Quote from: Aos;458314Shit is shit, competency makes it even less forgivable.

So this


You don't like?

or this one maybe



and you prefer



Loved the "little brother art " idea. I always figured it was the only way the TSR art director ever got laid.

Quote from: jibbajibba;458269You can see the same thing with MTG cards.

I have to interject that no matter how good the MtG art has become, and I agree that there is a lot of good art there, reducing or cropping the art to a 2 inch by 2 inch image to fit on a card renders a lot of it to the realm of crap. A lot of that art should be sold as prints or be full page images in a coffee table art book.

I think they've done at least one MtG coffee table art book, actually.

Quote from: Aos;458315My friends and I call this kind of stuff "little brother art" as in someone who was involved with TSR had a little brother in need of a job.

Good phrase.
 
I always figured that in those cases the company in question had no contact with artists and no money. So the art gets done by the best artist among the seven gamers associated with the project. No previous experience required.
 
Often low quality printing didn't help.

Quote from: jeff37923;458320I have to interject that no matter how good the MtG art has become, and I agree that there is a lot of good art there, reducing or cropping the art to a 2 inch by 2 inch image to fit on a card renders a lot of it to the realm of crap. A lot of that art should be sold as prints or be full page images in a coffee table art book.

Here you go -

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Magic-Gathering-Lizz-Baldwin/dp/0786911786

I have also bought a couple of original pieces direct from the artists at Cons.

Quote from: Nicephorus;458324Good phrase.
 
I always figured that in those cases the company in question had no contact with artists and no money. So the art gets done by the best artist among the seven gamers associated with the project. No previous experience required.
 
Often low quality printing didn't help.

Traveller though has almost no art.

No art is better than most of the stuff in the AD&D books (you could read that two ways but you know what I mean).

Sadly though as I noted above the Mondron art was done in '83 when D&D was at its Prime.
If you can't work out that an add in Heavy Metal (or even Dragon itself) could get you hundreds of art submissions for buttons then well....

Quote from: Melan;458253There is amateurish art, which can be charming in its own way, and there is just-plain-bad art, which has no saving grace. The cheesecake Avalanche Press covers from the early d20 era are representatives of the latter.

Cheesecake? Their art just targeted gamers' loins, 's all!

YES, I will take this



And this



And this



And this



Over this



Any day.

I will admit the early D&D art includes some lousy work, but once they had Otus, Roslof, Trampier, Willingham, etc. some of it was great - I would definitely take those guys over the Elmore style stuff any day. I mean I would rather listen to a Pere Ubu record than an REO Speedwagon record, and if the speedwagon is slickly produced that only makes it worse. Elmore is not REO Speedwagon level terrible, he had some decent pieces like the mentzer box set covers, but he hits his stride and we're pretty much in renn faire territory.

Quote from: Melan;458253There is amateurish art, which can be charming in its own way, and there is just-plain-bad art, which has no saving grace. The cheesecake Avalanche Press covers from the early d20 era are representatives of the latter.

I think your nostalgia is getting in the way.

I'll take that, too, if we're talking colored art.

Benoist,
You're cherry-picking the best art available in the old editions.

Quote from: danbuter;458333Benoist,
You're cherry-picking the best art available in the old editions.

You mean kind of like Jibba is going for the worst examples he can find at the lowest resolution possible?

Give me a fucking break.

What, 4 pages in and no mention of MRQII?

Granted, it's no contender for "worst art ever" in a hobby which boasts the OD&D LBBs and the cover to the AD&D 1e MM, but there are some mighty eyesores in this otherwise excellent book.


"So, Dante Alighieri, Conan, Sub-Zero and Oogh the Neanderthal meet in a tavern..."


A little-known fact is that MRQII is the perfect system for your homebrew Tron game. To quote the great Michael Caine, not many people know that.


Here Mongoose unveils a storyboard for the upcoming Conan The Barbarian Disney animated feature.


Problem: Skybolt is too powerful. Solution: Attach lame picture to awesome spell. Hope no one will pick it up because of the horrible art.


I'll get that bitch a phylactery. Bitches love phylacteries.


[obligatory Monty Python reference]


I like my cheesecake as well as any red-blooded heterosexual male, but this is just lazy. "I have a spikey thing on my shoulder, so you know I'm Evil. And Evil is Hot." Also dragon(s?) on the background. Try harder, artist.


Orlanth the Dragon? Orlanth the Transvestite is more like it.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;458244There was some book for a WW game that had a world or location map that was a vagina.

Yes, for reals.  I can't remember what book it was, though.

That would be the map of the island setting from Children of the Sun, which (as far as I know) doesn't have anything to do with White Wolf. The cover art for the old Clanbook: Tzimisce has been mocked for similar reasons, though.