Quote from: J Arcane;458447And finally, the most infamous culprit of them all, this is supposed to be Black Adam:

On the other hand, if you pretend that picture is of Bizarro Black Adam, then it retroactively becomes a fucking amazing idea for a villain.

Quote from: jibbajibba;458402Dude you find me a decent picture in the AD&D PHB, MM or DMG that isn't by Trampier, Otus or Dee and I might conceed you a point. But if you want to actually win a debate you would have to proove that at least 1/2 the pictures were decent. I can certainly provide over half of them that are shit.

I totally understand youir nostalgia for the old edition but you need perspective.

MM1 G -
Gar - moderate
Gargoyle - moderate to bad
Gas Spore - bad technically but has a nice idea behind it
Ghost - moderate
Ghoul - bad
Giants - Cloud one of DATs weakest peices, Fire - Good (DAT), Frost - moderate to bad, Hill - bad, Stone - Excellent (DAT), Storm - bad technically but like Gas spore has a good idea and some movement
Gnoll - OMG SIIIIIITE
Gnome - actually this one might be worse
Goblin - Good (DAT)
Golem - Clay - poor, Flesh - Okay (DAT), Iron - poor techncialy but a good feel to it, Stone - poor
Gorgon - Good (DAT)
Gray Oze - poor
Green slime - moderate
Giffon - Good but for an iconic creature its very passive
Groaning spirit - Bad (and its one of DATs)

So that is one of the best letters in the book and we had

2 - completely awful
6 - bad with no redeeming features
3 - bad technically but with nice movement or a feel to them
2 - moderate/bad
4 - moderate
5 - good - all but one by DAT

Man you should see how awful H is .....

Boy, do you have shitty taste in art!

Quote from: RockViper;458456Most of the 2e Planescape art was pretty bad.

I disagree!

That's just your feelings of nostalgia getting in the way of your proper judgment.

Quote from: Aos;458515That's just your feelings of nostalgia getting in the way of your proper judgment.

He went through one panty explosion too many.

Some fun stuff all!

Not one decent illus. in the 3 OD&D bookletts (even the woodcut stuff in MERP was more inspiring). .

I am hard pressed to call any illus. in "High Fantasy" (the RPG) -good-.

Lots of that new GURPs stuff is bland and Elmore leaves me cold for some reason.

I find Les Evans ("Sorcerer and Sword"), P.D. Breeding, Bill Sienkiewicz (Bard games) and Erik Wilson (various "Dragon Warriors") very evocative,moody,full of implication and inspiring most of the time....which is what I want from RPG art.

Don't have the artists name in front of me but some of the "SLA Industries" stuff is awesome.

Seems to be good and bad illus. in most RPG books...
All in the eye of the beholder!

In my opinion, art expresses something that the artist feels. If it isn't doing that, its just a picture. Most of this stuff are just pictures.

Even though a lot of the 1e art was weak technically, I feel like the artist is really trying to give you a sense of something special.

On the other hand, a lot of the later art, especially from the books, don't really convey much other than, "here is a picture of what the book says." I look at it and think, "I know that's what it looks like. I can read." Portraits aren't really art.

Quote from: danbuter;458508I disagree!

Same here. I thought it was really neat.

Quote from: Benoist;458328YES, I will take this



And this



And this



And this

I think these are amazing.

Yeah, those are great!

Quote from: Machinegun Blue;458420

Wow, if you ever wanted to know what your orc mother-in-law looked like, voilà!!

Quote from: misterguignol;458360Anyway, this is hardly the worst art to happen in the history of rpgs, but it's always bothered me:



You'd think that the fact that all vampires in Ravenloft are blue-skinned would be a dead give away.  

Seriously, why is Strahd a fucking Smurf???

Maybe it's an elf's point-of-view shot? Lady's still alive and warm, shows up in warm colours, Strahd is a cold moving corpse.

What you folks have to realise is that old RPG stuff (amateurish, "little brother") and new (blandly professional) are equally crap. Here's some good RPG art:










Otus and Elmore fans can shut up and fuck off equally.


EDIT: Oops, forgot I just posted here...

Quote from: J Arcane;458447As promised, I've snapped some shots of some of what I consider the worst offenders in the DC Heroes card deck that came with 2e. Sorry about the quality, the iPad 2's camera is absolute rubbish.

Those all look like they're by contemporary DC artists. Not that they're any good, mind, but they're by the regular artists from the comics. The GL John Stewart is a Joe Staton, and the Hal Jordan looks to me a bit like a Gil Kane inked by a blind man. I think the Dr Fate might be Shawn McManus (artist on the late 80s Fate series) but I'm not certain on that one.

The Batman is a Jim Aparo, so I feel forced to try to defend the dodgy posing by saying it must have been clipped out of a scene where it made sense and Bats was sitting on a gargoyle looking broody or something... but in all honest Aparo did put out a couple of clunker poses every issue I think, they've just picked a bad shot of his here.

Quite why they didn't just us the Jose-Luis Garcia Lopez licensing illios is beyond me, those things are beautiful.

The only bad art that comes to my mind when I think of the 2e era is the art in the Forgotten Realms box set, specifically the interior art.  Definitely add that to the list of bad art.

Outside of saying that it doesn't inspire or feed your "creative itch", I don't see how people think "high fantasy" art of that era is bad.