What happened to fantasy art, /ic/? When did it get so generic

chinks.

>>2923408
They're merely (literally) copying the west.

>>2923406
I don't get it. Is this image implying the top one is somehow better and less generic and tasteless than the bottom one?

>>2923418
>I don't get it. Is this image implying the top one is somehow better and less generic and tasteless than the bottom one?

yeah

>>2923406
Looks like shitty WoW influence.

>>2923435
How? They are both the very pinnacle of generic, tasteless fantasy art. The only difference being that the bottom one added WoW armor.

>>2923418
this

both are insanely generic even for modern fantasy standards

as for >>2923406
it's always been technicolor D&D manual pulp, or as of recent, drab grey and brown videogame pulp. Everyone tried to make something as epic as Tolkien but they couldn't work on the same scale so they just mashed random mythological shit together. Same with Sci-fi and Star Wars.

>>2923438
The top one reads much better

>>2923418
first one has better artwork

>>2923406
damn that rich red on the first dragon is making me cum

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>>2923406

What is up with that guy's forehead in the first picure?

>>2923406
Damn the 90's were seriously a low point for fantasy art.

>>2923445
That's a compositional value structure thing and has nothing whatsoever to do with generic-ness or taste.

>>2923495
Both look absolutely horrible. The first one looks like a cheap D&D novel cover and the second one looks like a korean browser game illustration.

>>2923513
Never seen a black intellectual before?

>>2923406
what's the medium does the top one use? it looks similiar to a lot of old sci-fi book covers.

traditional is inherently better than digital, for starters (pixel simulations are merely imitations of the real thing - digital has a long way to go before it can appeal to our eye in the same way real marks on real surfaces can)
the designs of the second one are also pure crap
only those with inborn taste will get this

>>2923445
Retarded /ic/ in one post

The environment looks kind of cool in the top one, it looks like a place I'd like to explore. Artistically it is a bit too tight for my taste but I'm just talking about the character/feel of the area. Rocky limestone(?) terrain paired with yellow grasses is nice. Coniferous trees and pools of water scattered about. Feels nice man. Kinda like Wyoming or Montana. Environment of the bottom one is more generic and not worth exploring.

Some of the armor is more interesting in the top one too. Like the big ginger-haired troll's armor. I wonder what kind of goodies he is carrying in those pouches. Interesting jewelry, etc. Same for the Drow. Bunch of doodads around her belt and neck. Talismans and shit. I wanna bash her head in and steal them. The bottom picture is more about goofy shoulder pads and oversized weapons.

Style of top is kinda lame yeah, but the content feeds the imagination a little more more. Bottom is also stylistically lame, but also more empty feeling. I don't want to explore this place. I don't want any of those weapons/armor/items. The only thing that piques my curiosity at all is that feathered skull headpiece on the girl on the right. Drow's sword is decent too. Oddly restrained compared to the rest.

lvl 34 Bard LFG...

>>2923554
Acrylic I guess?

Who cares

Fantasy art is shit

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it got better with japanese influence

>>2923656
>that perspective on the hot air balloon
amano what are you doing

>>2923513
Maxed int.

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>>2923418
>>2923438
>>2923443
>>2923574

The difference is that even though both are generic and are very of their time the first one is a lot more "fun" than the bottom one. It contains fantasy characters with some hints and personality quirks whereas the bottom one contains cookie-cutter video game characters with some fantasy elements thrown in.

On a technical level the bottom one's color palette is completely all over the place, zero consistency in scale of characters, cluttered silhouettes and backgrounds, hard to tell who the good and badguys are. The designs are ripped straight out of WoW and the piece uses some cheap shortcuts like atmo-fogging the bg to Superman 64 levels even though it doesn't make sense for the environment to push back some of the clutter. The top one has a mage on the left drawing in the viewer by making eye-contact before casting a spell. The bottom has a (giant) archer staring off into space (with the bow string on the wrong side of her bow). The rocks feel like they're made of styrofoam in the bottom one, compared to the more weathered ones at the top.

It handles pretty much every aspect worse than the top one.

