e however it is more bulky. Like a real animal in a way. It is more "realistic" so its body is bulky. It has lips. That kind of stuff. It is also standing in a more "normal" stance instead of the "rock cover" aesthetic of the other gargoyle Marelith fits this too. But yes they are all made to be less scary. They arent making you go "oh this is a really strong and scary monster" its just "monster". Like the different blights and the hag. They look like "a monster" not "you should run away if you can". The 5e twig blight is a child I would probably chase and pat its head if I saw on the forest. Older twig blight would have me running away. Which is what is supposed to be. They are MONSTERS that common folk should be terrified of. If I, the non-monster-hunting person playing dnd, am notstartled why would the bartender or the townsfolk be scared of them
deniz-usta Gedik Except gargoyles are made of solid rock they don’t have to look like a real animal they just have to look like something that will keep its self together wall made of solid stone which is most things
@@charlottewalnut3118 Yes I know but Gargoyle is just an example to describe the "reasoning". The one I gave because the Gargoyle was just on the vid while I typed that comment.
deniz-usta Gedik Secondarily the ruining devils and demons by making them look pretty much the same I can’t tell the difference between which ones are supposed to be which any more devils are supposed to be somewhat humanoid I should be able to tell just by looking at it which is which
Thank you so much for making this video. As a professional illustrator, working in the table top games industry, it's always so disappointing when I see all the numerous unboxing and review videos of TTRPGs, where even in cases where the excellence of the art is commented on, the artists themselves are so rarely credited, and _never_ is the extra effort taken on the author's part to search for and link to an artist's portfolio. it's especially discouraging, because it is the function of the art/artist to get you to want to pick this book over that book up in the "shop" in the first place, and we typically work really hard to capture the spirit of the game you're considering investing your time and money. we live in an age, where it's just a given that if you put art online, someone somewhere is gonna freely use your work in their Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, RUclips Class/Lore video, but the majority don't consider crediting, notifying or even msging the artist to let em know you've inspired them. so thanks, and keep _this_ up!
In most cases you shown I do prefer the 3e versions. That dark tones feels like old HQ and ilustrations that I love. I have to agree about the backgrounds.It had so much storytelling and just looking at the pictures my Imagination starts to pop so many stories and adventures.
Clyde Caldwell, Larry Elmore, Keith Parkinson Jeff Easley, Dave Sutherland, Tim Truman and others were the original crew of TSR's art department. They'll always be the best to me Larry Elmore is the best artist. He has many epic pieces, including the Red Dtagon from the Red Box art work. None of the new artists really catch my eye.
Larry Elmore is my favorite too. I feel he had a very clean classic style. The reason why I read stated reading Dragonlance was that I really like the cover art of the Chronicles Series. I feel that artwork today just overly complicated.
@@RocKnight11 I love Elmore, and love the Red Box piece, but he is NOT good at designing dragons. They never looked like they had believable musculature or skeletal structure (horns just stuck on randomly).
@Springheel01 I agree that Elmore's dragon designs do leave something to be desired. I don't think TSR had a commented look for it's dragons at that time (3rd edition has the best dragon designs). However I feel he was one of the best in the business in designing characters/heroes of the books.
The thing with 5e is that it's literally styled to be like someone drawing the creatures in a journal. If a monster would be pissed or something like that the theoretical artist would not stick around. So they would be drawing the creature while it is unaware and neutral. While the older art is like someone is just making a styled picture of the creature which is cool but if they wanted to kind of act like it is a journal they wouldn't really work.
Wow, i never really paid attention to these details. I just see fantasy art and like it. Not much of a critic myself, but now that you brought these up, I agree. The bug bear example is probably my favorite.
From watching, what I can gather is that you really like high contrast between light and dark. Most of your beef with the 5e art is with ones that are mostly created with very little dark-dark areas and very few light-light areas. Then when you cut to an older version that you prefer, it is usually high contrast with intense shadows and/or bright highlights. I think that is really valid, high contrast makes a piece dynamic, while low contrast makes it look flat and bland. This really shows on the gargoyle.
And you got to remember if you see any coming nudity cuz it's so popular if parents do see it they will say no now and they were bitching complain about it
There is nothing wrong with no nudity, or clevery covering it up. Makes it more accessible because YES, parents should be allowed to be wary of that kind of content. We, as adults, can know that they may not wear clothes and we can work that into games if we want. No point in it being explicit.
@@sebluthy2300 If it seems like a bad thing I wasn't trying to but I agree with you there but still everyone so sensitive to everything everybody else especially when it comes to artists it's really stupid I am 3D adult artists in adult shows Especially when it comes to Twitter you'll be praised or at the guillotine and they'll probably bitching whine and Mona talk about where are her organs sometimes I just want to 3D model something sexy for men and women
My absolute favorite video from you Esper. There was certainly something lost when fantasy art moved from physical to digital. Not that digital art can't be good, just that it can never reach those highs. I got my start with the 1983 red box, and I don't know how many hours I spent staring at the box art, or some of the fantastic classic ink inside. But probably my favorite piece of D&D art were the plates that came with the 2nd edition Monstrous Compendium line. these books came in binders, so you can constantly update, organize and add to them. Each one came with several beautiful full color illustrations that are now some of the most iconic D&D art ever... several of which are in your video (such as the original Strahd portrait). My absolute favorite D&D art of all time isn't the most complex, color rich or intricate artwork, it's a simple snow-swept mountainside with a lone warrior facing off against a huge ogre. It's featured in the Monstrous Compendium 2 and is by Daniel horne.
I didn't thought that I would watch a video of 40 minutes but.... I watched it all and I payed attention! You covered exactly how I feel about modern fantasy art and you find the perfect words to describe it (that I was really missing) and you helped me to understand a bit better what is what I like and what art I want in my book. Also, a great example of of how the art of older editions lost its greatness, is Bahamut and more specifically, his human form. Look how the 2e Gandalf-like Fizban was looking and how the soccer player-like grand master of flowers is looking.
Lord Soth was originally a character for Dragonlance, and then later ended up in Ravenloft too. I'm pretty sure, but could be wrong, that Lord Soth's Charge was actually a Dragonlance artwork. Really appreciated this video, the art in 5e, is one of my bigger let downs. I've never quite been able to articulate why that is, you do a very good job of explaining some of my issues. Thank you.
14:00 personally, I'd be more inclined to utilise all 3 of these designs for different variations of the carrion crawler. Use the 5e form with a lower cr (maybe 1/4-1/2) for a younger crawler or hatchling. Give it a weaker bite attack poison and remove the tentacle attack. Alsop's could be used as a cr 1 juvenile. Keep the weaker poison effect but now give it the tentacles attack. And Griffith's could be the mature cr 2 form with full stats from the book.
When I think of my favourite D&D setting, Eberron, I think Wayne Reynolds. It's what made Pathfinder, at least aesthetically, attractive to me and why 5th edition feels hollow without him.
My favourite artwork of a marilith actually comes from a Nintendo power magazine from the 90s regarding marilith’s depiction in the final fantasy series. Something about it looks wily but disciplined, I don’t know how to explain it.
I think a big part of it is the poses/what the monsters are doing In your examples Most of the monsters are doing something that they would normally do The best comparison I can make is like looking a games bestiary or compendium(5e) vs a dnd description painted or drawn
I feel you, literaly the same thing happened to warhammer. It just lost it's identity, it's no longer "in the grim darkness of far future...", everything became so sterile.
I think the problem is corporation always hunting for the holy growth Maybe a gritty style with soul is for a sub culture, cgi boring is mainstream Not so much money in just a dedicated sub culture
Well a lot of stuff from the older editions was pretty racist or sexist. e.g. all of oldschool Chult, which from what I understand was a really poor vision of a fantasy Africa, built on nothing but stereotypes. When it's not stereotypes substituting for research or believable cultures, it's just a general sense of exclusivity. A classic one to bring up is the fact that in every generic fantasy world there is never characters with dark or brown skin. All humans are white, so are dwarves, elves, etc. It's all european fantasy, folklore, and culture, etc. Despite the thought that DnD was a game for pasty nerds being a stereotype, it really feels like that's the only kind of person those old editions ever appeal to. I like that 5e throws all that away in favor of diversity, and while there is always a stigma of hyper-sensitivity when it comes to topics of inclusiveness and diversity, they aren't just buzzwords here, I feel like they're necessary. Without the streamlining and broader appeal, DnD would not have seen such a big renaissance, and in a game about adventure, exploration, and world building, you're going to need a world that actually feels like a _world_ and not just Europe. We already have a billion stories based on medieval European culture, we could definitely use the diversity, there's nothing "SJW" about that imo.
