|
The article on custom Tieflings in Bastards Of Erebus is illustrated with a range of Tieflings - all of whom have huge forehead horns!
Is this a new standard for Golarion? It wasn't a feature of 3.5 Tieflings, or of the cool Planescape 2e Tieflings.
With the shape of a human(ish) head these goat horns just look ridiculous, and it's weird to establish a visual standard when the text emphasises variety. What's going on?
The actual article is solid gold - as ever.
As soon as I get that article (in what feels like a hundred years), I can comment further, but I think it was just a coincidence.
Look at other Tiefling pictures in Pathfinder. They're a varied lot.
|
Quoted from James in the Bastards of Erebus discussion thread:
On that note it would have been nice to see more of them with out the horns in the artwork to represent that they are varied more like the article says.I agree that would have been nice, but we're on a tight schedule... ESPECIALLY for books that release around Gen Con, and often we have to say "go with that art" when we might not otherwise, given infinite cash and infinite time to have the artists change things around. We will have a lot more tieflings illustrated over the course of the AP, though, and we're trying to make them all look different. Whether or not our artists play along... we'll see! :)
Yes.. a lot of the artists have become polluted by the 4E interpretation of a tiefling.
So when Paizo orders art, they get something closer to what WOTC orders, because they're drawing from the same artist pool. We may not like all of the art in a 4E book, but they hire good artists too.
They could make them redraw them, but as JJ says in the quote above.. time is a precious and expensive commodity.
I "might" suggest that they be really explicit in their instructions to the artist.. but I really don't know that Paizi didn't do that already. That would be a disservice to the person doing the ordering.
Heh,
If we knew who did what piece, we could find them on Deviant Art and tell them not to make Pathfinder Tieflings look like mutant cabbage head WOTC tieflings.
I do feel for Paizo, I really do.
I also have some sympathy for the readers, because I have to scratch my head and wonder how any application of the disguise skill could cover up some of those disfigurations, going by the picture alone.
The only other one that springs to mind is Lavender Lil - I like her style.
You obviously never met Shorafa Pamodae, Calistria's high priestess in Riddleport. Because if you had met that tiefling chick, you'd have remember.
You also wouldn't accuse Lil of having style.
The only other one that springs to mind is Lavender Lil - I like her style.You obviously never met Shorafa Pamodae, Calistria's high priestess in Riddleport. Because if you had met that tiefling chick, you'd have remember.
You also wouldn't accuse Lil of having style.
someone speak my name? Must have good taste.
Looking at the quality of art as whole in Bastards makes me think that their normal artists were producing work for the PFRPG and the Monster guide thinger. The art overall just doesn't feel as polished or good as the normal for the APs.
It's not as bad as say the early Rise of the Runelords stuff, and certainly still better than most RPG stuff out there, but it really does seem closer to what you see in WotC books than the somewhat higher standard I have seen in Paizo products.
Sean Mahoney
|
actually with the taldane love of obscenely large hats, the qadirans and keleshites with their headwraps, the varisian and their head scarfs, amongst other things; hiding your horns shouldn't be that hard. At least not from a passerby.
I agree though, I like small and subtle horns at most for most tieflings.
The tiefling monk in FR 3.0, an awesome book BTW and huge, is a great example of a tiefling, IMHO.
Paizo is doing good though. Maybe once they get a little more settled down, they can sweat the small stuff.
I do have to say though, that the new 4E buttmonkey looking tieflings and the dragonborn are presently carrying the lightning rod for disaffected players looking for a subject to unleash their scorn upon.
I might have actually played 4E beyond the first few games if I was blind and the book was in braile.
A top hat?
A wimple?
An afro?
You forgot beer. A whole lot of beer.. or liquor.
Afro.. that was a good one. "Marsha! Marsha! Marsha!"
I know I'm going against the grain here, but I like the look of big horns on the head. I'll probably have that feature for any tieflings I play in the future.
I haven't seen the art in question, but I definitely support variety among tieflings. I like the art for Lavender (who doesn't?), and I think one of the cool things about tieflings is that they don't have a unified racial look. Guess that's what happens when you mix two races that weren't meant to be mixed.
