Posts tagged DnD

I believe that all gaming art can be fitted generally into one of 3 categories: Squick, Neutral, and Win. For something to be “Win” it cannot marginalize people on any axis*, must have solid anatomy, and has to give the character depicted a sense of purpose and presence. As you can imagine, there isn’t a lot of Win to pick from.

So imagine my delight when I found yet another really snazzy piece. It, too, is from WOTC’s 4e PHB, but I’m uncertain of the artist due to the company’s ambiguous labelling system. If you know it, call it out!

Stick around, squick to follow.

*For example, even non-sexualizing art does not qualify if it exotifies. Claiming someone else’s marginalization as your success is not cool.

thelizard-feminists:

I wonder how female lizard folk are portrayed. Then again, maybe I don’t want to know.

Insofar as “lizard folk” might be understood to encompass “anything reptilian”, (including dragonborn, kobolds, troglodytes, yuan-ti, lizardfolk, etc) the portrayals are mixed. For anything “dragon-y”, the portrayals are what you’d expect:

[Female Dragonborn, 4e]

[Dragonborn, Eric Polak, Races of the Dragon]

[Vyth Leads a Team, Steven Belledi, Races of the Dragon]

[Rite of Rebirth by Emily Fiegenschu, Races of the Dragon]

Seriously. In D&D even the family trees have breasts.

[Draconic Heritage by Dan Frazier, Races of the Dragon]

Yuan-Ti are in a similar vein:

[Yuan-Ti, Sam Wood, 3.5 Monster Manual]

Troglodyes, Lizardfolk, and Kobolds are a little different. Though both males and females of the species seem to exist, there is no dimorphism in the art. This either means that they only choose to depict males of those species (which is possible)  or that in the D&D universe these species do not have the degree of sexual dimorphism that we typically like to project.

[Troglodye, Sam Wood, Monster Manual 3.5]

[Kobold, Sam Wood, Monster Manual 3.5]

[Lizardfolk, Monster Manual 3.5]

[Lizardfolk, Wayne England]

So, either the most lizard-y of the lizard folks are portrayed without breasts, regardless or their sex, or, much like Orcs, WOTC has a tendency to only portray males of certain species. It’s a tough call.

(Source: squickygameart, via derring-dont)

All this squick is exhausting. Seriously. I hope no one will hold it against me if I take a little breather and post some good depictions that don’t marginalize anybody, and are generally full of autonomy and Win.

Sadly, one of the points this blog makes is that those who do Squicky Art and those who do Amazing Art are frequently the same people; they have the capacity not  to dehumanize people, but for whatever reason choose to do so the majority of the time. Especially Wayne Reynolds.

If you’d rather just Stick to the Squick, never fear, it will return momentarily.

This is the Master Specialist, from the Complete Mage. The Artist is Eva Widermann.

I adore this image; she’s the Pathfinder goddess of Death, Pharasma. I can’t seem to find the artist as I don’t see a signature, but it’s likely either Eric Dechamps, Andrew Hou, or Tyler Walpole, as they are the interior artists of Gods & Magic whose commission galleries aren’t publicly available to check.

UPDATE: Honestly, I started this post about 12 hours ago, and this is really all I can find for now, so fuck it, I’m publishing. Stay tuned for your regularly scheduled squick.