| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| gylippus |
Posted - 26 Jan 2021 : 19:03:00
Ok, I had to make a different post about the cover of Pool of Radiance. I picked up the book and looked at the cover and thought, alright, the art is fine, no big deal. Later, I looked up the artist and realized it was Clyde Caldwell. Now, he has done some amazing art, some of the best, and I know he did the covers of the Finder's Stone Trilogy. So I have no bone to pick there. But here is my thing, I started reading the book and thought, okay, this guy on the cover must be Tarl, the cleric of Tyr. He seems to be tall, buff, good looking, and he has nice hair. Plus, he has some cloth over his chainmail that I would equate to something the Knights Templar wear. He must be Tarl! But wait, why does he have a sword? Tarl only wields hammers. Imagine my shock when I looked up the cover art and saw that it was supposed to be Ren. Wait, Ren is also tall, buff, and has nice hair. Oh right, Tarl has silver hair, Ren has blond hair, my bad! But wait, isn't Ren a thief/ranger? Doesn't he wear black leathers and shouldn't he have that emo goth look going on? No idea ...
The more I looked at the cover, and by this time I had looked at it quite a bit, in fact I found it more interesting than the book, the more I became convinced Clyde Caldwell modeled Ren after Sebastian Bach of Skid Row. Please, right now, go look up a picture of Sebastian Bach. Skid Row released their first big album ... in .... wait for it ... 1989, with the mega hits 18 and Life and I Remember You. If you don't remember those songs you were living under a rock at that point in time. Pool of Radiance was published in ... wait for it ... 1989. I then did more research and found that Clyde apparently liked to play a guitar. Now, at that point in time he would have been around 40 years old, he was born in 1948. So, now I have this image in my head of Clyde in his studio thinking, hmmmmm what should this Ren guy look like? He is staring around the studio ... music in the background ... "Ricky was a young boy, he had a heart of stone". |
| 7 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Lord Karsus |
Posted - 27 Jan 2021 : 23:30:53
-Wasn't the Drow skin tone more an issue with papers and inks? I forget. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 27 Jan 2021 : 13:08:17
I think if artists were forced to rework their artwork a couple times, they'd learn to do it right the first time -- and if they don't have enough information, to get that information.
I get that having to rework something sucks, but there needs to be some consistency -- if an artist gives does art showing one of the Seven Sisters with brown hair, WotC shouldn't just shrug and ignore it and put the art in a sourcebook anyway. And that, like Kyriani's wildly changed appearances, has happened.
Let's also not forget that despite numerous artists getting drow skintone right, a lot of artists didn't do it and WotC decided it was better to change the descriptions of drow than it was to get artists to do what was asked of them. |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 27 Jan 2021 : 06:43:09
quote:
... art should match what's in the novel, and if it doesn't match, you have the artist fix it.
I agree that it's better when the illustrations and text are consistent. Minor variations are sometimes interesting, but fundamental stuff (like the way the main characters look) should match.
I understand that they're different parts of the product being produced by different people, and quality work takes time and there's deadlines and budgets and layers of production oversight and all the rest.
But I don't think it's fair to make the artist (or author or editor) "fix things" which mismatch. Rework always sucks and it's always better to do things right the first time. In this instance the artist and the author should communicate - should be allowed to communicate, should be encouraged to communicate, and shouldn't have to do it indirectly through obstructive layers of managerials - so that their creative collaboration (and perhaps even their creative synergy) shares a common vision.
The artist should only be forced to rework things (do the job again, and do it right) when the imagery submitted is not consistent with whatever details were specified in the commission. If the mismatch was basically caused by someone else then the artist is not to blame. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 27 Jan 2021 : 05:36:20
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Karsus
-I remember a long, long time ago someone asked a similar question about the cover of some other book in one of the ask the authors threads I think it was, about why some detail was different on the cover as opposed to in the book. If I am remembering correctly, the author said that the artists are given like general details to make cover art, which is why certain things might not match.
That bothers me. My thinking is that art should match what's in the novel, and if it doesn't match, you have the artist fix it. Drizzt was never described as looking like an old man or wearing a funky forehead thing, but look how long that kept popping up in art.
The one that really, really bugs me, though, is the art for Kyriani in the Lords of Waterdeep game. Okay, Kyri is half-drow -- absent any other artwork, then it's reasonable to make her look like a drow. But there's plenty of artwork of her - she was in at least two supplements (though those bits of art didn't match each other, either, and only one matched the comics) and 20 or 30 issues of a comic book. A quick Google search gives plenty of images of her -- so why'd they decide to run with art that didn't even come close to matching anything that had come before? |
| Lord Karsus |
Posted - 27 Jan 2021 : 01:31:35
-I remember a long, long time ago someone asked a similar question about the cover of some other book in one of the ask the authors threads I think it was, about why some detail was different on the cover as opposed to in the book. If I am remembering correctly, the author said that the artists are given like general details to make cover art, which is why certain things might not match. |
| Seravin |
Posted - 26 Jan 2021 : 22:50:08
Knight of Illusion
Medium: Oils
Date: 1986
Publication: Cover for TSR Endless Quest Book #33 of the same name by Mary Kirchoff
So it predates the game and the novel - but I'm sure Ren is based on that guy in the painting.
Side note - How cool is this painting by the way:
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-B-HRD1030FM/WsvWXjkOTHI/AAAAAAABRTY/KDgjQoSl2vs6xLfKFRZ7lA96XGl33zCUACK4BGAYYCw/s320/ClydeCaldwell-csg024_Needle.jpg
Anyway Clyde is the best, and to me is to Forgotten Realms what Larry Elmore is to Dragonlance. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 26 Jan 2021 : 21:30:44
The art was used on the Pool of Radiance game, first -- in 1988. The book was a novelization.
Given the necessary production times and all that, the art was likely completed well before the publication date of the game, so it may go back to 1987 or even 1986.
This doesn't rule out Sebastian Bach being the basis for that artwork, but thinks I that it makes it more unlikely. |
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