I agree so much with this video. Except on the oni. I vastly prefer how creepy and evil the 5e oni looks. One art piece in 5e that I consider one of the worst is the Canoloth in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. It just looks so faded and featureless, and the worst of all its tongue looks like a rubber toy! That daemonic doggo looked much better in 3.5 and 4e. Also funny how you say that some of the off-putting art in 5e looks rather "anime", since I think hiring a Japanese artist could actually breathe new life and actual diversity into the artwork. I would love to buy an RPG book illustrated by the likes of Yoshitaka Amane, Kentaro Miura, Ayami Kojima, or Keita Amemiya.
5e Oni does have the best face/expression. Other than that its just a blue man wearing pants. If Junji Ito made a mini monster manuel that'd be amazing. Though I'd argue that it should just be an art book, with writing on how the things act. Maybe some ability ideas.
I think if the 4 and 5 Edition Oni can be in a Japanese style campaign where the 4 is more of tactics in battle while 5e is a nightmare come to life at a festival that had light cuts of then you found a dead body with scratches to fight best at night
Hey, if you're going to criticize Bethesda's writing for their first game, yanking Morrowind from a recent novel is barely a dripping on the tip of an iceburg. Boeotia is a real place in Greece. The divines are named for forum posters. "Bretons." They were a sports game company trying their hand at turning their D&D campaign into a fighting game. They didn't think it was worth putting much thought into it.
This was a delightful tour through old and new dnd art. Even though it was a little bit critical of 5e art, it never felt like 5e was put down so much as used as a foil to celebrate how transcendent some of the older art was. Very well done. Excuse me while I go buy a dnd art book now...
The Oni sword is a Chinese Daodao(translation:"big/long knife") and its the equivalent of a messer/falchion, just worst as it doesn't have a point to thrust its a solely slashing weapon, pretty much useless against anyone with any type of significant armor.
Love Elmore. More than any artist he got me playing DnD and reading novels based on the worlds. But I think Brom is a big omission. I know he didn't do a ton of stuff, but the Dark Sun setting flavour is almost solely down to him, and some of his Dragonlance stuff is fantastic too.
I appreciate this video so much, thanks a lot for your effort!! Please make more videos about the old school full fantasy d&d paintings, more people need to know about them!
2nd ed. carrion crawler was basically the same as 1st and 5th, but better (imho). I had never seen the 3rd or 4th ed artworks that he showed before. Those were no sort of carrion crawler I had ever seen.
Wayne Reynolds is a legend, and his art in the monster manual three was so alluring, so evocative, that it drew me in to D&D 3.5 when I had no intention of playing before I opened that book
I've seen the same thing happening with the art in WH40K. A lot of the art is digitized with a low effort-feel that lacks the detail and character of earlier versions, and is also missing credit to the artist. Its a real shame that you end up just glancing over, or flat out ignoring, the art of a universe where it used to be one of its most important aspects. Strangely I've gotten a lot more appreciation for old school fantasy art as I'm getting older, whereas I didn't particularly like it when I was younger. You'd think it would be a nostalgia thing, but maybe om just bored of the modern style we se everywhere.
The old art for 40k was epic, it was the definition of epic. But that comic they wanna do in collab with marvel is just retarded, the new logo is disgusting and generaly the stuff they make for kids is very, very bland.
No you're right the older style just has so much more character. Look at that marine in your profile picture, they'd never create something like that nowadays and it's a real shame. compared to that the modern stuff just looks bland and mass produced.
@@00784865 I find it kinda sad that they're creating a kid friendly version of the hobby. The dark and adult art and style was one of the main reasons that I got interested in the universe as a kid and now the younger generations will miss out on that.
I LOVE that 80s and early 90s swords and sorcery art! It's so wonderous. You can't help but look at every details of the characters and all the detail of the landscape and just let you imagination run wild. Modern art just doesn't capture that wonder anymore. Everything is so flashy and cartoony and without that almost medieval realism it loses it's sense of wonder and becomes bland. It's like artists have no imagination anymore and they are just trying to capture what ever style is 'in' at the moment which makes it look as boring as everything else.
The 5e art isn’t bad for the most part, it’s just kind of forgettable. It doesn’t compare to that older great Larry Elmore art popped off of the covers of the box set or the Brom art that drew you into the world of Dark Sun.
Yep The issue is just the sheer variety of different things that they show and give players to use - not the diversity of types within the options available
You slighted the pathfinder goblin... heresy I say! HERESY! Paizo took a standard monster trope and spiced it up with character and made it their own! Still good content though.
Just wanted to pop in that the new halfling profile is the result of several online polls as they iterated through designs so that you could visually identify a halfling from elves or humans easily. They realized that the only way to show a halfling was a halfling was to include them with a background or other elements to illustrate their heights. So, they decided to utilize a trick that we associate the larger head size/smaller body size to basically child size. So, you can very clearly tell a halfling is a halfling. It might be worthwhile to go back and check some of the other options they ideated upon, but they chose the final look after presentation and polling of multiple variants.
So i stumbled onto this video by accident, never had seen your channel before... but from this video i am so impressed. Really ejoyed this as an artist and DND fan. You have earned yourself a subscriber and I have earned my self quality content. Thank you Sir.
2nd Edition has always been my favorite as far as Artwork is concerned. Maybe also partly because it's the first version that I really started playing. Though I did love some of the covers of the 1st Edition books. Wasted a lot of time at book stores checking out those books.
Watching the video I notice that you prefer monsters that have a reference setting. Almost all the ones you prefer, the monster is placed in a setting that gives you indications to its size which is huge for imagination and also what it is doing which makes you think something about the monster.
David Alsop's work on SLA industries is some of my favourite art. I know that he did some work for wizards a while ago. Looking forward to sifting through my library to find some of his stuff.
I feel like that’s kind of the theme of 5e. It’s a much more bare-bones style of gameplay that’s meant to be easy to get into and project your own ideas upon. It’s very beginner friendly and customizable, but on the flip side, this makes it less in-depth in general.
I've had a few videos of yours crop up in my recommended feed, every last one of them seems to be you complaining about how 5e d&d is abominable and that everything back in the olden days. You may have valid points, I tried one game of 4e back at uni and it put me off because the DM expected a group of newbies to have an in depth understanding of the world he chose and the system was so dependant on powers with varying levels of usability. It's only with 5e being accessible and finding a group that was willing to work with me to understand what I'm doing that I've been able to get into the game that I have been interested in for so long. Like I said you may have points, but it's only the accessibility of the newest edition of the game that allows people like me, who didn't grow up with the game and were actively discouraged from pursuing it by parents to find that sense of belonging and fun in the game.
Yeah, 5e is designed to be newbie friendly. The cool thing about having some folks in your game with knowledge of older editions is that you can considering doing some homebrew stuff to inject some of the flavor of the older editions back into the game.
I agree... there’s too much negativity towards 5e in these videos. We can each appreciate the edition of the game that we like the most, without putting down the others... it’s so disrespectful to all the work people did to make 5e so accessible, and all the fun people have with it, only because they found it so much easier to jump into
I see a lot of your points; it feels like from 4th edition it got a lot more inspired by Warcraft's stylizations, which adds unneeded strain to the suspension of disbelief One of the things I really missed from 3.5 (my first edition) was the feeling of "this is a document depicting the world; here, have a cohesive height chart to understand the proportional differences between the different 'races', or generic skull comparisons to better give clues as to how the holotypical half-orc differs from a dwarf or an elf, or what about a decent layout of equipment so you can see what -we're- thinking off when we describe it" There's a lot of good lore and depictions and I feel with the 5th edition (which i started on proper when it came out in 2014) didn't put the important lore on the forefront; it didn't give the necessary handholds for understanding what a already diverse settings the forgotten realms etc already were. for example, people complained about orcs being relegated to the stereotype of roving barbarians, when there already exists settlements here and there where full-blooded orcs have settled peacefully as traders! Now there's a bunch of problematic depictions when it comes to the more interesting lore; for example Zakharan Ogres who went about their lives interacting with society like any of the common humanoids would usually do, distancing themselves from their slightly more feral and unruly cousins in the north, and The Ogrima (zakharan half-ogre/half-oni) who were seen as Evil by the Zakharan ogres. The depictions of them that I could find paint them like a quite racist caricature of a vaguely middle-eastern person. There's a bunch of tradeoffs in the new art directions, and I find a lot of the Rooted feeling of 3.5 and aspects of other editions has... moved a bit. It feels Different, and while there is a ton of absolutely amazing art in the newest edition, and there's a bunch of the older artwork I look upon as "well, heh, that was certainly a sign of who was in charge at the time" in a negative way, in general what I've seen feels like it is overall improving. Kinda wish they'd set up some more lore for why the firbolgs changed so much; the headcanons I've seen around are that they had such a strong connection to fae that it changed them. Though digging into the firbolg lore I really wish they'd have a version of them left that let you encounter the big hulking chaotic good giantkin. Maybe even subdivide them into different archetypes. And I understand the reservation from letting players actually play Large characters for the sake of Balance, but that was kind of what was fun about the 3.5; in some cases, imbalance is what creates the fun. Visuals do a lot for world build; a good image can better describe what a thousand words could not. And the visual development of dnd has had a lot undirected but fullhearted paths. I just feel the current edition's tendency towards concentrating on one area and not comprehensively summing up the rest of the different settings on Toril is... well.. really frustrating, leaving a lot of new DMs and players at a kind of loss and having to draw upon their own visual and narrative frameworks; often from videogames like WoW or final fantasy, or shows like Game of Thrones or The witcher. Perfectly valid, but it's going to not have as much cohesiveness when one comes as a Westerosi Knight, another a big bulky dwarf, and a third an almost Baroque/Art Nuveau Elf Anyway, 5e art does a lot but in a lot of cases feels like random pinterest art slapped into a campaign than a depiction of what is actually in the world. /rant (take it all with a grain of salt as it's mostly and outpouring of thoughts) Looking forward to the video on the positives of the 5e art! Might go on a rant about the positives as well!
