Complaining about the look of the original printing of the 1E Monster Manual should be a capital offense. That book basically launched table top roleplaying games as a widespread hobby.

Quote from: Larsdangly;965048Complaining about the look of the original printing of the 1E Monster Manual should be a capital offense. That book basically launched table top roleplaying games as a widespread hobby.

You've mistaken assessing artistic merit with complaining. The fact that the cover art sucks doesn't bother me at all, especially not 40 years later when most RPGs still suffer from bad artwork. Monster Manual at least has the excuse of being the first hardcover out of the gate with nothing to compare itself to.

Because art is a personal thing, and is in no way objective, personally I think Erol Otus was crap.  I never liked his stuff.  I will grant that some of his pieces were 'OK' but no one will convince me his stuff was 'good'.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;965043Traveller (all versions/editions/3rd-party) had terrible human art. Except for the work done by David R Deitrick, and the artist that did Chthonian Stars. They could draw human races just fine.

1977 Traveller may not be familiar to you but the only "human art" is a portrait of a Van Rijn-like merchant and it's quite good.

The interior art in the MM ranges from excellent to charmingly wonky but I'd give the edge to excellent with Trampier's Firegiant, Lich, Minotaur, etc. Sutherland was obviously capable of much better than the MM cover, his Paladin in Hell in the PHB is iconic. The 1e DMG also had a weak cover I think, it is only the PHB that had a class A cover still referenced today.

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It's odd that Darlene was never given a cover, just look at the interior art she did for the DMG. Perhaps she wasn't comfortable working in colour yet either?

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Quote from: Voros;965121The interior art in the MM ranges from excellent to charmingly wonky but I'd give the edge to excellent with Trampier's Firegiant, Lich, Minotaur, etc. Sutherland was obviously capable of much better than the MM cover, his Paladin in Hell in the PHB is iconic. The 1e DMG also had a weak cover I think, it is only the PHB that had a class A cover still referenced today.

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The original DMG cover was mediocre but inoffensive, and at least the efreeti looked cool.  But PHB definitely has the best cover of any D&D book I've ever seen.

I always thought the first Champions cover was fairly poor.

I'm trying to think of other bad covers but I tend to remember the good ones and block out the bad ones, so I'll have to look at my boxes and books to single out the worst offenders.

Quote from: Voros;965124It's odd that Darlene was never given a cover, just look at the interior art she did for the DMG. Perhaps she wasn't comfortable working in colour yet either?

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She should have gotten a cover or three. Her artwork is on a higher level than most of the other contemporary D&D artists. Maybe color or price was an issue.

I like it all. Even the bad art has punky charm and captures a mood. Otus is a fucking master and is the Ditko of RPG art. I agree that Darlene is tragically underrated.  

When the slick art in more recent editions of D&D tries to take the goofball anything-goes monsters of the 1st Ed Monster Manual and depict them "Realistically" it's somehow more absurd and laughable than the original. There is no such thing as a non-goofy rust monster.

The work of SCAR studios (which consisted of artists Steve Carter and Antoinette Ryder--see what they did there?) is still notorious in some circles as a low-water mark for the Old World of Darkness books.

And because they are both Australians, they got to do a little more than half the art for the book Rage Across Australia, which to this day is really hard to read or even page through, because all the SCAR art is a crime against eyeballs.

John Cobb also deserves a mention--his human figures fail so hard to look passably human that they actually inspired an appearance-related Flaw in Infernalism: The Path of Screams whose description actually included the phrase, "Oh my god, you look like a John Cobb drawing!"

Quote from: Barghest;965218The work of SCAR studios (which consisted of artists Steve Carter and Antoinette Ryder--see what they did there?) is still notorious in some circles as a low-water mark for the Old World of Darkness books.

And because they are both Australians, they got to do a little more than half the art for the book Rage Across Australia, which to this day is really hard to read or even page through, because all the SCAR art is a crime against eyeballs.

John Cobb also deserves a mention--his human figures fail so hard to look passably human that they actually inspired an appearance-related Flaw in Infernalism: The Path of Screams whose description actually included the phrase, "Oh my god, you look like a John Cobb drawing!"

ARGH! These were exactly the two I was going to post about. SCARs work in Werewolf was so bad my friends and I used to scream "SCARRRRRRR" like pirates every time we came to one of his art pieces looking at a new book. COBB was frustrating too - his work started in Ars Magica, I believe, and slowly infiltrated all of the White Wolf lines. I actually wrote into White Wolf back in the 90s to beg them to stop using him.

In terms of old, laughable art, there are some pieces done by Kevin Siembieda that were decent. I actually looked at some of his Robotech drawings, and they weren't too awful. But his other stuff. Giant cartoon noses, strange proportions, and a very curious quirk of making his characters look like there were part 2D, part 3D. I can't even describe it. His arts sadly fallen off as well, as he's got either older or too busy to take the time.

Hell, even purposefully bad illustrations don't lack charme.

Point in case, Encounter Critical's "Warlord of Unheroic Decay"

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Sutherland's drawings annoy me. I think it's the jarring combination of how the drawings clearly took a lot of effort, yet he never manages to get poses, proportions, or perspective anywhere close to right. Paladin in Hell is a great example. I'm sure he spent hours, maybe even days, on that sketch. And the hero in the picture has contorted his body into possibly the most impossible sword-striking pose anyone has dreamed up.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;965259Sutherland's drawings annoy me. I think it's the jarring combination of how the drawings clearly took a lot of effort, yet he never manages to get poses, proportions, or perspective anywhere close to right. Paladin in Hell is a great example. I'm sure he spent hours, maybe even days, on that sketch. And the hero in the picture has contorted his body into possibly the most impossible sword-striking pose anyone has dreamed up.

I agree.  I don't how it's considered iconic when he doesn't even have the basics of anatomy.  It's a cool concept, I'll grant it that, and the armour looks authentic, if awkward.

I think a lot of it has to do with when and how you first saw the drawings and what sort of reactions they first triggered. Like I know that Rob Liefeld is objectively a bad artist, but I thought his drawings were awesome when I was a middle schooler reading comics, so they trigger the "WOW AWESOME" part of my brain to this day. I never got any AD&D books until about 2 years ago, though, so Sutherland drawings mean nothing to me. Really love Otus and Trampier, though.