Why is 80s fantasy art so completely superior to modern fantasy art?

Why is 80s fantasy art so completely superior to modern fantasy art?

Effort.
And because photoshop and digital programs had not reached their current level of sophistication.
And because Tumblr and deviant art wasn't a thing yet.

something about the shapes they use imo, nowadays art students are taught to exaggerate poses to extremes, and in some cases make it look worse than if they did something realistically. Only trouble with 80's art is it was fairly bland, which is fine, but nowadays expression has to be a part of armor...

I'm going out a limb here but I don't think Diablo 2 was released in the 80s.

They knew what "subtlety" meant instead of just overdesigning everything.

Because you have a subjective preference for it

He's using it as an example of why modern fantasy art is shit. Just look at any of the Character Art threads.
Wrong.

hand drawn vs digital. hand drawn has subtle flaws that make it look more interesting whereas digital art has perfect brush strokes that make everything look too smooth. Honestly I like the current batch of fantasy art regardless.

That was probably a good picture to start with, but somebody turned the cartoonify filter on for all those black spots

You're right, didn't notice that.

It isn't, you just like to cherry pick images to set your assertions and because you have nostalgic love for older things and franchises, such as diablo 2 up there.

Completely boring and generic to be honest desu.
If I can sum up what I dislike about modern fantasy art in one sentence:
All of it looks like a loading screen for a Korean MMO.

this is gold

So the actual quality of the artwork is irrelevant, you're just biased against the context in which it's been used, leading you to tar it all with the same brush?

Welcome to Veeky Forums

then you don't hate modern fantasy art. you just hate the predominant style. There are other artstyles used in modern fantasy art you know.

New Wallpaper...

I like both, but grit from older pieces adds to them in a pleasing way.

Look up Moebius. Great artist.
No. The quality is related to where it is used, hence that statement. If the art became popular in mediums/genres I love, I would still dislike it.
When you say some clothes someone is wearing look like something their grandmother would wear, is that because the actual quality and make of the style is tacky and inferior, or simply because of the context which it's been used?
Also if you actually think that is high quality art then you are incorrect.
Duh. When you say you hate 'Modern ___' you're saying you hate the popular style of the current time period, not every single piece of art made in the current time period.

So professional artwork isn't high quality purely because it doesn't fit your subjective tastes?

see

>implying professional artwork is good
lmao'ing at your life t b h

Are you applying any standards or principles beyond 'I like it' to your assessment?

Because, I hate to break it to you, but it's possible for something to be good despite it not being to your personal tastes. I know that can be a bit of a shock, so please take some time to absorb the information.

Better backgrounds, better composition, better layering of brush strokes.

That's not to say that modern artists can't do it as well, but the predominant style seems to be a lazy Photoshop brushing once over with a blurry background and little detail on the main characters.

Eh, it's a taste thing. The 80s has a very washed out look to its colors...or else a Hell of a lot of clashing colors.

Modern art I like also tends to have a somewhat "unfinished" look that I really like.

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See, considering this particular style, what I dislike is the sheer focus on the horse, warrior, and dragon, but the comparative - and notable - lack of detail on the background. Plus something just doesn't seem "real" about the shading.

It looks like someone did a background, then stuck in the dragon, then stuck in the knight and horse.

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While there are excellent and awful examples of every artstyle, old school art always just seems kinda messy to me. It's a lot harder to read what's actually happening and the focus is often ambiguous. Modern art is cleaner, easier to understand at a glance.

It's a very classical stylistic composition in the form of a triangle that focuses the viewer's gaze on the central conflict. The geometry is superb.

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DESU I don't think there's less quality art being made now then before, it's just the barrier to make art has got lower so thus the market for making it has been swamped with a bunch of lower quality artists thus you're naturally going to see a lot more of that easily made art.

Hell, you'll probably see more of that higher quality art just because it's easier to find art in general with the internet then before.

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It isn't you just need to take your faux-nostalgia glasses off

Yes. The inspiration behind it, the creativity of it, the uniqueness.
This picture is well-made, there's no actual anatomic or other mistakes that I see, the coloring is fine and so on, but it's completely and totally boring. It could be made by any one of a thousand different artists, in just about any fantasy world. There is no soul. You take one look at it and I can be pretty damn sure whoever made it only did so because he was being paid to.

Most professional art is empty trash, even if it is made well. Good work does not mean good art.

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So basically pure subjectivity. Got it.

Sure, but the coloring and shading is both jarring and clashing, in the case of the dragon pic I was talking about.

Your dracolich piece is better, but...I dunno, just something is "off" about it. I think that there's just a little too much effort on making things look as photo-realistic as possible despite it being hand-drawn.