Well, I think you have to keep in mind that the 5e Firbolg is basically a different creature than the earlier Firbolg. Personaly I am a big fan of the Feybolg theory, that the earlier edition Firbolgs searched refuge in the Feywild, only to return altered.
My favorite D&D illustrations are often Tony DiTerlizzi's work in 2nd edition. They often make me feel like a kid in a fairy tale who has to muster the courage to face great dangers.
When talking about goblins I cannot pass on their Pathfinder rendition. While PF shifted a lot with hobgoblin art (and now stopped at goblins stretched out to human proportions), goblins are Pathfinder's mascot and trademark. Tiny noses, sideways ears and those wide toothy maws on American football-shaped head. It can look endearing and whimsical in one light, or savage and cruel in other - fitting for manic, child-like but dangerous humanoids PF goblins are. And, in general, PF art also deserves a talk.
I have to agree. Pathfinder art, with Wayne Reynolds leading the way, is by far the best fantasy art for these games right now. I do love Trudvang art for its richness and style and also the art of Symbaroum is very atmospheric, but pathfinder first edition is the most solid art so far.
I miss this old art so much. I'm glad you mentioned Keith Parkinson, because I've been a longtime player of EverQuest, and his work for the game is something I'm very fond of. It's hard for me to articulate what I don't like about modern D&D and M:tG art as well. Sterile and Safe and lack of personality is spot on. There's a comic channel I'm subbed to, and they've mentioned the difference between work that Jim Lee did for his creator owned books, versus what he did for a paycheck. A lot of modern fantasy art seems like that. It's certainly good, it's certainly talented, and these artists have far more skill than I can ever imagine having, but it looks like they did it to pay the rent, whereas the older art looks like they were trying to create something.
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I so agree about crediting artists. We really deserve to be able to find and follow those artists that created our favorite pieces in the books. And they deserve recognition for the beauty they add to the game.
From what I have found Eberron Rising From The Last War is the only book to credit Artist on the same page as the art.
(Edit)
Explorer's Guid to Wildmount also credits it's artists on the page of their art pice.
My tin-foil hat theory about that is so we can't start pointing out great artists and terrible artists, in keeping with the anti-consumer sentiment.
@@jerubaal101 They still credit the artists at the front of the books so the only thing stopping people from highlighting the good ones is being too lazy to look them up and see which pieces they did.
You know what's worse? It's a tendency. Games Workshop has not been crediting individual artists NOR game designers on their latest releases using just the tag 'The Game Workshop Design Studio'. It's at least disrespectful.
@@TheOneHoddToward Yeah, that's pretty shitty unless they've got full time artists and don't rely on comissioning people to do pieces for them.
It seems that in the previous editions, the Marilith had an extra weakness, in that it had to use at least one of its swords to cover its nipples at all times.
Not in A&D. Swords up, nips out!
@@warlockEd73 I want that on a coffee mug.
@@PrettyGuardian It would not be hard to get the AD&D Merilith art, add a caption "Swords Up, Nips Out!" and put it on a coffee mug.
she still has a weakness
now she gets her arms tangled in one of her 6 shoulder straps
lol
Prude US nipple panic. Somehow brutal violence is ok, but even secondary genitalia are not.
Older editions depict a party under pressure with the outcome unknown.
5e shows heroes being heroic.
Good observation. It's not 100% of the time in either case, but the shift in tone is definitely there.
I like it when i dont have to point out something myself in comments.Thats absolutely what it is.And with this and especially things said at the videos beginning comes the loss of personality imo.
@@ILoveEvadingTax D&D has always been a bit of a pendulum. it started very much as a goofy tabletop game that eventually grew darker with new editions, books, and adventures. around 4th edition the pendulum started swinging back toward the lighthearted nature of first edition. i personally enjoy both, but i can definitely see how someone might prefer one over the other.
@@ILoveEvadingTax Fuck being safe , the art is so much inferior , it's bland , emotionless , cartoony , CHEAP.
I get that sense from the gameplay of 5e as well. My friends and I need to throw what the book swears to be entirely insurmountable odds at the party for them to experience even the slightest challenge in victory. Even then, a party that has 1 half-capable healer will more or less never know hardship without the DM reaching in to make it worse, which isn't something you want to do. Even with a system like Battletech A Time of War that lets you create on hell of a bad-ass from the outset, regular combat is truly frightening. Bad decisions in DnD are inconsequential at best. A bad tactical move in something like Cyberpunk, or AToW will almost certainly get your character seriously injured, and maybe even killed if the bleeding can't be stopped in time. That expensive armor will only hold up to so many bullets, and one accurate burst from even a cheap SMG is enough to make two layers of high-end armor worth about three thousand C-Bills resemble a pre-distressed grunge rocker outfit worth about 30.
1e and 2e Artists make the paintings look like they are capturing a moment in History
@@Envaris The painting of the orcs laying siege to a castle from the 2E PHB is badass!
Ehh, I felt a lot of the 1e & 2e art was cheap..or outright badly drawn. At least until well into the 90s
The great thing about this digital age of D&D is that I can search up and include any art from all over the internet in my games. Instead of relying on the art in the Monster manual to illustrate my games, I can include whatever scenes and depictions I fell best represent the image that I have in my head.
Sometimes I even twist my games to better fit an amazing piece of art that I've found.
I think there's been a lot of times I look to fanart to capture ambience and tone, with the most recent example looking up a 'Lernaean Hydra' on Google images... Just really great stuff!
I literally look up art work and base my game's around that
a brilliant way to increase immersion!
@@jonathancummins6234 I am very glad I'm not the only one who does that
Rule of thumb as dm, if it cant be depicted with words than words cant depict you.
Some of the 3e artists were really great.
A big part of what I'm missing in 5e is the environment. They are all floating in nothingness. That makes it really hard to give weight and atmosphere.
Sam Wood, Wayne Reynolds, Todd Lockwood, Larry Elmore. - Artists I just know the name of because their art was recognizable and credited.
That Ravenloft piece is amazing.
Yesterday my girlfriend bought me a 1988 AD&D Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide, and the black-and-White art is some of the most wonderfully inspiring fantasy fodder I’ve seen. It made me feel the way I did as a kid reading fantasy novels and imagining the vastness and ancient nature of the world.
My favourite is a small, half page illustration of an enormous cavern, its roof supported by a towering column of natural stone in the distance, filled with an underground sea. There are a few sailboats in the water, but the foreground is a large gondola, carried along a guide wire suspended from massive poles that emerge from the waters.
What? This implies so many things, and it makes me want to tell a story right then and there. The old D&D books are so full of this old-school nerdy art. I love it so much.
You should try playing first or second addition!
That image sounds a lot like Sunless Seas. I haven't played it, but I've heard great things about it.
I also loved that illustration. I can see it now. I dm so many underground rivers just because of the feeling of claustrophobic fear and wide adventure those pictures inspired
5e art is showcasing the monster in an analytical scope
Older art is showcasing the monster from a...well...monstrous scope. Not a case study, a menace
I agree. I feel like the art for 5e, specifically the monster manual, is more a bestiary than before.
@@DeusBelli1 Yes, like someone was actually learning about these creatures in the world and sketching them out, but those illustrations were tainted by the researcher's own fear, and the fear that was carried through the second-hand accounts they were gathering.
