Can we just stop with this stuff? Art thread style.

OK, last art thread.

This thread is for stuff we're tired of seeing.

Whether it's stuff that isn't really bad, but we're just tired of seeing so much of, or stuff that annoyed us the first time, and hasn't gotten better with age, here we can vent our disdain.


bonus points for not getting defensive on behalf of your favorite artist. I'm sure some of you will hate stuff that I love. I'll survive. You will too.

In other words, no attacks! In fact, let's just agree to not even comment on each other's choices, unless our comments are positive or neutral or really really polite.

After all, the point of venting isn't to argue, it's to experience the cathartic release of telling someone how much you dislike a thing, and just "get it off your chest", and with any luck, get some commiseration from like minded folk.


I'll post stuff tomorrow. Sleep now.

Pathfinders art in general. I have to say I hate 90% of Pathfinders Art. I find that the people he drwss look weird. I know that Wayne Reynolds did most of the art for 4e, and Pathfinder but I feel that he did a much better job with 4e's.

Completely impractical-looking weapons and armour are my primary bugbear. (Well, that and actual bugbears. They always look too goofy to be threatening, like something out of a late-1980s kiddies' cartoon.) I don't mind a few unnecessary spikes or serrations or the odd horned helmet, but warhammers with heads the size of a small car, swords with blades that look about eight inches wide, and women with 'windows' (positioned conveniently over the heart) in their supposedly-full-plate armour all annoy me.

Also, drow with skin that's obviously nowhere near being black. I know painting truly black skin is hard, but that's what the artists are paid for. If it was easy, anyone could be a fantasy artist. Drow should never be brown. A really dark purple or blue is just about acceptable. But, really, just make sure the lighting of the scene is right and you can make them look genuinely onyx-skinned and still make out their features. Some artists can manage it (Anne Stokes, Ralph Horsley, Adam Gillespie...). Those that can't shouldn't be commissioned to paint drow.

The other thing that annoys me is female characters posing like they're in a porn shoot while they're supposed to be fighting/exploring/whatever. If you can see both her backside and her breasts at the same time, she's either got some strange spinal deformation or she's not really fighting/exploring/whatever, she's posing. Yes, Wayne Reynolds, I'm looking at you.

I'm really tired of WoTC's habit of overreaction in art. People complained that there was too much "pretty" in 4e art, and then suddenly it's constant ugly. Seriously? No plain, no mix of different stuff, just ugly.

awesome.


And 4e tieflings. Their forheads look like butts. They're just ugly, and look too much the same. Horns like Satyrs', and some different skin tones and other features would be awesome.

Speaking of tieflings... while I don't mind their 4e look in general, the beard-spikes most of the males seem to have look extremely silly IMO. When I had to find a character portrait for the tiefling wizard in the group I DM for, the best picture I could find was actually a (slightly altered) photo of Tim the Enchanter from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. When John Cleese is the least goofy-looking male tiefling in the world, something is very wrong.

I'll +1 the Pathfinder art.

I rather like a lot of PF art, myself,  but to each their own.


ugh...beard spikes...

What gets me are the nose spike on green dragons.

I never really paid much attention to Green Dragons. Possibly because they are my least favorite of all dragons. I really dislike the art used to portray most females in the art. I understand the appeal of beautiful women in art, but lets face it... Most adventuring women probably wouldn't be all that attractive. The majority of them would probably be scarred, rough, not so... voluptuous, and would probably have armour that covered more than 20% of her body (Female Sorcerers and Wizards don't count  ). I really preferred the old ways of portraying fantasy women typically seen in AD&D and older systems. The women in them were attractive but they didn't try to make flipping through the PHB like flipping through a swimsuit magazine.

Actually, I figure adventurers in general would be some manner of attractive. They'd nearly all be fit, even the casters, I'd imagine.

Also, Julie D'Aubigny ( http://www.badassoftheweek.com/lamaupin.html ) is the inspiration for many of my DnD characters, male and female. :PAnd she was smokin hot.

but DnD female art is mostly terrible.

You want to know what's really pissing me off right now? I'm trying to find suitable artwork for a half-elf (although human would also work) elemental hexblade character concept I've had rattling around in my head for the past couple of days. The problem is, this character is both female and Black.

Almost every piece of fantasy art of a 'Black female warrior' I can find seems to feature a leopard/tiger-skin bikini, with beads and feathers and skulls and necklaces of animal teeth, and often stone-age-looking weapons (spears being the most popular). Is it too much to ask that some fantasy artist, somewhere, can portray a Black woman as something other than a frikkin' jungle/cave-dwelling 'noble savage' stereotype?

I want a Black woman with a scimitar (or similar weapon) and (more importantly) full scale armour, with absolutely no 'primitive'/'tribal' jewellery, who looks like she might actually have been raised in (what Westerners would consider) a 'civilized' society. Is that too much to ask? Are only White girls allowed to wear heavy armour in fantasy settings?

I mean, it's not like there's much fantasy artwork that portrays Black characters at all, but when almost every piece that does is either a crude ethnic stereotype or borderline porn (or both), it really makes me despair.

I guess this isn't so much "Can we just stop with this stuff?" as "Can we please have something other than this stuff?"

EDIT: Oh hey, I found a picture of a Black woman with a scimitar, wearing an Arab-style headscarf... aaaand absolutely nothing else.

Well put.

 


These are some weird smileys. By the mod powers vested in me, the elephant smiley is officially designated the "+1" smiley. I love going mad with power!  

You just gave me an idea.