D&D (2024) Here's The New 2024 Player's Handbook Wizard Art

 

[teitan]

Really? You calling it generic and lumping together a couple decades worth of art styles wasn't disparaging? Huh.

I blame the art director. Welcome to my ignore list.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think it has become a fairly generic aesthetic myself. WoW looks D&D looks MtG looks etc. I am really keen on art, went to art school and have an eye for seeing the "errors" that make a style. Even in late 1e/2e one could see Elmore and Easley and Parkinson and know the artist was different. Nowadays I couldn't name any of them, I don't see cues that indicate they are different, nor do I see signatures etc. it's like Continuity Comics where EVERYONE drew exactly like Neal Adams. When I open something like OSE, DCC, or other games though I pick up and see a unique visual style to define the games while allowing the artist to come through as well. It doesn't feel churned out.

I also went to art school and I can see the difference.

Specifically with this one, I kept thinking "This is very 2017 MOBA or CCG", and so I looked up the artist (Billy Christian), and lo and behold, he did a ton of art for Legend of the Cryptids, a 2017 CCG.

This is a style that's got a lot of relatives, sure, but if you flatly can't see that there are different artists with different vibes working on this kind of thing, then, that's on you, not on the artists. It's no more generic than the previous 5E art, or even the 3E art, and I hate to say it, but it's possibly less generic than the weirdly forgettable 4E art.

1E/2E art is a little different because it was actual painters doing actual paintings, with somewhat lower average levels of stylization for the major panels (but not that low, c.f. Easley etc.), and it was a much smaller number of artists. I think that's part of the problem you're having. Back in 1E/2E, you were often looking at like, I dunno, a double handful of artists - often a product had just one to five artists on it - like Dragon Mountain with Jaquays as the cover artist and DiTerlizzi, Easley and Elmore as the interior artists (but like 80% DiTerlizzi IIRC). AD&D used this same few artists over, and over. So you quickly came to recognise them even where their styles might be superficially similar (and some were). Now we're looking at situations where frequently books have fairly vast numbers of artists providing much smaller numbers of pieces of art - sometimes just one - and so it's harder to spot the differences.

I think they are talented artists working in a preferred house style which is why I compared it to Continuity Comics, where Neal Adams trained artists for comics work.

You're flatly wrong here, I'm afraid. This a very different style to, for example, the cover art for the 2024 PHB we've seen, and we've also not seen enough 2024 art to say this is a "house style", especially as it's very different to current 5E art. It's possible that could be true, but you don't have the evidence to say that, and I think it's unlikely.

 

[Parmandur]

This a very different style to, for example, the cover art for the 2024 PHB we've seen

Small side note, we have not seen any cover art for this yet: we've seen the Fighter and Wizard splash page art, the Champion inset art, some Backgrounds, and a silver dragon.

 

[Hussar]

Back in 1E/2E, you were often looking at like, I dunno, a double handful of artists - often a product had just one to five artists on it - like Dragon Mountain with Jaquays as the cover artist and DiTerlizzi, Easley and Elmore as the interior artists (but like 80% DiTerlizzi IIRC). AD&D used this same few artists over, and over.

Let's not forget that in the TSR days, they actually HAD an art department. As in most of the art was done in house. So, yes, of course anyone who played back then can start to recognize the artists. After all, you saw the same half dozen or so artists, not just repeatedly in a single book, but, in virtually every single book you bought back then.

Like you say, it's very unlikely that a single artist has more than a couple of images in any given book (other than maybe the cartographers - they tend to be one person doing the whole book) and very often an artist that appears in one product never appears again.

 

[Azzy]

Small side note, we have not seen any cover art for this yet: we've seen the Fighter and Wizard splash page art, the Champion inset art, some Backgrounds, and a silver dragon.

Can you please point me in the direction of those?

 

[Parmandur]

Can you please point me in the direction of those?

Sure, here they are from the PAX East panel: the Fighter image with the Dwarf is the equivalent to the Wizard image in the OP here, and each Subclass will apparently get an inset image similar to this Champion:

 

[teitan]

I also went to art school and I can see the difference.

Specifically with this one, I kept thinking "This is very 2017 MOBA or CCG", and so I looked up the artist (Billy Christian), and lo and behold, he did a ton of art for Legend of the Cryptids, a 2017 CCG.

This is a style that's got a lot of relatives, sure, but if you flatly can't see that there are different artists with different vibes working on this kind of thing, then, that's on you, not on the artists. It's no more generic than the previous 5E art, or even the 3E art, and I hate to say it, but it's possibly less generic than the weirdly forgettable 4E art.

1E/2E art is a little different because it was actual painters doing actual paintings, with somewhat lower average levels of stylization for the major panels (but not that low, c.f. Easley etc.), and it was a much smaller number of artists. I think that's part of the problem you're having. Back in 1E/2E, you were often looking at like, I dunno, a double handful of artists - often a product had just one to five artists on it - like Dragon Mountain with Jaquays as the cover artist and DiTerlizzi, Easley and Elmore as the interior artists (but like 80% DiTerlizzi IIRC). AD&D used this same few artists over, and over. So you quickly came to recognise them even where their styles might be superficially similar (and some were). Now we're looking at situations where frequently books have fairly vast numbers of artists providing much smaller numbers of pieces of art - sometimes just one - and so it's harder to spot the differences.