Just like Pokemon's progression in art design
its about payment my dude , dnd used to pay 500USD for monster/character art , now they pay 100USD for each art , so ofc the quality will suffer.
@@snoot6629 They pay $100 per art piece? That's... Wow, D&D makes so much money and doesn't even credit them except at the end of the book (and only sometimes)
You always find the right words to describe both the piece and your emotions. Very well done.
Thanks man, I try!
The real issue, IMO is that the new stuff has no action in it. It's just stuff standing there. The older pieces you show feel as though the characters are doing something. The new ones they look like they are just standing there having their portraits painted.
For me, my biggest issue with 5e art is the (entirely understandable) "house style" that carries through all of their products. My understanding is that WotC has a style guide that each commissioned artist is to follow for each work. The end result is an edition, for all its championing of other kinds of diversity, without any artistic diversity. I would argue that contributes to a uniformity in play styles in new players, but I digress.
I would prefer for each new book to have its own artist or two who would be free to develop their own style for that book.
The reason why the older art looks better is cause it has a more dynamic line of action, it's basically a line that guides the eye of the through the page and the artwork, the older stuff has more movement to it, the 5e stuff is very still, like it's part of an anatomy book, and it's actually rather boring to look at, cause the monsters are just standing there, just my 2 cents after 15 years of being an artist.
That but I also would say many of the new designs are really bland/oversimplified and many also look cartoony it looks like they belong in some kids show and not a dangerous fantasy world
I think you really nailed it. Especially with the portrayal of undead, i feel like the art is missing "character". It doesnt really convey the emotions of the subject like say pride or a sense of superiority or authority. I am reminded of something the game director of dark souls said to one of the artists who was working on the art for an undead dragon. He would stress that the art should still convey the pride and the majestic nature of a dragon , even though it was now reduced to a desiccated corpse.
Can also definitely tell the stuff that was done on computer vs allot of the hand drawn elder stuff which required allot more skill.
@@goolabbolshevish1t651 not quite, you can get literally the same result with either, since digital tools can emulate ink and brushes, but it is undeniable that the older artists where on a league of their own, when compared to the modern artwork.
@@TheWall96 it's not terrible, just the older hand drawn stuff felt like they put allot more effort into it.
Especially with the settings and background, really gave the feeling of "this is where and how this stuff lives and what it does"
For me Tony Diterlizzi work on the Planescape setting and Brom on Dark Sun are by far the best artwork in D&D, they both are instantly recognizable and very unique.
I wish I could have gotten them in this video, but it ran long. Maybe part 2!
Those aren't mere artists. They are the soul of their settings.
@@esperthebard Well get on it man! I can't think of artists that have defined an entire setting with just the art like Diterlizzi did. You see his art you automatically think of Sigil. That's a pinnacle of achievement.
And Brom's work on Dark Sun brought the setting into far more focus than anything else did. You saw his work and that's what pulled you in. The artist sells the setting.
Spot on! Brom is an amazing artist and Planescapes crazy setting worked well with Tony D's art
"Safe and distilled" is a fitting summery of the D&D franchise overall now.
What first drew me into the D&D universe as a player was that sense of danger I got from both my Dungeon Master's DMing skills and the "visual aid" provided by some of the early art works he'd let me peek at every now and then. (this was of course before I invested heavily in my own books). Going into each new session with lingering dread that my Hexblade might get impaled, acid-burned then eaten by some abhorrent monstrosity at any moment because I decided to go for a romantic walk at night was what honed me as a player. Now as as a DM, although I don't doubt my skills as a story teller it still feels more and more like I am simply narrating a cartoon universe. This is not to say the new art is bad. Just....different.
God forbid they show sideboob in the new edition, the artwork was heavily censored in my opinion, after all we had recently MTG artis Lizbeth Eden fired for making card illustrations too sexy.
@@RIlianP That was absolutely scummy. But the 5E art is actually pretty damn good when its not trying to shove diverse dwarfs and noms at your face. It just seems like a trend to draw those types of characters in unflattering ways to bait people because other characters look great. If you want to see something more gritty have your game shop order Midgar books. Its a third party setting for 5E thats has extremely bulky war and adult themes. Kobold Press is the publisher.
@@Rasengan9000ttt Hm, never commented on the quality of the art it self as I find it palatable with few very bland exceptions that just didn't do it for me but it is a matter of taste. My comment is more to point out that they had, probably, strict criteria on character forms, poses etc and did not allow the artist to be really creative and rejected anything outside of their list, shame really. My favorite artists are Luis Royo, Boris Vallejo, Frank Franzetta and I own physical albums with illustrations from them.
Why i switched to OSR games, there's no danger or excitement in D&D anymore, they have made the game safe and cozy so it's nearly impossible to lose a character, so i'm not scared of what's behind that door because i know i'll awlays win.
@@LordSathar Yup. I equate this to the video game industry. In the 80's arcade days most games didn't have a continue option. If you died, you died and the game ended. You had to start over. Then the "add another quarter to continue" option came to be amd gaming degraded from that point on to me. The skill was gone. The games got prettier but they lost some spice. D&D art is the same. Less spice, more cafeteria food flavour.
Larry Elmore's paintings will always be the greatest dnd art ever, for me. Just pure dnd
The DnD art from first and second edition is amazing! Keith Parkinson, Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, Brom, Clyde Caldwell etc! That's art made with love and it all tells a story. It's rough and beautiful! In my opinion it beats 3rd, 4th and 5th. Great video Esper.
"Keith Parkinson, Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, Brom, Clyde Caldwell" The Mount Rushmore of D&D artists.
5e feels sterilized. Past art feels otherworldly, like it takes place in a realm governed by laws unlike our own. The kind of place you escape to, not project upon.
Nicely said.
Sterilized is the right description.
Sterilized?! I'd say Disneied
Back then, Liches were praticlly demons, a menace to be feared represented by its gory aspect, decaded flesh and dead eyes. Now its a Marvel Vilain....
"escape to, not project upon" is the perfect phrase for what fantasy should be.
I want to escape _from_ 5e. It feels gross and not in a good, interesting artistic way - more like spoiled milk.
Lets be honest, all modern art/media/games has turned into a projection.
I noticed that a lot of the 5th edition monsters looked a lot more solidly human. I certainly prefer the more alien looking humanoid monsters to the more typical human like art.
I think the difference that really comes between the modern and the older art, is that the game is played quite differently. I feel like older D&D adventurers were fairly grounded professions, doing high risks jobs for a chance at freedom from the mundane life of a peasant. Now it's more like a fun romp out into the wilderness that literally anyone can do, so sure bring your inept wizard, your emaciated barbarian, your blase paladin, its about the story we tell and whatever we want to do. I'm not saying we need to go back to the wargamming DM vs Player, but I think the core idea of the game has shifted to something less grounded in the hard working background of original D&D. Sure eventually you got to be heroes (or villains if you so desired), but you started really small and you stayed that way a long time.
The Dragonslayers might be the most ideal version of what I want my D&D to feel like. It's like a crew of fishermen showing off their largest catch. They're really celebrating killing a little dragon whelp instead of going and looting its cave and running off to find the next story beat or thing to kill.
I mean, in the end now its just open to what you want to do. Its said goodbye to the thematic restriction.
I have a group of happy go lucky misfits, going out in the world and stumbling across one or the other quest to solve.
For the other group I built a gritty, harsh setting where their characters choice was monster hunting or starvation.
Both valid, both a lot of fun, for entirely different reasons.
5e is definitely more superheroic
I think that's the essential difference between OSR (old school play) and this 5e superhero-ic action.
same, also don’t like that now every second NPC from any generic town, it turns out, has magical powers. And not in terms of "abstract magic", which is essentially a metaphor, but just a list of the caster's abilities from the guidebook
its about payment my dude , dnd used to pay 500USD for monster/character art , now they pay 100USD for each art , so ofc the quality will suffer.
5e Art always is so "clean", nothing gritty, nothing dark and brutal, just a bit characterless and agreeable
I have ann immense affection for the art of rpgs in the 70s and 80s. They feel like either muralls you'd find on castle and temple roofs, or sketches you'd find in the notebooks of someone with no tools besides a pen and paper.
16:45 - this is when we realize that having beautiful backgrounds makes a big difference. Why, why why, does 5e now insist on the blank white and coffee stain backgrounds when you have AMAZING artwork like this? As a graphic designer, I understand white space and fitting text into format. But there is a way, when and WHERE to do that. Not on every single page, just to seem consistent.
Ok, I will shut up now :) Thank you again for all of your videos!
Some artwork needs a background. It draws you into what is going on within the art.