Mind, I have a similar problem with some modern art. I dislike, say, the modern artistic styles of Magic: the Gathering's recent sets, like Amonkhet. Conversely I love the earlier magic stuff, particularly, say, Portal: Second Age.

You spout the same nonsense as the grognards who proclaim "Why was 60s music so much better than today's?" Most of it wasn't. Most of it was crap. Most art from the 80s was crap too. You're just remembering a few pieces that have stood the test of time.

>generic high fantasy sword & sorcery type cover art that could be used for any oldschool fantasy novel or modern fantasy video game with a generic protagonist muscle-warrior and his sexy bimbo princess
>obviously has more soul and is less boring than an extremely focused piece about a dragon and little girl, framed to show the immensity of this gentle giant by the small girl, riddled with tiny details like the dragon's scars and the little girls kite (how she found the dragon? does she want to fly like a dragon?), etc.

Yeah, nah, fuck off cunt.

>its content of subjective value such as dragons is booooring so its bad
lol

The coloring looks good in everything except the wings, which admittedly seem out of place with their black-purple shadows. The green of the dragon complements and balances the green of the ground.

I think some people may find it jarring because the artist intentionally allows some elements to break the frame of the painting.

Is a painting of a brick lying on a flat surface, drawn with perfect detail and anatomical accuracy, good art?

If you answer yes, please shoot yourself.

Well not quite. Good art sparks something in the viewer, in your image one person (you) might think it's boring and uninspired, but another sees the creatures and asks, why are they dead?, what kind of creatures are they?, whats with the moons?, and so on. Another person would think this image is totally sexist and disgusting. In art eveyone has an opinion.

The composition, coloring and theme are great but the finish is poor, with many parts of the piece looking smudged and blurry.

>with a generic protagonist muscle-warrior and his sexy bimbo princess

Hey, now. Different user here. This user, actually, . Now I may not care much for '80s art, but I fucking well know John Carter of Mars when I see him.

You're looking at the granddaddy of space opera, boy, and the codifier of a lot of what we now call fantasy and space opera. Show some damn respect.

Because censorship is the enemy of art.

The two women shown in that picture would be considered these days highly problematic; too sexy, too much skin shown, too passive in their role. Whether or not an artist agrees with that, it will always be in his or her mind. Fantasy art, indeed art in general, can be easily poisoned by politics intruding into it; it's why official propaganda art is rarely, if ever, actually inspiring.

Most of this is generic and trite, but for a different time. That isn't, because it's painted by a legendary master and based on subject matter that so far hasn't really been riffed on that much.

I won't argue that most modern art isn't unoriginal, because that's also not true. But in any given era, most art is gonna be derivative and bland. That's just the way it is.

No, the breaking the frame thing is fine. It's the coloring, specifically.

Well said.

>He doesn't like Frank Frazetta or John Carter
You are literally not worthy of the gift of eyesight.

That was intentional bait, I'm sure of it. Don't respond.

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You could argue that 80s stuff looked better than 90s and 00s stuff but all of it looks like shit compared to actual modern stuff.

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It could be. It depends on the context and the execution.

I seriously fail to see how changing politics has anything to do with the degradation of style and technique.

...You realise art of sexy ladies is still ridiculously popular in basically all media, right? It hasn't gone away, not at all.

Post art that isn't from famous masters. Find me the average Joe artists who no one remembers, and then you can argue the prevailing artistic climate of the time.

One good thing about 80s art is all the girls in combat leotards.

Because you're a retard who doesn't know the difference between subjective opinion and objective fact. kys

I never said I didn't like the art. I also think that it's a cool artstyle.

But anyone who claims it somehow has 'more soul' then that dragon picture is a huge faggot. It's as generic as it gets, even if generic isn't bad. Every artist from now to the time of the fucking egyptians 'drew things for money', the people of the 80s didn't draw things for high art and soul but modern artists are all soulless tumblerinas I'm sure you'd like to argue. You're no different then any kiddie on facebook who talks about how he was born in the "wrong generation" and how modern music "just isn't as good as that older stuff" whilst comparing the classics that have stood the test of time to modern day pop shit. Fuck off.

nothing says 80s like ninjas

This is not good. There is a lot of good classic fantasy art in this thread. This is not one of them.

because now it's a viable career option. When you're a weird loser painting dragons in your mom's basement you have choice but to do that as damn well as you possibly can. If you've got an actual career options then suddenly your flexibility not your dedication becomes paramount. It's the same reason athletes all come from poor bumblefuck towns subpar schools and zero other career options, because having nothing else to distract them is how they afford all the time to give to one thing and one thing only. It's not willpower so much as it is circumstance.

