Artists for the Monster Manual

Dr_Noface · Post by **Dr_Noface** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 12:18 pm

I'd love to see Mike Mignola (of Hellboy fame) contribute a few monsters to the Monster Manual. What about you guys?

malak · Post by **malak** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 12:28 pm

I'd like to see some aberrant monsters by HR Giger.

Wesley Street · Post by **Wesley Street** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 12:30 pm

I love the Hellboy-verse of comics and I love Mignola. But his heavy, shadowy ink style isn't particularly appropriate to a Monster Manual. Maybe for a WoD book or an elder evils supplement but not D&D.

While they don't have to be in color, a Monster Manual illustration needs to be clear enough that a Dungeon Master can describe it to his players without difficulty or guesswork. "Uh... and... uh, it's got tentacles for whiskers? And frog eyes, I think."

Clean, clear and with ambient lighting. Like a nature study. That's the MM way.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 12:44 pm

As I mentioned in another thread, I like Tony DiTerlizzi's work. Part of that might be nostalgia since I started playing with 2E, and his work was my favorite.

Wayne Reynolds is another favorite of mine. I especially like his stuff after 3.0, when he learned how to draw feet.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 3:03 pm

Wayne Barlowe.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 4:58 pm

Masamune Shirow

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 5:21 pm

Wesley Street wrote:I love the Hellboy-verse of comics and I love Mignola. But his heavy, shadowy ink style isn't particularly appropriate to a Monster Manual. Maybe for a WoD book or an elder evils supplement but not D&D.

While they don't have to be in color, a Monster Manual illustration needs to be clear enough that a Dungeon Master can describe it to his players without difficulty or guesswork. "Uh... and... uh, it's got tentacles for whiskers? And frog eyes, I think."

Clean, clear and with ambient lighting. Like a nature study. That's the MM way.

Seriously? I'll agree that for a MM, Mignola's style isn't necessarily the best, but there's art in Eberron and one or two other books that I could have sworn was Mignola working with a brighter palet, until I looked at the artist credits and saw him no where on there.

Hell, limit him to a certain proportion of dark to light, if you have to, but I think it'd be great to see some of his stuff in D&D. And I very much agree on the Giger aberration thing, too.

I'd love to see more Wayne Reynolds, and some Barlowe would be awesome. But someone needs to send Wayne England and Jeremy Jarvis back to Art school... England does good structures, that's about it. His weapons look too bland and similar, and his creatures have no necks. Jarvis' art is just to flat.

I'd love to see some of Post's or Brom's better stuff. Hell, they've both done stuff for MtG, so I doubt they'd have much problem on D&D. Baxa has good stuff, he just needs to stop drawing things that look like they're composed of worms and puzzle pieces (unless the depicted thing is...).

Hell, Magic the Gathering has beautiful work by a lot of artists, so there's definitely some fodder there.

Ursela Vernon would be awesome to see in a MM. Hell, if you went all out and did the manual as more of a field journal, layout-wise, she could be given free reign on some monsters, and the entry could have a large, full colour semi-realistic illustration of the creature, and then some random doodles and sketches in borders that let her just play around a bit.

And... well, shameless plug for the boyfriend of an acquaintance, throw some work this way to Guardianofire on devart:

He's done great "realistic" pokemon drawings, so I'd love to see what he does with a Chasme or the Tarrasque.

Vnonymous · Post by **Vnonymous** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 5:54 pm

Kentauro Miura can do some pretty cool monsters, and you'd get some cred for including a japanese artist from the current teen crowd.

Of course given what current teens want you're probably going to end up with Tite Kubo or that guy who does Naruto doing those designs.

Doom · Post by **Doom** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 6:25 pm

Boris Vallejo, so that every picture, even the ones of ochre jellies and such, can have scantily clad women in them.

Wesley Street · Post by **Wesley Street** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 6:34 pm

Prak_Anima wrote:Seriously? I'll agree that for a MM, Mignola's style isn't necessarily the best, but there's art in Eberron and one or two other books that I could have sworn was Mignola working with a brighter palet, until I looked at the artist credits and saw him no where on there.

A Mignola-clone, or any other popular artist with a distinctive style, is fine for spot illustrations in a splat book. For a Monster Manual, the art needs to be clean and bright. It's a technical rendering that conveys what the creature actually looks like.

If full color isn't an option, the Shadowrun 1st ed. critter books are a good visual guide. Large images, clean layouts, very solid ink work.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 7:15 pm

Vnonymous wrote: Of course given what current teens want you're probably going to end up with Tite Kubo

Pro: Not many backgrounds to draw!

Con: You might get monsters in outfits so outrageous that they would make the barbarians in Mad Max and Fist of the North Star laugh at them.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 9:00 pm

Gustave Doré

Red Archon · Post by **Red Archon** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 9:35 pm

Paul Bonner, most definetly.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Aug 25, 2010 1:22 am

hogarth wrote:Gustave Doré

In that case, Giovanni Battista Piranesi.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Wed Aug 25, 2010 2:55 am

James Christiansen

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Wed Aug 25, 2010 1:21 pm

CatharzGodfoot wrote:
hogarth wrote:Gustave Doré
In that case, Giovanni Battista Piranesi.

Did he do monster-type artwork? Google mostly turns up architectural engravings.

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:23 pm

Prak_Anima wrote:I'd love to see some of Post's or Brom's better stuff. Hell, they've both done stuff for MtG, so I doubt they'd have much problem on D&D.

You know Brom was the house artist for Dark Sun, and setting elements were created by having Brom draw something funky and them making stats for it?

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:30 pm

hogarth wrote:
CatharzGodfoot wrote:
hogarth wrote:Gustave Doré
In that case, Giovanni Battista Piranesi.
Did he do monster-type artwork? Google mostly turns up architectural engravings.

No, he didn't--but he's a great artist, and he would be able to draw dungeon scenes like nobody's business.

Goya would be a great monster artist, tough.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:37 pm

Red_Rob wrote:
Prak_Anima wrote:I'd love to see some of Post's or Brom's better stuff. Hell, they've both done stuff for MtG, so I doubt they'd have much problem on D&D.
You know Brom was the house artist for Dark Sun, and setting elements were created by having Brom draw something funky and them making stats for it?

This is pretty much the perfect way to design monsters once you've gone through all the stuff inspired by the source material, in my mind.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:41 pm

I wonder if they did the same with Diterlizzi and Planescape..

UmaroVI · Post by **UmaroVI** » Thu Aug 26, 2010 3:03 pm

Prak_Anima wrote:
Red_Rob wrote:
Prak_Anima wrote:I'd love to see some of Post's or Brom's better stuff. Hell, they've both done stuff for MtG, so I doubt they'd have much problem on D&D.
You know Brom was the house artist for Dark Sun, and setting elements were created by having Brom draw something funky and them making stats for it?
This is pretty much the perfect way to design monsters once you've gone through all the stuff inspired by the source material, in my mind.

I like to do that when creating characters (although it has to be in a system with sufficiently flexible character creation that you can do it without crippling yourself). Start with an awesome picture, then make a character to fit it.