Creative Director
|
I "might" suggest that they be really explicit in their instructions to the artist.. but I really don't know that Paizi didn't do that already. That would be a disservice to the person doing the ordering.
We were pretty explicit, and the fact that the art came in looking as close as it did anyway to 4E tieflings is incredibly frustrating. But since the art itself was good, I decided to go ahead with using it anyway since there was no time to make changes.
Also, I've said it a billion times it seems, but we aren't done illustrating tieflings with PF 25. By this time next year, I fully hope to be moved away from this topic and onto some sort of new art freakout.
I also suspect that getting back to not having to spread our artist pool out over an extra 900 pages of content will help too.
|
|
Well since the art discussion seems to have started with a comment I made. It was not the big horns that was a problem, though i prefer smaller horns. It was they looked to much alike. I know paizo would have prefered they looked more different too.
I was only commenting, not to complain but more of giving feed back to paizo. Same with the map and the random look for tieflings. Was only pointing out like on the table a small sentence saying roll once would have helped. Just as a FYI sort of deal. Same with the artwork.
Sides James you should be happy if all we can find to complain about is the art not being bad but to much of it making them look the same you should be happy. :) I mean we are gamers will find SOMETHING to complain about.
|
|
I am willing to wait.
The artwork is awesome, as it has been for, well, since paizo. I have always thought paizo art was great. More than one of your magazines were purchased from the stands by me on the cover art alone.
You hear this a lot, but it bears repeating and it is true in all ways,
1 You guys are awesome.
2 You guys are the best
3 Thank you for being awesome, your the best.
Also, I've said it a billion times it seems, but we aren't done illustrating tieflings with PF 25.
Great.
Because most of those didn't look that great. One tiefling's horns look as if someone had stolen them from that typical "texan's extra-long limousine"'s fender and glued it to someone's head.
The tiefling on page 39 doesn't have big head horns. ;)
The tiefling on page 39 doesn't have big head horns. ;)
Poor thing, it must have been tough growing up with horn-envy. =(
I "might" suggest that they be really explicit in their instructions to the artist.. but I really don't know that Paizi didn't do that already. That would be a disservice to the person doing the ordering.We were pretty explicit, and the fact that the art came in looking as close as it did anyway to 4E tieflings is incredibly frustrating. But since the art itself was good, I decided to go ahead with using it anyway since there was no time to make changes.
Also, I've said it a billion times it seems, but we aren't done illustrating tieflings with PF 25. By this time next year, I fully hope to be moved away from this topic and onto some sort of new art freakout.
I also suspect that getting back to not having to spread our artist pool out over an extra 900 pages of content will help too.
I just deleted my previous reply because I thought it might be taken poorly. I got frustrated too.
James, your reply really surprised me.
Consider me commiserating with you rather than criticizing you or any of your colleagues.
Actually, I really thought you probably had been explicit, and tried to allude to that in my post. I can see why even allowing that someone hadn't been explicit could be frustrating.
Please understand, at least in the mind of this fan, I don't hold the Editorial Staff responsible for this. I can quite readily understand the time pressure you're under, and when it comes right down to it.. with these big budget months I'd rather have the product on time.
Please bear in mind, we the fans (and consumers) don't have the means to give feedback to the artists themselves. I wish we could. However, I also know that they can be tempremental, so you have to be the interface.
In any case, I wasn't trying to disparage you or your hard work. My apologies.
|
|
You guys have my sympathies. Maybe these artists just need to be shown some Planescape tiefling artwork to get them in the groove?
And please please please let 'em know that aasimar aren't homogeneous either! With some of the celestials kicking around out there, a lot aasimar should be downright weird!(and awesome)
|
Well, I haven't gotten to see the art yet.
BUT! If all the complaining is that the tieflings looked too similar, then James, I'd take that and smile. No complaints about the writing! That's the MOST important part.
Besides you know how us gamers are. If we didn't complain about teh art looking too similar, we'd be complaining that the letter "G" on page five looks a LITTLE different from the other "Gs".