You're flatly wrong here, I'm afraid. This a very different style to, for example, the cover art for the 2024 PHB we've seen, and we've also not seen enough 2024 art to say this is a "house style", especially as it's very different to current 5E art. It's possible that could be true, but you don't have the evidence to say that, and I think it's unlikely.

Again I didn't blame the artists, I mentioned the art director. Have a good day.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Welcome to my ignore list.

Mod Note:

You’ve been here long enough that you should know that ENW’s Mods consider announcing the inclusion of others to your ignore list to be problematic. Such proclamations are almost guaranteed to irritate, which could lead to problems down the line.

Feel free to use the ignore list; just have a sense of decorum and keep its use to yourself.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Clerics and the King’s Service in Late Medieval England
Clerics and the King’s Service in Late Medieval England by Virginia Davis
"Men described as “clericus” span the full gambit from having received the first tonsure, which carried with it no commitment to an ecclesiastical career..."
“…the wide range of meanings encompassed within the medieval and catch–all term “clericus”.”

The word "clericus" is not the same word as "cleric". But if we are talking derivations, the root word is the Greek klērikos. It is a word that was in use long before the medieval period, and is still used to describe people who work for the church today. There is nothing medieval about it.

At this point if I don't get at least a few sentences telling all and sundry that Gary Gygax was completely full of it

Gygax loved REH, swords and sorcery and myth. So a lot of his stuff is ancient-world influenced - not medieval. But as a businessman he was pretty rubbish, and when he lost control the the company the aesthetic was changed to something more broadly appealing (see Dragonlance for example). They dropped the pretence of 1950s Hollywood medievalism inherited from Chainmail for something with more contemporary appeal, and D&D has reflected the culture of it's time ever since. That's how it's managed to stay popular.

It is certainly true to say that the D&D aesthetic has changed from the 1970s. In fact its changed many times. I don't have a problem with that. Fashions in fantasy clothing change with time just as fashions in real world clothing do. Why do you find D&D's attempt to stay relevant so contemptable? I've been playing D&D since the 1980s, but I don't feel the need to stay locked in the past. Is it a kind of gatekeeping? You don't want kids to play, so you object to art that might appeal to them? Or is it akin to 1960s parents objecting to miniskirts? Sometimes D&D has been influenced by historical garb, but much of the early art - horned helmets, furs, lots of bare skin - owes more to REH than the medieval period. The 2014 wizard art does have some historical influence - it's the sort of thing a 16th century apothecary might wear, aside from the colour. That shade of blue was available, but would have been very expensive, and likely to fall foul of sumptuary laws.

It's perfectly possible to play D&D in a setting more closely influenced by real world history, and if that floats your boat that's fine. But as a commercial product, D&D has to make mainstream appeal it's foremost priority.

Playing in Eberron, I make extensive use of 1920s fashions. I ignore much of the official art because it suits my game to do something different. Doesn't mean I want all the official art torn up because it conflicts with what I choose to do in game.

As an additional note, there is nothing in that costume that would have been impossible to make using 16th century technology (aside from the spell FX) . There are no zip fasteners or lycra. How people choose to dress at any period is pretty random, at least for the wealthy. Neckties? What the point of them? We have buttons now!

 

[ezo]

The whole point of modern DnD and the reason why it's so popular is literally the superhero fantasy. It's why there are floors for things like stat rolls, why a lot of the game systems include redundancies for negative stuff, etc.

Care to take a second guess? Because unless you're playing a full caster, very little of D&D gets into the level of superhero fantasy until levels which very few players ever get to play at, and frankly even at that point any "superhero moments" are limited.

We don't have barbarians lifting giants and tossing them 100 feet, or fighters knocking out ogres with a single punch, or archers who can't miss, or any of other things which would be more superheroic. Even PCs flying, teleporting, and doing any number of other things, while superheroic, is also very much simply fantasy adventure.

Superhero fantasy has been around a LONG time, it has little to do with D&D being popular. As for not having "negative stuff", that is due more to a cultural shift than superheroes.

"Modern" (whatever that means) D&D has become popular because many of the people who played it as kids in the 80's and 90's taught their kids, who are the adult movers and shakers in a number of media (movies, internet and tech) now. Over the last 25 years or so, the Internet explosion has connected players who before never were. Heck, EnWorld is a perfect example!

So, while superhero fantasy is a contributing factor, perhaps, it is hardly a major one---or a new one by any stretch of the imagination.

There's a lot of posts in this thread and a lot of opinions and information to absorb. I don't know how long it took you to read it through, but using the "gatekeeping" term is something I hope you simply didn't jump to without some support. I haven't seen much (if any really) "gatekeeping" yet. But that's just my opinion.

And welcome to the forums!