Cover Art, Which do you Prefer? Options

[Demonseed Elite]

Hehehe, no problem. I'm just psyched that I could apply what I'm writing my paper on (the Neo-classicist art of Jacques-Louis David) to a thread on Shadowrun cover art. :P

For a really staggering example of Elmore's neo-classicist inspiration, compare Elmore's painting, Teamwork, to Jacques-Louis David's famous neo-classicist painting of Napoleon, Bonaparte Crossing the Saint-Bernard Pass, done in 1800.

Anyway, no more procrastinating, back to my paper. :oops:

[TimeKeeper]

If "Teamwork" is the offical name for the SR1/2 cover (I'm getting some wierd russian? 403 error) then it looks like he ripped the styling of Dodger right from Napoleon. Just remove the horse, put a jack in his hand and get him to look a little to the right.

But the style of the colors... I definately see a similarity there.


Maybe I'm partial, but I still prefer 1/2 over 3, but at least 4 is a step up (for me anyway).

I think Royo needs to stick with Heavy Metal. That way you can expect the fully armed/armored guys and chicks with no clothing and feel normal about it. He's a great artist in all aspects but what he draws doesn't fit with the theme.

Personally, Presscot is one artist I really don't care for. I thought his work was ok for Hunter, but for SR it just makes it feel too cartoony.

Who did the peices inside the SSG? The ones with the wierd angles (Like to two chicks fighting in the back alley. One just hit the other with a bottle and it's contents are in mid flight.) or the whole calm after the storm (another piece where a group is standing over a body. One is holding a smoking gun, and the body's head has a new hole in it.). I kinda liked those.

[blakkie]

No, this is Teamwork. His SR work isn't up on that site.

[blakkie]

Here is a tiny image of his SR cover. Could you get any more Eighties without putting Pat Benatar, Duran Duran, and Tubs & Crocket in the background? ;)

P.S. I have a confession to make, I never really liked the skull with horns logo. It just always made me think of spagetti westerns or something. :oops:

[Wounded Ronin]

The only thing that is important with cover art is punk rockers with uzis.

[blakkie]

[Patrick Goodman]

[Arethusa]

Who did the piece with the troll (or orc?) and elf holding eachother in the section on gender, race, and sexuality? Was a small picture. Around page 50, maybe?

[Patrick Goodman]

Dunno; the pic's cropped, and it looks like it took the signature with it. And I imagine it's an ork, just by the general size.

[Arethusa]

Damn. Been wondering that for a while. If you ever run across a full size version and/or who the author was, let me know?

[Patrick Goodman]

Y'know, there are only about half a dozen artists in the book's credits. You could conceivably Google each artist's name and check out their websites, if such exist.

[Arethusa]

Tried that. Only two have pages, and a third with a page going up in a year. Narrowed it down, but I couldn't find much beyond that.

[Sepherim]

Well, I must admit I haven't been able to see the SR 4 cover (computer problems), but SR 1/2 have always been way superior to SR 3 in the cover art. Still, I'd say that the best cover for any book that I own is SOTA: 2063, with the guy waiting just outside the fence, ready to go in. It has tons of details, but it doesn't look so static, it's just, like, ready to bounce. And SoE's cover is great too, but I like better some of the inside artwork, though.

[Vuron]

For me Elmore has really dropped of in quality in recent years his art for DnD3.0 was pretty awful for the most part.

Personally Royo art just bores the hell out of me.

Of people who've done SR before I really like Andy Brase and Prescott

Thinking outside the box there are a variety of artists that I think could do some very interesting near future/fantasy style work.

Kieran Yanner has done some interesting realistic yet fantastic work
http://www.kieranyanner.com/

Atilla Adorjany
http://www.600poundgorilla.com/

Talon Dunning
http://www.talonart.com/

Kalman Androfsky
http://www.horhaus.com/weblogs/kalmangalle...lery/index.html

Of course he's tainted by being anime influenced but Hyung Tae Kim could really do some unusual stuff.
http://hyung-taekim.org/index.php

Sam Liu is more of a concept artist but he could be fun too.
http://www.itchstudios.com/itch/index.html

[Fortune]

No contest. Elmore's Shadowrun covers rock!

[Arethusa]

I would contest that. Sure, he may be better than the crap that found its way into and on the core SR3 book (not that difficult), but I still don't really like anything he's done.

[Young Freud]

I'd include Alex Ross, especially since his art in the first book was his first paid gig and he's now become a rather famous artist since. It would be extremely expensive but it would look awesome.

Like some of Elmore's stuff on SR, just not the first and second books. The characters look too stiff and the background tries too hard to be a cyberpunk urban enviroment. I felt the third book's cover had more life in it, but the figures were too cartoony to be serious.

I need to see a larger pic of the cover of the new book, but, outside of the homage to the first two books, it seems way too bright and cluttered.

[NightHaunter]

Its a pity that my fav artists style isn't good for Shadowrun.
Oh yeah thats Ron Spencer by the way.

[ElFenrir]

Cover art wise, I like SR 1/2, but maybe it's nostalgia. I like the sample character art in SR3 much more however. The 80s comment made me think of why all the drawings of elves INSIDE the SR2 made them look like one of David Bowie's grandchildren. ;)

[Fortune]

[Pthgar]

Yes! But the background makes me wince.

[mintcar]

I haven´t seen a good quality shot of the SR4 cover, but I suspect it´s better than previous covers if it´s done by Mark Zug. (By the way. The FAQ says it´s him, so if the picture we´ve seen isn´t done by him we´ll propably see another cover.) Mark Zug is the one who did the SR3 archetype pictures and GM screen. Despite being a bit exagerated, I think some of those are the best artwork ever done for Shadowrun. (weapon specialist, drone rigger, dwarf shaman and combat decker being my favourites. I also really like the decker on the GM screen.)

<edit> I just discovered he also made the New Seattle cover. (Maybe that´s why we´re seing lots of flying things in the SR4 cover.) That doesn´t bode well.

[Fortune]

Mark Zug did some of the SR3 archetypes, but not all of them (at least according to the credits in that book). Did he actually do the Weapon Specialist?

[mintcar]

That one, and all the others I mentioned, has his "MZ" signature. But I didn´t mean to imply that he did them all.

[hahnsoo]