@@Honkin_Chonker Exactly! :) That's what is most severely missing in the 5e MM
At the start of every chapter there is spread art with a background. Several other pictures has it as well.
@@WickedNPC Thanks for responding. I do realize that, but I was speaking specifically about the major portion of the MM book artwork. And even those spread art pages are not as good as the older editions, as Esper's primary point was.
@@darklightstudio I see, Esper was talking about the spread art in general so I assume you were as well. I would not be good judge of the MM since as a player only, I have barely looked through it. Although the heavy focus on single isolated monsters makes a whole lot of sense. They can easily be lifted out and reused in a different contexts. As tactical tokens, as player handouts, as licensed 3d party producs and so forth.
If the old spread art is better seem like a matter of personal preference. I'm actually not very fond of Larry Elmores art and I have 0 nostalgia for it
Wayne Reynolds is really good at poses. Getting action and mood out of how they stand is amazing.
I highly recommend checking out the Swedish-Chilean artist Alvaro Tapia. His art for the venerable Swedish RPG Drakar och Demoner (Trudvang Chronicles) is absolutely amazing. His paintings and sketches represent the penultimate fantasy art style for me.
I just took a look. Some fantastic drawings there! The look slightly reminds me Brian Froud.
I have never herd of the Trudvang Chronicles, but as a Swede i feel compeled to atleast find out more about it.
@@esperthebard Absolutely! The game is heavily inspired by the Norse sagas and Swedish folklore that has been put through the lens of the Swedish classical painter John Bauer, which I highly recommend checking out.
@@philleW12 It's the X-tenth edition of Drakar och Demoner before they dropped that and went just with Trudvang and now they're making a board game and adapting their RPD setting to 5e and yes Alvaro Tapia is awesome and the dark celtic and viking fantasy of Trudvang is beautifully dark (though its prior system mechanisms have been uninspiring).
I remember that from the early 90s!
Please tell me they dropped the anthropomorphic ducks.
i find that the oldschool spreads sometimes look a bit as if they were having a picture taken of them.
I love that stile!
I could be wrong, I don't know anything about art or being an artist, but I suspect that some of it comes down to what has influenced the current generation of artists (and art directors). If you think about an artist working at the turn of the millennium on 3e, they were born in the early 80s at the latest, grew up with pulp fantasy book covers from the 70's and 80's and probably had their artistic style mostly nailed down by the late 90's. Thinking about the fantasy art styles I was exposed to as someone of that generation, Warner Brothers, Hanna Barbera, Looney Tunes, Marvel Comics, Disney, Tokien illustrations etc. I remember when I first saw Akira and Ghost in the Shell how mindblowing it was to see what a cartoon could be. The video games I grew up with had 8 bit graphics. Myst was jaw dropping when it came out. It made the news that Lara Croft had 3d boobs.
Looking at people who have grown up since then, they have much more access to a wider variety of styles, DeviantArt exists, 3D graphics have improved, cartoons and comics and fantasy art now come from all over the world, photoshop has now become as fundamental to many people's skillset as word processing was 25 years ago. I suspect that's why you're seeing a lot more sort of "Digital Anime Video Game" style to the current art.
I love the Larry Elmore art and that old school style. It's simple, the armor is more inspired by actual medieval art (I despise the giant pauldron, three-inch thick armor that WOW popularized). I also like the comic-book style art, kind of Bernie Wrightson-inspired stuff. I used to pore over the old DnD books. I've still never actually played.
The crazy thing is the difference between cinematic art style and in-game art style. . . Tauren, wearing their tribal trappings and wielding their war totems, looks absolutely dope. . . in game, a tauren just dresses up like every other race of their class . . .
hes my favorite fantasy artist
Elmore's the best, he defined the DragonLance style for me. They were lucky to have a lot of good artists.
Blizzard wanted to make a Warhammer game and were told no, so they changed the name to Warcraft. Warhammer art inspired much of the style of Warcraft.
@@phillipelliott3372 And yet Warhammer has really damn realistic armour for its humans and is far less bulky than WoW.
Blizzard basically made their own art style.
Wayne Reynolds is my favorite fantasy artist. I just love his style and aesthetic, very detailed, rough looking textures, dynamic posses.
I was gonna say all this too. Reynolds is fantastic!
Yeah for sure. The character art was really stylized and his wide mural-esque pieces he did for sourcebooks were really great ways to open a book. He went to Pathfinder, guess it's too late to bring him back to 5e
@@willwaller657 The Pathfinder art in 1st Edition was truly excellent, especially in some of the hardcover books (Inner Sea Gods is still some of the best art work I've seen in any setting, hands down) and a lot of that was thanks to Wayne. I've not been impressed by the 2E art, however, and I'm not sure if that's due to Wayne's influence or not. Just compare the iconic barbarian Amiri in 1st Edition vs 2nd Edition. Yeah, there is supposed to be some "lore" behind the change, but you see the same loss in quality in the other iconics as well. I just like the 1E stuff better, just a superior style, in my opinion....
Thanks, this was really interesting. As an "old school" gamer, I agree with you. My favourite D&D artist, bar none, is Stephen Fabian, who always seems to get forgotten, but he did loads of 2E Dragonlance, Ravenloft, and Mystara art, and I love his style. It's like no other D&D art since and has this dreamy, vision-like quality.
You noted Wayne Reynolds being busy with MtG, but you didn’t mention that he did *all* the iconic character art (and a bunch more) for Pathfinder 1e and 2e. His work is the *official* aesthetic for Pathfinder, and that’s one of the many reasons I love it!
And eberron
Yea I never really looked into Pathfinder until I started to hear the buzz around 2nd edition, but I gotta say I love the 2e art. I always felt the 1e art was too 'busy' (to many tiny distracting details) but it really does have a unique aesthetic. I was unaware that one of the greats of fantasy art - Wayne Reynolds - was the one behind it. :)
Wayne Reynolds Iconics are indeed good!
I dig his Cleric design (Kyra).
my issue with the old firbolg art is that they basically just look like big human wild-folk, the 5e art makes them look different and a little more interesting
Ironically, the reason they look like bug human wild-folk is because they are an appropriated creature of Irish Mythology, like many things are in D&D. They are just people and came before the Tuatha Dé Danann. But D&D has mostly stolen and filed the serial numbers off of these things for the way their names sound and nothing else. It annoys me no end they're cutesy cow people now.
Yeah the whole "wild-folk" thing just doesn't sit well with me in general tbh. Glad they made them big fluffy blue and pink fae giant kin instead.
@@luc-i-guess then I guess you don't like Goliaths and Gnomes them.
@@Amrylin1337 oh I'm well aware of their origins as the Fír bolg, and yeah they got nicked from Irish folk-lore, but honestly, I'd rather our lore was out there in some form or another rather thsn just vanishing into obscurity.
I'd prefer if the bits of lore were closer in DnD to the folk stories, but they're not, and as they are, they fit better into the D&D setting
@@MrDinmaker Well, I recognize that this is 100% a personal opinion and a hot take for many, but D&D doesn't have a strong Setting. Whichever one becomes a flagship (Forgotten Realms for 5th) is always just as weak alone as the disparate 1st party choices are themselves. It's all Kitchen-Sink Fantasy. A melange of shit taking from everywhere with no cohesion. Sure, Eberron has magic elevators and airships but the same creatures get jammed into that place as do Greyhawk. I played WoTC products when I was 10 and first starting and I never will again for these reasons.
You mirrored my thoughts exactly!
5E looks so polished and clean for the most part. And as you said, everything is shown in a similar fashion.
This can be seen in modern crpg's as well. Every single thing has to be shinning. Even at night, there would be all sorts of lights beaming everywhere. Spells will be over the top colorful and portraits would look like they were pulled out of a children's book.
Probably, my biggest gripe with 5E's "art style" is that it is a jumble of anything that somebody thought could be considered cool for as many people as possible.
It never had an identity, it's not something you can't mistake for another franchise. Instead, it's bland and generic.
Agreed
But thats always been D&D, if the old art might seem more interesting imo its only because they apply outdated design trends.
well, its not really different with the older books tho
D&D is basically THE generic fantasy staple, that is its identity
5e, bland and generic. 5e gameplay, overpowered balogne. 5e story lines ...
I wasted 40 mins in my life waiting for the commentary of the best art of D&D history, the 2e invisible stalker.
XD
A masterpiece of realism.
hmm, I tried to Google Image it, it says it's showing me results...where? I tried printing it thinking maybe it'd show up as a Watermark. Nope. How do I find it?
@@NoActuallyGo-KCUF-Yourself hmm, I tried to Google Image it, it says it's showing me results...where? I tried printing it thinking maybe it'd show up as a Watermark. Nope. How do I find it?
