I'll admit it, I'm guilty - the only physical copy of SR4 I've bought to date is the BBB. So, while I've been admiring the cover (and other) art of the PDFs I haven't exactly spent a whole lot of time looking at the cover art. And this is a mistake on my part, because for me the cover art (and layout even) contributes to the general feel of the SR world.

Very generally speaking, 1st Edition, for instance, was generally gritty and raw with a bit of a tribal or mysterious twist (like that damn skull ) which led to a vague familiarity. 2nd Edition was more realistic in backgrounds but more over the top in subject matter, giving the whole picture a quasi-surreal feeling. 3rd Edition, well, what can I say. Between the cartoonish crap and the general coldness of the subject matter 3rd Edition left impression of a world so far divorced from reality as to be somewhat non-sensical. Of course, shining exceptions like First Run, Dragons of the Sixth World, Corporate Download, Corporate Punishment, Matrix, and the Shadows of books very much saved the realism of the world to a degree, but the crap art on the core book covers (save MitS) had already done the damage.

So now we're in 4th Edition. The BBB was ok, but generally meh (but then what can measure up to the 1st/2nd BBB cover?). Alone it gives a very much disjointed, disassociated feeling (it is obvious that the four runners pictured are not a team). But lets get some context.

Runners Havens, aside from the fact that the troll and his guns(!) are huge compared to the woman, this is a rather gritty piece, almost a return to the 1st Edition feel. It feels dirty, nasty, like the city is a polluted over developed drekhole. Beautiful.

On The Run is more of the same coldness as 3rd Edition, but this piece is different. It's somewhat realistic, and has an edge about it that the 3rd Edition core art lacked. It feels, in a way, like a hard night out on the town.

Street Magic. What can I say about Street Magic! It's awesome, it's odd, it's hi-tech but retro/mysterious/mystical at the same time. It's another cold pic, but also very much an "in over my head" theme. Very Shadowrun.

Emergence is an odd cover. Lots of AR, lots of action, lots of motion. But not alot of substance. Dude jumping fence as something blows up and chopper pursues. Alone, not very impressive.

And finally Augmentation. A "hot" picture color wise, cyber chick and ork docs. Very slick, very stylish, very artificial.

Overall, all combined, to date the SR4 cover art gives the impression of a very slick, stylish, and new world, but all an artificial veneer over a dirty, deeply corrupted reality. Almost a feel like GitS in a way, both the movies and the SAC series, but with deeper, grimier shadows beneath the pretty appearances. In all, very very Shadowrun indeed

For some reason none of the SR4 cover art has really grabbed me. The interior art on the other hand I really like.

Street magic Double Plus good
Runner Havens Good
Emergence haven't seen
BBB and Aug Not so good

I have a feeling a lot of the responses are going to go along those same lines. Although I personally really liked Runner Haven's cover. For Augmentation, I would have expected more from Marc Sasso. His stuff is usually very good. But that one looked, well, sort of slapped together. The subject of the pic was great, but the implementation seemed like he wasn't really trying.

I think I'm the only person who really liked the 3rd edition cover art, aside from a few flaws here and there. I thought Bonner and Zug's art captured a Norman Rockwell quality that made the pictures interesting to look at for me. *shrug*

The third edition main book had the worst art in the history of Shadowun. The washed out Disney look utterly contradicted the tone of the Shadowrun setting. The cover, the example characters, all horrible.

Fourth edition cover is alright as art, but it's not very dynamic - no tension, no action. Most of the internal stuff is okay. I particularly liked the spirit attacking someone in the Manifestation section and any of the other pieces in that pale, pencilly, "I Can Really Draw" style. That "mirror girl" picture near the start of Emergence also leapt out at me.

I have to really single out two pieces from 4th Ed., though. The cover of Runner Havens is great. Very dynamic, good poses well drawn and inked and suits the subject matter and tone of Shadowrun very well.

The other piece sadly is the cover of Augmentation which looks childish and as if no effort was taken either. The faces of the orks are Jim Hensonish and look like something from Lord of the Rings, suggesting the artist isn't familiar with Shadowrun at all, The woman has nothing that suggests any emotion or character or depth. And the whole style looks like it was badly photoshopped from other pieces. Ugly, ugly, ugly. I'm going to go back and look at Runner Havens until I feel better, now.

-K.

Now I'm curious -- Marc Sasso did the Augmentation cover, and he also did the cover for Threats 2, Loose Alliances, Dragons of the Sixth World, and SOTA: 2063 [and maybe some others, that's just off the top of my head.] Do those covers share the flaws that you see in Augmentation?

Edit: Shadows of Asia, Man and Machine, and Brainscan are three other titles Sasso did the covers for.

