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Old 01-22-2022, 12:50 PM   #1
2dope
 
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Default The soulless "art" of 4th edition.

It needs to go. We have to go back.
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Old 01-22-2022, 01:19 PM   #2
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Default Re: The soulless "art" of 4th edition.

Quote:
Originally Posted by 2dope View Post
It needs to go. We have to go back.
Do you have any particular examples?

I mean the art in RPG books in general and GURPS books in particular has always been a mixed bag with some of it being particularly crappy but a blanket condemnation seems both unfair and a bit pointless.
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Old 01-22-2022, 01:49 PM   #3
2dope
 
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Default Re: The soulless "art" of 4th edition.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Frost
Do you have any particular examples?
The covers. All of them are just a mash-up of previous glory.
Plus all the deviantart discount artists like Bob Stevlic need to disappear, they bring nothing to the table.
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Old 01-22-2022, 02:26 PM   #4
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Default Re: The soulless "art" of 4th edition.

But at what cost?
literally, how much that will cost and will that help the books sell better in the same or better proportion?
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Old 01-22-2022, 03:03 PM   #5
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Default Re: The soulless "art" of 4th edition.

Cost to reuse old art = zero.
Cost to use new art > zero.
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Old 01-22-2022, 03:06 PM   #6
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Default Re: The soulless "art" of 4th edition.

While I agree that GURPS reached its artistic low with 4th edtion (GURPS Magic has like three half-decent illustrations and the rest are purest trash), there are some notable counter-examples: Girl Genius, Mars Attacks and Discworld are among the best, though not very representative with their 3rd-party art. The 2021 PDF had some interesting art too, but you'd probably class that among DeviantArt stuff (though a lot of really good RPG artists are on DA too).

I especially liked the old-school style of Dungeon Fantasy Monsters I and I think the Dungeon Fantasy RPG was pretty darn good for GURPS standards (though I can see how it would seem pretty average for mainstream RPGs). There are very few exceptional pieces Brandon Moore's cover for Pyramid 3/83: Alternate GURPS IV and the one for the previous volume, Magical Creations, is also pretty good.

All in all, it's a mixed bag and while I am not huge fan of Bob Stevlic, his work does the realist vibe of GURPS justice. What I really dislike is exactly what you propose: going back to 3rd edition and having Dan Smith in every single issue. I do not dispute that the guy has some talent for nitty, gritty, comic-bookish stuff, but I really hate seeing his art resurrected every time they need an illustration. True, 3rd edition and earlier had some nice illustrations too, but let's face it: it was as much of a mixed back and often worse than what we have now. The only notable difference was that there was generally a lot more art - for better or worse.

So what do we want? Personally I don't need art, except maybe cover art on books like the Power-Ups series or other short rules supplement. I would like some more and better art for the Basic Set and the other important "core" books (especially Magic) and would generally accept open-source and public domain art for everything in between those two extremes. They've done some of this in Disasters: Hurricane and Hot Spots: Incense Trail and it worked quite well.

I certainly would like more and better art for the 50-80 page supplements, but they told me at FnordCon online it would probably not happen aside from very special cases since these supplements are not exactly highly profitable, which I understand.

You might also want to look at Douglas Cole's Nordland setting, though judging from your comments you probably hate that art (even though I think it has a considerably better hit to miss ratio than most RPG art).
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Last edited by Blind Mapmaker; 01-22-2022 at 03:07 PM. Reason: deleted doubled text
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Old 01-22-2022, 03:58 PM   #7
sjard
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Default Re: The soulless "art" of 4th edition.

<Moderator>
Closing thread as this appears to simply be an attempt at trolling the forums.

Please do not restart this topic.
</Moderator>
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