Ah the best kind of sleep paralysis demon, the one you don't know is there.
Oh wait
The size of the hanging dragon in "Dragon Slayers" is more like how the legends of dragons where depicted in real life. I like the really immense dragons too but this has more credibility I think.
If they do this to my boy Dark Sun, I'm not going too be happy. That thing is built for extremely hard-core art, anything less doesn't do the edge justice
Totally agreed. In a way, I don't want an official 5e Dark Sun because in the current climate, I think it wouldn't get done right.
the examples shown really have that 'modern concept art' look, whereas the older artpieces had the freedom to move into illustration territory, with less emphasis on showing every detail and more on character, mood, storytelling.
And that 'everything has to look more "realistic"' thingy is just whats in today, its rare to see more unexpected and exotic designs
I feel like 5e art looks a lot more kid friendly kind of, as opposed to older editions which went all out. Even the nymph is a lot cleaner in 5e where as older editions had a seductiveness to it and I think even showed her breasts which makes sense for a nymph.
The creepy gory monsters feel more cleaned up. Yeah the frog thing has an arm in its mouth but the older stuff hit you in the primal fear and makes you truly fear it.
I think one of the other issues is that it is trying to be... realistic.
Take gargoyle for example, in older editions, it has teeth jutting outwards and comically large ears/horns, and it looks more lean than strong.
In the 5e however it is more bulky. Like a real animal in a way. It is more "realistic" so its body is bulky. It has lips. That kind of stuff. It is also standing in a more "normal" stance instead of the "rock cover" aesthetic of the other gargoyle
Marelith fits this too.
But yes they are all made to be less scary. They arent making you go "oh this is a really strong and scary monster" its just "monster".
Like the different blights and the hag. They look like "a monster" not "you should run away if you can".
The 5e twig blight is a child I would probably chase and pat its head if I saw on the forest.
Older twig blight would have me running away. Which is what is supposed to be. They are MONSTERS that common folk should be terrified of. If I, the non-monster-hunting person playing dnd, am notstartled why would the bartender or the townsfolk be scared of them
deniz-usta Gedik Except gargoyles are made of solid rock they don’t have to look like a real animal they just have to look like something that will keep its self together wall made of solid stone which is most things
@@charlottewalnut3118
Yes I know but Gargoyle is just an example to describe the "reasoning". The one I gave because the Gargoyle was just on the vid while I typed that comment.
deniz-usta Gedik Secondarily the ruining devils and demons by making them look pretty much the same I can’t tell the difference between which ones are supposed to be which any more devils are supposed to be somewhat humanoid I should be able to tell just by looking at it which is which
Incel
Thank you so much for making this video. As a professional illustrator, working in the table top games industry, it's always so disappointing when I see all the numerous unboxing and review videos of TTRPGs, where even in cases where the excellence of the art is commented on, the artists themselves are so rarely credited, and _never_ is the extra effort taken on the author's part to search for and link to an artist's portfolio.
it's especially discouraging, because it is the function of the art/artist to get you to want to pick this book over that book up in the "shop" in the first place, and we typically work really hard to capture the spirit of the game you're considering investing your time and money.
we live in an age, where it's just a given that if you put art online, someone somewhere is gonna freely use your work in their Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, RUclips Class/Lore video, but the majority don't consider crediting, notifying or even msging the artist to let em know you've inspired them.
so thanks, and keep _this_ up!
The lack of nipples is enough to make the art radically different from when I was a kid. Old me doesn't care, but young me really liked it during 2e.
In most cases you shown I do prefer the 3e versions. That dark tones feels like old HQ and ilustrations that I love. I have to agree about the backgrounds.It had so much storytelling and just looking at the pictures my Imagination starts to pop so many stories and adventures.
Clyde Caldwell, Larry Elmore, Keith Parkinson Jeff Easley, Dave Sutherland, Tim Truman and others were the original crew of TSR's art department. They'll always be the best to me
Larry Elmore is the best artist. He has many epic pieces, including the Red Dtagon from the Red Box art work.
None of the new artists really catch my eye.
Larry Elmore is my favorite too. I feel he had a very clean classic style. The reason why I read stated reading Dragonlance was that I really like the cover art of the Chronicles Series.
I feel that artwork today just overly complicated.
@@RocKnight11 I love Elmore, and love the Red Box piece, but he is NOT good at designing dragons. They never looked like they had believable musculature or skeletal structure (horns just stuck on randomly).
@Springheel01 I agree that Elmore's dragon designs do leave something to be desired. I don't think TSR had a commented look for it's dragons at that time (3rd edition has the best dragon designs).
However I feel he was one of the best in the business in designing characters/heroes of the books.
The thing with 5e is that it's literally styled to be like someone drawing the creatures in a journal. If a monster would be pissed or something like that the theoretical artist would not stick around. So they would be drawing the creature while it is unaware and neutral. While the older art is like someone is just making a styled picture of the creature which is cool but if they wanted to kind of act like it is a journal they wouldn't really work.
Wow, i never really paid attention to these details. I just see fantasy art and like it. Not much of a critic myself, but now that you brought these up, I agree. The bug bear example is probably my favorite.
From watching, what I can gather is that you really like high contrast between light and dark. Most of your beef with the 5e art is with ones that are mostly created with very little dark-dark areas and very few light-light areas. Then when you cut to an older version that you prefer, it is usually high contrast with intense shadows and/or bright highlights. I think that is really valid, high contrast makes a piece dynamic, while low contrast makes it look flat and bland. This really shows on the gargoyle.
There's also that the 5e art from most of the books looks way too shiny and lacks any sort of weight or sense of motion.
4-5e art is "Tame" and "Brand safe", as well as often soulless.
You'd never get Errol Otis style art these days, to name just one of the old, evocative D&D artists.
And you got to remember if you see any coming nudity cuz it's so popular if parents do see it they will say no now and they were bitching complain about it
There is nothing wrong with no nudity, or clevery covering it up. Makes it more accessible because YES, parents should be allowed to be wary of that kind of content. We, as adults, can know that they may not wear clothes and we can work that into games if we want. No point in it being explicit.
@@sebluthy2300 If it seems like a bad thing I wasn't trying to but I agree with you there but still everyone so sensitive to everything everybody else especially when it comes to artists it's really stupid I am 3D adult artists in adult shows Especially when it comes to Twitter you'll be praised or at the guillotine and they'll probably bitching whine and Mona talk about where are her organs sometimes I just want to 3D model something sexy for men and women
Especially with female characters.
Excellent selection! That said, please credit the artists and works in the description. We'd love to find these pieces too!
So far great vid! Only a few minutes in... Keep em coming!
My absolute favorite video from you Esper. There was certainly something lost when fantasy art moved from physical to digital. Not that digital art can't be good, just that it can never reach those highs. I got my start with the 1983 red box, and I don't know how many hours I spent staring at the box art, or some of the fantastic classic ink inside. But probably my favorite piece of D&D art were the plates that came with the 2nd edition Monstrous Compendium line. these books came in binders, so you can constantly update, organize and add to them. Each one came with several beautiful full color illustrations that are now some of the most iconic D&D art ever... several of which are in your video (such as the original Strahd portrait).
My absolute favorite D&D art of all time isn't the most complex, color rich or intricate artwork, it's a simple snow-swept mountainside with a lone warrior facing off against a huge ogre. It's featured in the Monstrous Compendium 2 and is by Daniel horne.
25:05 It is a Dadao (大刀). You can transalte it quite simple as "Big Knife" or "Great Saber".
I didn't thought that I would watch a video of 40 minutes but.... I watched it all and I payed attention! You covered exactly how I feel about modern fantasy art and you find the perfect words to describe it (that I was really missing) and you helped me to understand a bit better what is what I like and what art I want in my book.
Also, a great example of of how the art of older editions lost its greatness, is Bahamut and more specifically, his human form. Look how the 2e Gandalf-like Fizban was looking and how the soccer player-like grand master of flowers is looking.
Lord Soth was originally a character for Dragonlance, and then later ended up in Ravenloft too. I'm pretty sure, but could be wrong, that Lord Soth's Charge was actually a Dragonlance artwork. Really appreciated this video, the art in 5e, is one of my bigger let downs. I've never quite been able to articulate why that is, you do a very good job of explaining some of my issues. Thank you.
I feel the same way about the art on Magic cards. I used to collect the cards back in the 90s just for the art. Now a days it's not t the same
Think the ccp. Look into it
The "dark summons" was from a paladium fantasy role playing book. That's a wolfen.
'Adventures in the Northern Wilderness'...
I bought that book solely based on that cover art.
