Dragons Reloaded: Bestiary Box Preview

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

In last week's blog I covered some of our rationale for creating the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary Box, and unleashed some of the new elemental pawn art you'll find in that box. This week we are continuing our look at the new art with the most iconic enemies in fantasy—chromatic dragons!

When it came to creating the dragon pawns for this box, dragons posed a particular challenge. While the art for the dragons in the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary is great, none of those pieces were commissioned with anything like pawns in mind. Their majestic wings, razor-sharp claws, and toothy maws were designed to look scary on the printed page, but their grandeur couldn't be confined to the measurements of a pawn without cropping. And let's face it, cropped dragons just didn't look nearly as scary. We went back to the drawing board, and tasked Ben Wootten with creating awe-inspiring dragons that would fit on pawns. Personally, I think he did a phenomenal job. I think you'll agree.


Illustrations by Ben Wootten

Stephen Radney-MacFarland
Designer

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Tags: Ben Wootten Monsters Pathfinder Pawns Pathfinder Roleplaying Game

And I thought the elementals looked good last week...

I love the distinctive style of each dragon and the feather like look of the wings.

-Kcinlive

Sovereign Court

These are ace. Can't wait to see them on the pawns.

Could we get a picture of some of the art on-pawn, to get a sense of how they look in play?


These are awesome. Like them better than the Bestiary art, myself.


Wow.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

I want that blue as a forum avatar. :-)


Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

*tears* They're so beautiful....


Kcinlive wrote:

And I thought the elementals looked good last week...

...

Aye, this put the box into 'probably' category. Next week I suppose they will tell me there is 1d3 of all the critters from the monster summon lists FTW. :)

Matthew Morris wrote:
I want that blue as a forum avatar. :-)

+1

Be happy to move off that other company's mini avi :)
(there are other blues that would be cool avis also [/hint] unless you have a blue mini in the works... :)


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber

Ben ftw!!

Silver Crusade

This set is single-handedly making me choose running a game in-person as opposed to online. I'd been coming to a crossroads due to scheduling and such on how to run my next campaign. It's getting really, really hard not to want to get this set. I hope that Bestiary 2, 3, and NPC Codex are coming soon after! Yay pawns!

Grand Lodge

Thanks for making the investment in new art to make this product great! Really looking forward to it.

My son is 12, and a product like this really helps him and his buddies run great looking games affordably. Well done!


Not a big fan of the Pathfinder Red Dragon but I do love there versions of the other chromatics. I hope we do get Bestiary 2 and 3 as well.


What's wrong with the red dragon? Much like the red dragon, many pokey bits is evil, so they work great together.

Liberty's Edge

I think the red dragon looks great. So much in fact that if I can find a willing artist, I would like to have it as a tattoo!

Sczarni

Boy, I certainly do agree.


Very well done. I can't wait to start using these pawns in my games.


Ben Woottens work is always solid. I really like the postures of the dragons.

It's just a shame that the pathfinder dragons are not as cool as the old WotC ones. Paizo just took away the coolest characteristics of the old ones (the black dragons forward crooked horns, the silver dragons mohawk and the gold dragons awesome wings).

I already ordered two of these on amazon.co.uk. Will there be boxes for the other bestiaries as well?


Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Jacob Sommer wrote:

Ben Woottens work is always solid. I really like the postures of the dragons.

It's just a shame that the pathfinder dragons are not as cool as the old WotC ones. Paizo just took away the coolest characteristics of the old ones (the black dragons forward crooked horns, the silver dragons mohawk and the gold dragons awesome wings).

I already ordered two of these on amazon.co.uk. Will there be boxes for the other bestiaries as well?

WotC probably has rights to the art designs of their versions of the dragons, so I don't think Paizo can use them.

Personally, I like Paizo's versions better anyway. I don't like the aquatic style wings that many of the d&d metallic dragons had.


The twelve year old in me just went bonkers! I can't wait to get this!

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Matrixryu wrote:

WotC probably has rights to the art designs of their versions of the dragons, so I don't think Paizo can use them.

Personally, I like Paizo's versions better anyway. I don't like the aquatic style wings that many of the d&d metallic dragons had.

