Art in european Shadowrun line, Actually better than its american counterpart? Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Outline Switch to: Standard Switch to: Linear+

[silva]

Met recently the european editions of these games and... wow.. the art, at least the cover's , are really cool, definitely more cool than the original amercian counterpart.

And I think they (europeans) got a more serious tone in their art, that I like. While original americans got a more catoony tone, thats present most of the time, even if only in spirit. See for yourself...

Shadowrun: http://www.pegasus.de/1467.html#c1434

By the way, the Unknown Armies line is the same case:
http://www.7emecercle.com/7cv2fr/jdr/ua/ua.html

What you guys think?

[Heath Robinson]

Actually, I prefer the US covers. Mostly.

Augmentation? I hate vats with a passion. They're dumb and inefficient in almost every case where a human is involved. The artist could at least have stolen the rigs that get used in Ghost in the Shell SAC instead. Vats, especially the kind in this cover, are everything that is wrong with SciFi.

Unwired? Okay, so this might be an exception. I mean, I don't know why the Hacker's got his shirt off, or why he's got that kind of physique when his job is essentially sedantary, but the art is good and the high contrast environment is nice. The AR is as cool as the stuff on the cover of the US version, but it's far enough away that you don't get any wallbanger effect off the UI. So, yeah. Good going. One of four.

Arsenal? OH GOD WHO THE HELL DREW THAT TRAVESTY ON THE COVER OF THE GERMAN EDITION? Seriously, is this what German people imagine when they try to describe a Street Sam? So we've got an 80's military guy with his hair spiked up in a static pose (with his guns pointing at the ceiling!) standing in front of two bits of geometric art, or something. Those things aren't Drones. Shut up. The man is massively overloaded, too. Imagine how much weight that all is.

Street Magic? The new German cover makes the mage look mildly constipated and retarded. It looks like an amateur 3D render and doesn't show us what the guy is looking at (and he doesn't look scared, so there's really no need to not show it). Expressing head syndrome I can actually deal with (I watch anime, after all), but this just looks bad.


If the cover tries to present itself as an in-universe scene then I prefer it depict events that might actually occur in game (ie people look to be in motion, and aren't posing in an apparent combat situation). SotA '63 has a great cover. Shockwaves (the English PDF I've got) has a cover that just makes me look at it over and over. All of the Shadows of line are good. Survival of the Fittest and Threats 1 are good. Threats 2 manages to put together a multiple scenes all of which have sufficient action that it all works.

Many people these days have watched the higher budget anime series or read well-drawn comics and know what good, fluid drawn action scenes look like. Poseritis is not enough any more.