Yep. Love that cover. Hell I love Palladium period. Yes including Rifts.
14:00 personally, I'd be more inclined to utilise all 3 of these designs for different variations of the carrion crawler.
Use the 5e form with a lower cr (maybe 1/4-1/2) for a younger crawler or hatchling. Give it a weaker bite attack poison and remove the tentacle attack.
Alsop's could be used as a cr 1 juvenile. Keep the weaker poison effect but now give it the tentacles attack.
And Griffith's could be the mature cr 2 form with full stats from the book.
31:10 The old school 1st and 2nd edition art will always be the best. Elmore was a GOD!
Really enjoyed your astute analysis and critique. It was pretty spot on with identifying trends for the different D&D editions you surveyed.
When I think of my favourite D&D setting, Eberron, I think Wayne Reynolds. It's what made Pathfinder, at least aesthetically, attractive to me and why 5th edition feels hollow without him.
My favourite artwork of a marilith actually comes from a Nintendo power magazine from the 90s regarding marilith’s depiction in the final fantasy series. Something about it looks wily but disciplined, I don’t know how to explain it.
Ian Miller’s creepy illustrations are the best! They used to freak me out as a kid. Btw, he’s still doing illustrations even now.
I think a big part of it is the poses/what the monsters are doing
In your examples
Most of the monsters are doing something that they would normally do
The best comparison I can make is like looking a games bestiary or compendium(5e) vs a dnd description painted or drawn
Larry Elmore was one of my favorite artist as a kid.
I feel you, literaly the same thing happened to warhammer. It just lost it's identity, it's no longer "in the grim darkness of far future...", everything became so sterile.
I think the problem is corporation always hunting for the holy growth
Maybe a gritty style with soul is for a sub culture, cgi boring is mainstream
Not so much money in just a dedicated sub culture
almost everything concerning 5e feels "safe" as they're trying to please everyone.
Please everybody or not anger Social Justice mob?
@@filthycasual6619 i think it started as the former and has developed into the latter
@@filthycasual6619 I saw people complaining about the picture at 31:09 , Cause it reminded them of lynching.
You can change the game however you like to make it edgier or darker
Well a lot of stuff from the older editions was pretty racist or sexist. e.g. all of oldschool Chult, which from what I understand was a really poor vision of a fantasy Africa, built on nothing but stereotypes. When it's not stereotypes substituting for research or believable cultures, it's just a general sense of exclusivity. A classic one to bring up is the fact that in every generic fantasy world there is never characters with dark or brown skin. All humans are white, so are dwarves, elves, etc. It's all european fantasy, folklore, and culture, etc. Despite the thought that DnD was a game for pasty nerds being a stereotype, it really feels like that's the only kind of person those old editions ever appeal to.
I like that 5e throws all that away in favor of diversity, and while there is always a stigma of hyper-sensitivity when it comes to topics of inclusiveness and diversity, they aren't just buzzwords here, I feel like they're necessary. Without the streamlining and broader appeal, DnD would not have seen such a big renaissance, and in a game about adventure, exploration, and world building, you're going to need a world that actually feels like a _world_ and not just Europe. We already have a billion stories based on medieval European culture, we could definitely use the diversity, there's nothing "SJW" about that imo.
All the 5e artwork make them look like they're just standing there at a character select screen.
I agree so much with this video. Except on the oni. I vastly prefer how creepy and evil the 5e oni looks.
One art piece in 5e that I consider one of the worst is the Canoloth in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. It just looks so faded and featureless, and the worst of all its tongue looks like a rubber toy! That daemonic doggo looked much better in 3.5 and 4e.
Also funny how you say that some of the off-putting art in 5e looks rather "anime", since I think hiring a Japanese artist could actually breathe new life and actual diversity into the artwork. I would love to buy an RPG book illustrated by the likes of Yoshitaka Amane, Kentaro Miura, Ayami Kojima, or Keita Amemiya.
or at the very least hire Junji Ito for all things aberration related
5e Oni does have the best face/expression.
Other than that its just a blue man wearing pants.
If Junji Ito made a mini monster manuel that'd be amazing.
Though I'd argue that it should just be an art book, with writing on how the things act.
Maybe some ability ideas.
@@VaSoapman While _perfectly_ creepy, I find it odd that they neglected to give the oni traditional oni fangs, but gave them to the gargoyles instead
I think if the 4 and 5 Edition Oni can be in a Japanese style campaign where the 4 is more of tactics in battle while 5e is a nightmare come to life at a festival that had light cuts of then you found a dead body with scratches to fight best at night
Hey, if you're going to criticize Bethesda's writing for their first game, yanking Morrowind from a recent novel is barely a dripping on the tip of an iceburg. Boeotia is a real place in Greece. The divines are named for forum posters. "Bretons." They were a sports game company trying their hand at turning their D&D campaign into a fighting game. They didn't think it was worth putting much thought into it.
The newer books do have the artist on the pages with the art. A very welcome change
This was a delightful tour through old and new dnd art. Even though it was a little bit critical of 5e art, it never felt like 5e was put down so much as used as a foil to celebrate how transcendent some of the older art was. Very well done. Excuse me while I go buy a dnd art book now...
The Oni sword is a Chinese Daodao(translation:"big/long knife") and its the equivalent of a messer/falchion, just worst as it doesn't have a point to thrust its a solely slashing weapon, pretty much useless against anyone with any type of significant armor.
Love Elmore. More than any artist he got me playing DnD and reading novels based on the worlds. But I think Brom is a big omission. I know he didn't do a ton of stuff, but the Dark Sun setting flavour is almost solely down to him, and some of his Dragonlance stuff is fantastic too.
Larry Elmore defined the D&D art and perfectly captured the spirit of adventure.
Clyde Caldwell too. Masters of the brush and pencil.
I appreciate this video so much, thanks a lot for your effort!! Please make more videos about the old school full fantasy d&d paintings, more people need to know about them!
I actually like the 5e carrion crawler better. The other ones looked too cartoony and silly to be scary.
I agree, I also like the 5th edition Firbolg
Its the big mouth filled with teeth isn't it? If it hd a caterpillar mouth it would be more belivable
@@Myrdin90 it's also the scales and square shape.
Agreed
2nd ed. carrion crawler was basically the same as 1st and 5th, but better (imho).
I had never seen the 3rd or 4th ed artworks that he showed before. Those were no sort of carrion crawler I had ever seen.
Wayne Reynolds is a legend, and his art in the monster manual three was so alluring, so evocative, that it drew me in to D&D 3.5 when I had no intention of playing before I opened that book
I've seen the same thing happening with the art in WH40K. A lot of the art is digitized with a low effort-feel that lacks the detail and character of earlier versions, and is also missing credit to the artist. Its a real shame that you end up just glancing over, or flat out ignoring, the art of a universe where it used to be one of its most important aspects.
Strangely I've gotten a lot more appreciation for old school fantasy art as I'm getting older, whereas I didn't particularly like it when I was younger. You'd think it would be a nostalgia thing, but maybe om just bored of the modern style we se everywhere.
The old art for 40k was epic, it was the definition of epic. But that comic they wanna do in collab with marvel is just retarded, the new logo is disgusting and generaly the stuff they make for kids is very, very bland.
No you're right the older style just has so much more character. Look at that marine in your profile picture, they'd never create something like that nowadays and it's a real shame. compared to that the modern stuff just looks bland and mass produced.
@@00784865 I find it kinda sad that they're creating a kid friendly version of the hobby. The dark and adult art and style was one of the main reasons that I got interested in the universe as a kid and now the younger generations will miss out on that.
I guess this is what happens when these companies art budgets grow smaller and smaller in favor of cost saving.
@@adamu.2674 It actually wouldn't surprise me if GW has started skimping on the art budget even though they're making more money than ever.
I do appreciate how you can be passionate about older edition art while still being fair + acknowledging that not all 5e art is bad!
Tony DiTerlizzi's work back in 2nd edition was some of my favorite D&D art, especially the Planescape stuff
I LOVE that 80s and early 90s swords and sorcery art! It's so wonderous. You can't help but look at every details of the characters and all the detail of the landscape and just let you imagination run wild. Modern art just doesn't capture that wonder anymore. Everything is so flashy and cartoony and without that almost medieval realism it loses it's sense of wonder and becomes bland. It's like artists have no imagination anymore and they are just trying to capture what ever style is 'in' at the moment which makes it look as boring as everything else.
The 5e art isn’t bad for the most part, it’s just kind of forgettable. It doesn’t compare to that older great Larry Elmore art popped off of the covers of the box set or the Brom art that drew you into the world of Dark Sun.
Brom's artwork in Dark Sun was top notch. The cover of "The Crimson Legion" had always been my favorite.