I think Augmentation's cover is intentional. The book is about looking outside of the already crazy norm. Isn't there a picture of a baldheaded, pointy eared, hairless dwarf inside somewhere.

Cybernetic torso on the woman for sure. Or dermal implants of some kind, or bone lacing. The others have had their appearances adjusted.

Threats 2 and SOTA:2063 are easily my all-time favorite cover arts.

But just because they're done by the same artist who's also done other covers, that doesn't mean all his other work is necessarily going to be just as great. The cover for Augmentation, for instance, is rather blah to me. Not bad, but not good. While the two I mentioned earlier were simpy fantastic, possibly since they only focused on limited material while Augmentation's cover tried to grasp a much broader feel, one the artist may or may not have been intimately familiar with.

..of all the previous editions I have to admit SR2 was the best of the lot. Bradstreet's illos in the Core Book by far stand out as the best of all, and Janet Aluisio's work both there and in The Girmiore was pretty darn good as well.

Cover wise, the art on Tir Tarigire was one of the best (even though I was disappointed at what they did to my beloved Portland in the writeup), and some of the interior stuff wasn't bad, particularly many of the full page illos.

Three, well yeah it was real hit or miss. The source books did tend to be a bit better than the Core book. My favourite covers are the two SOTA books and Shadows of Europe.

SR4, the core book is below par IMO, even worse in some instances than SRIII. Many of works look horribly rushed and unfinished. Some of the pieces that are more nicely rendered unfortunately don't have much "presence", looking as they were scanned from pencil work (example the full page illo in p. 53). Other illos, such as the decker? (he is jacked in) getting his nerd fried are downright awful (an example of art that looks both unfinished and rushed).

Granted, game book art is not intended to be gallery level masterpieces, but I will admit that so far, 4th ed has impressed me the least.

SR4 art is still hit-or-miss, but it tends to fit the tone of the books much better. I really don't like the cover art of the main book, though. The Street Magic cover was much better.

Oddly enough, my only beef with the SR4 BBB cover (normal, not Spec. Ed) was that the art did not match the short story. 1~3 they did a wonderful job of capturing a critical moment in the story. This one had nothing to do with it that I could find.

For me, seeing the Dodger jacking naked into a Mitsuhama external point while Ghost-Who-Walks and Sally cover him will always hold a special place in my heart.

I know that Dodge came back in a big way, and Fastjack (Who was an example in teh Decking section, woo!) has always ridden high, but I kinda wonder what ever happened to Sally and Ghost. Did they ever pop up again anywhere?

(Bet it was a novel. I never got to read any but 2XS.)

The 1st ed. BBB is a classic to be sure. That was the first image I ever saw from Shadowrun, and it shows the world of the game's origins perfectly.

Over the editions, I don't particularly have a favorite one as far as the art goes. There are pieces in each edition that I love, and others that I don't care for at all.

Concerning art, there is true horror in SR4. It lurks on p. 299.

Just looks like a cross between a talismonger shop and a black market/pawn shop to me. What's wrong with that?

Since dabbling into daz/poser art, I got a bit pickier concerning illustrations.

I thought the 3rd edition bbb cover was good, but not great. This edition is alright. Few complaints from me on the art. I especially love the vehicles and wish they did more art on those. Many of the styles are sleek and futuristic without being over the top.

I've seen the covers for 1, 3, & 4, but I've never seen the cover art for 2nd.

Linky, please?

Ah, that would explain it, wouldn't it?

So, what prompted that decision? To not get new cover art?

Background:

I come from a heavily-religious family - the kind of backwoodsy "good ole time" stuff that likes to burn places down. I won't give away all of what I was, but it's long, and has the word "Fundamental" in it.

I first ran into SR at the end of 1st, beginning of 2nd, when I was about.. ten, twelve, maybe? I was trying (stupidly) to convince my parents that gaming was not devil worship - and then they saw that beautiful, black book in the gamestore I was in.

All downhill from there.

But it drew me back - it became my symbol of rebellion, this satan-skulled book. I didn't care what it was about - I wanted it because it was so bad. I've since fallen in love with SR for other reasons, but I'll never forget my first blush - pure, adolescent, "Fuck you!" rebellion.

I rebelled with a book. Marlon Brando I am not.


However, I'm liking the art. I didn't like much of what I saw for 3rd, I'm in love with the 1st/2nd edition stuff - those pictures still define my SR world. He just... he just knows how to draw a world. Not just Sr, but almost anything else he's put in just looks right. I think most of the interior work we're seeing does a good job of capturing the new, futuristic angle of 4th ed.

Rebellion has always been a big part of SR which part of what bothers me about the de-emphasis of the neo-anarchist themes in SR4. I miss Shadowland