This is, in fact, the case. While the notion of chromatic and metallic dragons are covered by the OGL, the physical descriptions of them are not. Thus, we had to get new concept pieces done for all 10 of the true dragons for use in Pathfinder.


Stunning art, gorgeous
For a pawn tho I would have preferred no terrain underfoot. I'll still use them though.


I have to say, the bipedal green dragon with digitrade legs and a rhino horn is the most menacing to me. Inward-facing teeth like a shark... extra-long claws... yeah. That's one scary dude.


Except the Red's horns and the Green's flat head, I like them much more than WotC Dragons.

And I hope Ben and others will endlessly continue to grace us with their art.


I like the white dragon the most. It looks like a bird at rest.

Glad none of them are wearing armour, so glad.


I love Paizo's take on the dragons in every case - even the "spikey" reds.

My favorite thing, actually, is that the white dragons look (to me, at least) so much less like birds than they used to.


But the dragons had good and beautiful art already? minus the white dragon...

The ones that really needs a change are barghest, Dire Bear, Ankheg, chimera and Black Pudding! (few examples of the pretty huge list)

If bestairy 2 and 3 ever gonna be turned into this they are far more beautiful in art than bestiary 1.


Oh, just one note... I hope Paizo folks don't even think of commissioning future book art with the dogma of being contained in pawn proportions.
One for book and a different one for pawns is alright. We can always use more art. And if you want to feed us with a third submission too, we won't complain.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Wow. The black has always been my favorite, and this picture is even better than the beastiary!


Astral Wanderer wrote:

Oh, just one note... I hope Paizo folks don't even think of commissioning future book art with the dogma of being contained in pawn proportions.

One for book and a different one for pawns is alright. We can always use more art. And if you want to feed us with a third submission too, we won't complain.

I love Paizo art because most of the time its only the monster, no background like in D&D which often makes the pictures too chaotic. Also in this pathfinder-art style you can use the pictures easily in you own RPG games and stuff, easy to print for OWN USE ONLY of course. :D

I agree that multiple different pictures of a creature is really cool, I hope to see more rare monsters getting some second art, like JOrogumo, Charybdis and Barghest.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

+1 to all the Pazio dragons. Especially their blues.


Mark Moreland wrote:
Matrixryu wrote:

WotC probably has rights to the art designs of their versions of the dragons, so I don't think Paizo can use them.

Personally, I like Paizo's versions better anyway. I don't like the aquatic style wings that many of the d&d metallic dragons had.

This is, in fact, the case. While the notion of chromatic and metallic dragons are covered by the OGL, the physical descriptions of them are not. Thus, we had to get new concept pieces done for all 10 of the true dragons for use in Pathfinder.

for the the best your dragons look better


Funny thing I found out about Ben. I have been working with him for a while now. Until a few days ago I never knew he had such a talent. He is a very quite young man. If you think the work shown here is good, you should see some of his other sketches. FRAGG'EN Awesome!

Dark Archive

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Kryzbyn wrote:
Wow. The black has always been my favorite, and this picture is even better than the beastiary!

Ditto. The green is nice, but the black takes it to the next level.

I'm wishy washy on the PF vs. 3.X dragon appearances. Some, I like Todd Lockwood's versions better. Others I love the new looks instead.

And then there's the weird part of me that misses the Gold Dragon from the 1st edition Monster Manual...

Scarab Sages

I'm gonna echo what everyone else has said... except...

I really don't like the blue dragon designs. They just look downright puny and frail. I'm not a big fan of the WotC dragon designs, but their blue dragons are AMAZINGLY cool. Same goes for Copper and Bronze.

Now, you guys have the market cornered on the others. Some of the cooler dragon art I've seen, but those three examples could use some work, imo.


Maybe these can be used if a bestiary is ever reprinted?


I truly don't mean to sound rude but can Paizo Publishing post the artwork for ALL it's ANCIENT DRAGONS that have been drawn for both Bestiary boxes?

If not then would Paizo Publishing please consider replacing the previous Chromatic, Metallic, and Primal artwork with the artwork from their ancient versions when the Bestiaries 1 and 2 are both due for reprint?

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