I like the 2e and 3.5 art styles because they had character and detail
Ester everytime he shows old art
"Yyeeeaaaa thats what I'm talking about"
Tbh I like how diverse the art is. The previous artwork looked amazing but I also feel this is a reflection of how many newer players see the genre.
Yep
The issue is just the sheer variety of different things that they show and give players to use - not the diversity of types within the options available
there's a great documentary on amaz prime about the old school of TSR artists. highly recommend checking it out. called "eye of the beholder"
I love the old pen and ink drawings in the first edition.
You slighted the pathfinder goblin... heresy I say! HERESY! Paizo took a standard monster trope and spiced it up with character and made it their own!
Still good content though.
Just wanted to pop in that the new halfling profile is the result of several online polls as they iterated through designs so that you could visually identify a halfling from elves or humans easily. They realized that the only way to show a halfling was a halfling was to include them with a background or other elements to illustrate their heights. So, they decided to utilize a trick that we associate the larger head size/smaller body size to basically child size. So, you can very clearly tell a halfling is a halfling. It might be worthwhile to go back and check some of the other options they ideated upon, but they chose the final look after presentation and polling of multiple variants.
I really love the TSR era art. Elmore, Caldwell, Brom etc. Todd Lockwood is very talented
So i stumbled onto this video by accident, never had seen your channel before... but from this video i am so impressed. Really ejoyed this as an artist and DND fan. You have earned yourself a subscriber and I have earned my self quality content. Thank you Sir.
2nd Edition has always been my favorite as far as Artwork is concerned. Maybe also partly because it's the first version that I really started playing. Though I did love some of the covers of the 1st Edition books. Wasted a lot of time at book stores checking out those books.
Watching the video I notice that you prefer monsters that have a reference setting. Almost all the ones you prefer, the monster is placed in a setting that gives you indications to its size which is huge for imagination and also what it is doing which makes you think something about the monster.
I love Larry Elmore's work. One of my favorite artists of all time.
David Alsop's work on SLA industries is some of my favourite art. I know that he did some work for wizards a while ago. Looking forward to sifting through my library to find some of his stuff.
I feel like that’s kind of the theme of 5e. It’s a much more bare-bones style of gameplay that’s meant to be easy to get into and project your own ideas upon. It’s very beginner friendly and customizable, but on the flip side, this makes it less in-depth in general.
Did anyone else notice, that in all those illustrations, the Deathknight looks pretty much identical?
Don't mess with perfection!
I've had a few videos of yours crop up in my recommended feed, every last one of them seems to be you complaining about how 5e d&d is abominable and that everything back in the olden days.
You may have valid points, I tried one game of 4e back at uni and it put me off because the DM expected a group of newbies to have an in depth understanding of the world he chose and the system was so dependant on powers with varying levels of usability. It's only with 5e being accessible and finding a group that was willing to work with me to understand what I'm doing that I've been able to get into the game that I have been interested in for so long.
Like I said you may have points, but it's only the accessibility of the newest edition of the game that allows people like me, who didn't grow up with the game and were actively discouraged from pursuing it by parents to find that sense of belonging and fun in the game.
Yeah, 5e is designed to be newbie friendly. The cool thing about having some folks in your game with knowledge of older editions is that you can considering doing some homebrew stuff to inject some of the flavor of the older editions back into the game.
I agree... there’s too much negativity towards 5e in these videos. We can each appreciate the edition of the game that we like the most, without putting down the others... it’s so disrespectful to all the work people did to make 5e so accessible, and all the fun people have with it, only because they found it so much easier to jump into
I see a lot of your points; it feels like from 4th edition it got a lot more inspired by Warcraft's stylizations, which adds unneeded strain to the suspension of disbelief
One of the things I really missed from 3.5 (my first edition) was the feeling of "this is a document depicting the world; here, have a cohesive height chart to understand the proportional differences between the different 'races', or generic skull comparisons to better give clues as to how the holotypical half-orc differs from a dwarf or an elf, or what about a decent layout of equipment so you can see what -we're- thinking off when we describe it"
There's a lot of good lore and depictions and I feel with the 5th edition (which i started on proper when it came out in 2014) didn't put the important lore on the forefront; it didn't give the necessary handholds for understanding what a already diverse settings the forgotten realms etc already were. for example, people complained about orcs being relegated to the stereotype of roving barbarians, when there already exists settlements here and there where full-blooded orcs have settled peacefully as traders!
Now there's a bunch of problematic depictions when it comes to the more interesting lore; for example Zakharan Ogres who went about their lives interacting with society like any of the common humanoids would usually do, distancing themselves from their slightly more feral and unruly cousins in the north, and The Ogrima (zakharan half-ogre/half-oni) who were seen as Evil by the Zakharan ogres. The depictions of them that I could find paint them like a quite racist caricature of a vaguely middle-eastern person.
There's a bunch of tradeoffs in the new art directions, and I find a lot of the Rooted feeling of 3.5 and aspects of other editions has... moved a bit. It feels Different, and while there is a ton of absolutely amazing art in the newest edition, and there's a bunch of the older artwork I look upon as "well, heh, that was certainly a sign of who was in charge at the time" in a negative way, in general what I've seen feels like it is overall improving.
Kinda wish they'd set up some more lore for why the firbolgs changed so much; the headcanons I've seen around are that they had such a strong connection to fae that it changed them.
Though digging into the firbolg lore I really wish they'd have a version of them left that let you encounter the big hulking chaotic good giantkin. Maybe even subdivide them into different archetypes. And I understand the reservation from letting players actually play Large characters for the sake of Balance, but that was kind of what was fun about the 3.5; in some cases, imbalance is what creates the fun.
Visuals do a lot for world build; a good image can better describe what a thousand words could not. And the visual development of dnd has had a lot undirected but fullhearted paths. I just feel the current edition's tendency towards concentrating on one area and not comprehensively summing up the rest of the different settings on Toril is... well.. really frustrating, leaving a lot of new DMs and players at a kind of loss and having to draw upon their own visual and narrative frameworks; often from videogames like WoW or final fantasy, or shows like Game of Thrones or The witcher. Perfectly valid, but it's going to not have as much cohesiveness when one comes as a Westerosi Knight, another a big bulky dwarf, and a third an almost Baroque/Art Nuveau Elf
Anyway, 5e art does a lot but in a lot of cases feels like random pinterest art slapped into a campaign than a depiction of what is actually in the world.
/rant (take it all with a grain of salt as it's mostly and outpouring of thoughts)
Looking forward to the video on the positives of the 5e art! Might go on a rant about the positives as well!
Well, I think you have to keep in mind that the 5e Firbolg is basically a different creature than the earlier Firbolg.
Personaly I am a big fan of the Feybolg theory, that the earlier edition Firbolgs searched refuge in the Feywild, only to return altered.
They look like smurfs, but the whole thing is meant to market to the Deviantart-Tumblr style kids.
LordSathar lol, what?
@@tyeklund7221 I think he's referring to Tumblr nose. knowyourmeme.com/memes/tumblr-nose
@@LordSathar Dam the free market is at it again
My favorite D&D illustrations are often Tony DiTerlizzi's work in 2nd edition. They often make me feel like a kid in a fairy tale who has to muster the courage to face great dangers.
When talking about goblins I cannot pass on their Pathfinder rendition. While PF shifted a lot with hobgoblin art (and now stopped at goblins stretched out to human proportions), goblins are Pathfinder's mascot and trademark. Tiny noses, sideways ears and those wide toothy maws on American football-shaped head. It can look endearing and whimsical in one light, or savage and cruel in other - fitting for manic, child-like but dangerous humanoids PF goblins are.
And, in general, PF art also deserves a talk.
1st was great for the most part, gritty and threatening. 2nd looks like a child's cartoon
I have to agree. Pathfinder art, with Wayne Reynolds leading the way, is by far the best fantasy art for these games right now. I do love Trudvang art for its richness and style and also the art of Symbaroum is very atmospheric, but pathfinder first edition is the most solid art so far.
I miss this old art so much. I'm glad you mentioned Keith Parkinson, because I've been a longtime player of EverQuest, and his work for the game is something I'm very fond of.
It's hard for me to articulate what I don't like about modern D&D and M:tG art as well. Sterile and Safe and lack of personality is spot on. There's a comic channel I'm subbed to, and they've mentioned the difference between work that Jim Lee did for his creator owned books, versus what he did for a paycheck. A lot of modern fantasy art seems like that. It's certainly good, it's certainly talented, and these artists have far more skill than I can ever imagine having, but it looks like they did it to pay the rent, whereas the older art looks like they were trying to create something.