Art isn't subjective.

ninja giants were particularly fearsome enemies

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Then provide an objective definition for artistic quality which has no relationship with your subjective preferences.

believe it or not, this also came from "the complete ninja handbook", though i have no idea what it has to do with ninjas.

Anatomic Accuracy, High Detail, and Stylistic Uniqueness.

Wow, and I thought Pic was the most wrong post ever on Veeky Forums.

The latter is entirely subjective, the former two only have subjective value and exclude a vast amount of art that has value to a significant number of people. That does not work as a definition at all.

Old artists had backgrounds in fine art instead of game art. Most of them didn't stay cooped up in their homes or offices but knew what hiking was, or just spent time outside.

They had more things to ground them

>Anatomic Accuracy

So this isn't art, then?

Nope.

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>barb charged in and got wrecked
>necro helpless without corpses
>Sorc and Amazon helpless in the back w/o mana
>paladin swag striding in to save the fucking day and get no credit because lol Aura class

Yep checks out

There is good modern art.

Unique: being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else. That is quite literally an objective measurement of something.
The popularity of something doesn't determine it's quality.
Yeah I know. He was a hack.

This might be Veeky Forumss 'fun is a buzzword' moment.

I wouldn't call it art. It looks grotesque and resembles nothing. It invokes nothing but a sense of bewilderment as to what the fuck I am looking at.

This isn't art.

Oh I get it. You're too dumb to understand so you rule it out.

Nope. It's still subjective, because what you consider unique might be considered banal and samey by someone else. The only way that definition could work, aside from all the other ways it doesn't, was if there was a universal consensus on uniqueness, which there very much is not.

Huh. Well, better call all those museums and art collectors and tell them they've wasted millions of dollars that could have been spent on, I dunno, Van Gogh instead.

Not enough anatomical correctness or high enough detail.

Don't forget how no one bothered to bring an assassin or druid

There's nothing to understand. It's just a very badly drawn woman.
>because multiple people have differing opinions, no opinion is correct
Transformers Movies are good and 1+1=3 then?
Yeah, that's trash too.

Then please, provide an objective basis for uniqueness which cannot be argued with. It'd be a start to justifying your bizarre-

>Shitting on Van Gogh

Ohh, you're a troll. Well, kudos for keeping me replying.

Christ, van Gogh too? We're talking, like, billions of wasted dollars now.

I actually already did.
Unique: being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else.
It's actually very simple.

Also Van Gogh is good sometimes. This picture actually totally passes the test. The style is unique, a good degree of detail, and the face actually looks like a human face.
But Starry Night is garbage.

But he's the one saying it's not good.

> itt A rampant ape spews subjective thoughts on a subject he is passionate about but has no understanding of the significance it's practice rests in.
Learning how to draw atomically correct figures is not a difficult task, you can learn how to make the art you enjoy by simply reading the book drawing from the left side of the brain. Marvel when nobody gives a shit about your work because you have no depth beyond the basic aesthetic, lacking the creativity and patience to truly study and critique the thing you playfully pretend to care so much for.

Because some artists are unwilling to draw it. And the more talented, and therefore high profile, the artist is, the less likely they are to draw it. Both for fear of backlash and/or because they feel it's politically incorrect.

It's entirely correct that many artists still draw sexy fantasy ladies. But they're the less talented, lower profile ones. Fantasy as an entire genre, along with video games, has increasingly been seen as a "problematic" genre. That's why you see more and more CG and lower quality art for those genres; high end talented artists on average don't want to associate themselves with media seen as problematic. It's far less controversial and therefore safe to churn out the sort of modern art that chokes today's galleries; ironic, given that art is supposed to challenge orthodoxy.

>But Starry Night is garbage

In fact it's so garbage that it's his most well-known piece.

Quality is just popularity over time. Moby-Dick had lackluster sales when it was published and considered a disappointment after the author's previous two novels, Omoo and Typee. These days no one has ever even heard of the last two, while Moby-Dick is one of the most famous novels of all time.

That one's pretty good, actually. The clock looks like a melting clock, the landscape is fairly realistic for what it is, etc. It's a little bit smudgy, at worst.
Did you miss the Stylistic Uniqueness and Detail parts? I agree, there's plenty of anatomically correct art that's bad. These, for instance. >popularity=quality fallacy
Have fun watching the Avengers and playing Farmville.

Is that the Dragon and the Dark Lens?

>clocks have to look like clocks

Are you five? Does everything need to be spelled out to you for you to understand what it is?