The tiefling on page 39 doesn't have big head horns. ;)
That's a tiefling? Wow!
You guys have my sympathies. Maybe these artists just need to be shown some Planescape tiefling artwork to get them in the groove?
Nah. You hold a 4e cover before them, than pull it away and yell NO!
Repeat that a couple hundred times ;-)
|
Creative Director
|
Don't get me wrong... I'm pretty happy with the art we got in for the tieflings. In fact... it's worth pointing out that Paizo sort of kind of pioneered the big brow horn look for tieflings back on the cover to Dungeon #124 (and then REALLY on #125); our iconic fighter was a female tiefling with more or less the same kinds of horn style. So I'd be lying if I said I didn't think that kind of horn setup looked cool.
But anyway... yeah. There's plenty of tiefling art in #25 that looks different than the WotC 4E version; there's the big bulky digger tiefling as well. And we've got one in #26 who looks no different than a human, but that won't count because people won't see that art as a tiefling picture because it doesn't look like one (kind of like the "mummy" tiefling).
I guess what I'm saying is that if we HAD made tieflings look more varied than we had, chances are good folks wouldn't have known they were tieflings and would have looked at the (less numerous but still present) big horn versions and had the same reactions... (shrug)
Don't get me wrong... I'm pretty happy with the art we got in for the tieflings. In fact... it's worth pointing out that Paizo sort of kind of pioneered the big brow horn look for tieflings back on the cover to Dungeon #124 (and then REALLY on #125); our iconic fighter was a female tiefling with more or less the same kinds of horn style. So I'd be lying if I said I didn't think that kind of horn setup looked cool.
But anyway... yeah. There's plenty of tiefling art in #25 that looks different than the WotC 4E version; there's the big bulky digger tiefling as well. And we've got one in #26 who looks no different than a human, but that won't count because people won't see that art as a tiefling picture because it doesn't look like one (kind of like the "mummy" tiefling).
I guess what I'm saying is that if we HAD made tieflings look more varied than we had, chances are good folks wouldn't have known they were tieflings and would have looked at the (less numerous but still present) big horn versions and had the same reactions... (shrug)
I pretty much ignored the art (yeah, ok, these're all probably tieflings - rawr, that one's hawt, the other is beefcake for my honey ... and so on) and dove into the nummy writing and the fun chart with all the spiffy variant goodies for the fiend-touched.
Paizo overall gets PDG artwork - and now that the big bricks are out to the printer, maybe everyone can enjoy some time off after GenCon. :)
^_^
|
You guys have my sympathies. Maybe these artists just need to be shown some Planescape tiefling artwork to get them in the groove?
And please please please let 'em know that aasimar aren't homogeneous either! With some of the celestials kicking around out there, a lot aasimar should be downright weird!(and awesome)
Aasimar are homogeonous... homogenously boring in comparison. That's one thing I'll give 4.e's Devas over the Aasimar, these guys have backgrounds that made them real counterparts to Tieflings instead of pasty white golden boys the originals were.
Yes.. a lot of the artists have become polluted by the 4E interpretation of a tiefling.
So when Paizo orders art, they get something closer to what WOTC orders, because they're drawing from the same artist pool. We may not like all of the art in a 4E book, but they hire good artists too.
I'm pretty sure you can request a picture and make some specifications what you want it to look like. I think most artists will make you what you ordered, so if they end up with 4E-looking tieflings, that's probably because they didn't say that they want something else.
|
... it's worth pointing out that Paizo sort of kind of pioneered the big brow horn look for tieflings back on the cover to Dungeon #124 (and then REALLY on #125); our iconic fighter was a female tiefling with more or less the same kinds of horn style. So I'd be lying if I said I didn't think that kind of horn setup looked cool.
I always assumed she was a barbarian; the lighter armour, and the fiendish heritage making her flip out.
The cover to #125 is veeeery nice, indeed.
Did you ever give them names? Even unofficially? I'm aware that Tyralandi and Abelard got named, due to having playtest PCs modelled on them.
And well done on immortalising poor, dead Abelard, by showing him having his ass handed to him in so many pictures, it makes my AoW game so much more fun, when I can hold them up to my paladin player, to illustrate his latest predicament (especially #126!).