>>2923406
Is it just me or are the colours in the top one hideous? It's like the artist chose the worst colours on purpose.

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>>2923707
Just you. Perhaps a bit saturated, which a lot of commercial fantasy/sf illustration did at the time, but everything's neatly organized by color for as an efficient graphic read. Grass = yellow/green. Trees = blue grueen. Dragon = red. Wizard = light blue etc. A little bit on the Bob Ross side, but compared to the arbitrary color choices in the bottom one it's night and day.

>>2923706
I agree but the top one is still hideous

>everyone is focused on the composition and colors
>no has realized how dull the colors are on the bottom image
git gud /ic/ u fucking cucks

>>2923730
ment "focused on composition and characters"

>>2923406
Never seen the top style before, second style is browser games and mobage shit.

>>2923406
Acrylics vs digital.

>>2923834
>Never seen the top style before
Underage b&

>>2923664
not to defend what was clearly a mistake on his part, but it could be swooping towards the viewer

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>>2923406
Hey guys, see those stairs cut into the big rock hill over there? Leading up into a cluster of trees? Yeah, there is an altar hidden in there with a stone statue. One of the statue's hands had three rings, with one finger missing its ring. I found a ring in one of the nearby pools of water so I tried slipping it onto the finger. The ground began to shake and a door opened up at the base of the rock. I took a peek inside but there was 10 or so undead in the very first room. Wanna help me clear it?

>>2924256
i want nothing more, friend.

>>2923406
apparently world of warcraft happened, thats exactly what the bottom pic looks like.

>>2923706
I think the main difference is style. WoW us obviously very popular and I'm sure its had a big influence on modern fantasy art.

>>2924277
BIG
ASS
PAULDRONS

I see no difference besides stuff being more shiny

>>2923406
The top one is impressive simply because it is traditional. Its comp is arguably better and the figures are more rooted in realism. But the bottom one has a lot more dynamic movement in the fighting. That elf is literally just sitting there in the top painting.

Neither is really fun to look at.

>>2924294
There are tons of differences that make the bottom one awful. Everything from the silhouettes of the characters, to what they're doing to the dull color palette and bland scenery.

>>2923706
Other than the designs being ripped straight from wow, virtually every single thing you just mentioned fits for the top one as well. The color palette is even worse and much more jarring in the top one. The bottom one whether you like it or not is slightly more harmonized by taking away some of that overly saturated red and blue of the dragon and the sky.

They are both very bad images and you can argue one way or another which one is "better", but to say the top one is not just better but an EXAMPLE of how fantasy art used to be good and now it's bad is fucking ridiculous. The top one is absolutely hideous in its own right.

>>2925684
What the characters are doing is even worse in the top one. They all look like copy-pasted cut outs from other random fantasy illustrations. The 2 figures on the left are just facing completely away from the "action". The woman looks like she's posing for a photo shoot and just look at that red wizard guy, what the fuck is he doing? "What is going on here, some kind of battle? hmm that wench over there does have a nice ass though"

>>2923406
both of those are bad.
top one wasnt bad back in the 80s but high fantasy is completely over done at this point.
people think that high fantasy = all fantasy and its caused a massive over saturation.

Tolkien, D&D, etc have become a baseline for what people consider to be fantasy so the genre has stagnated due to lack of creativity.

Same thing happened with scifi.

>>2925859
man, I'd have to seriously disagree with you. the grass on the top uses yellow, orange, brown, and almost very little green, which I think looks better than a bland "grass is always some shade of green" approach the bottom uses. also the top grass has more concrete shape rather than a cheap digital trick to make stock grass. there's no mass fill, so you can tell that each blade of grass was added stroke by stroke, picked color by color so once you step back it looks like real grass. the bottom looks like someone made some cheap grass using 3 shades of green, fill-tooling with the darkest green, then making random 1-shade streaks using the slightly lighter shade of green. same thing could be said of the rocks. the rocks on the top are white, porous, and have warmer and cooler hues all on the same rock, like mentioned above, they look weathered, they look unique, they look convincing. the bottom's rocks are just a shade of brown with swirls of caramel goop.