I'm pretty sure you can request a picture and make some specifications what you want it to look like. I think most artists will make you what you ordered, so if they end up with 4E-looking tieflings, that's probably because they didn't say that they want something else.
Please go back and review James Jacobs reply to me on this very point. I only hinted at this possibility, and allowed that it probably wasn't the case..
..and I got told under no uncertain terms that the art order was quite explicit. And I felt I had to apologize, because his response was a little sharp.
If I sound a little sharp with you, I suppose I'm passing that along.
;)
|
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
|
Aasimar are homogeonous... homogenously boring in comparison. That's one thing I'll give 4.e's Devas over the Aasimar, these guys have backgrounds that made them real counterparts to Tieflings instead of pasty white golden boys the originals were.You guys have my sympathies. Maybe these artists just need to be shown some Planescape tiefling artwork to get them in the groove?
And please please please let 'em know that aasimar aren't homogeneous either! With some of the celestials kicking around out there, a lot aasimar should be downright weird!(and awesome)
One Aasimar I use in my writing has golden skin and is completely hairless Solar somewhere in her background. She wears a wig like Patricia Velasquez wore in the Mummy.
That said, they do need an article like this for the Aasimar, to break out the bland.
|
|
Aasimar are homogeonous... homogenously boring in comparison. That's one thing I'll give 4.e's Devas over the Aasimar, these guys have backgrounds that made them real counterparts to Tieflings instead of pasty white golden boys the originals were.You guys have my sympathies. Maybe these artists just need to be shown some Planescape tiefling artwork to get them in the groove?
And please please please let 'em know that aasimar aren't homogeneous either! With some of the celestials kicking around out there, a lot aasimar should be downright weird!(and awesome)
Like Matthew said, "ur doin it wrong!" ;)
Aasimar as pasty white golden boys? Pshaw!
In Planescape, where they first appeared(IIRC), they came in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Almost completely human lookin' except for those eerie, creepy shark eyes? Check. Green skinned and completely hairless? Check!
Aasimar got downright weird at times, just like tieflings. Take a look at how varied teh denizens of the upper planes are(winged snakepeople, friendly black-slime looking beings, guardi*ahem*agathions...
Like tieflings, there is no standard look for the aasimar "race".
Forehead horns aren't the only quirks a tiefling can have, just look at this thread
I wonder... do tiefling devilish touches go in and out of fashion among the Cheliax humans? If it was a democracy it would be a funny way of pick candidates, based on current deformity preferences among the constituents.
@ Shorafa Pamodae, Faux Gazel Hoodie?
I'm waiting for an illustration of some tiefling with huge horns who has used them to mount a beer hat. I'm thinking of some elaborate gnomish-engineered device with a bottle carousel and all the rest.
A religious tiefling wearing a miter would also be appropriate.
I have to say, I was really disappointed when I saw this. I think the 4e-style brow-horns are the single worst artistic abomination I've ever seen. SO UGLY.
For what it's worth, I like variety for tieflings, and brow horns work for me as one of the looks amongst that variety. Even if one thinks they are ugly, I guess I'd ask, shouldn't at least some tieflings be ugly? I'd be surprised if they weren't...or what is more, confused.
ADD @ Kevin A. M.: Especially if they are the earlier style mitre, whose horns were sideways instead of front/back.
|
|
I gotta say I like brow-horns just fine as well.
It's like the 3.x scaly mariliths and medusae. I don't dislike them. I think they're fine examples of what these creatures can look like. I just don't think it should be the only way they're represented as looking. (and Golarion was already ahead of the game as far as that went for tieflings. Compare Pamodae to the girl from The Demon Within!)
|
|
The art in CoT is definitely inferior to SD and LoF. That's established as a fact and agreed to by our friendly Paizo staffers themselves. Let us just hope the good AP artists will return for Kingmaker. For now, let us appreciate the PRPG and the Bestiary, and allow these artists a well deserved week or two in Cancun before they come back to us refreshed and firing on all cylinders! :)
NOTE: art is important. See the effect of bad art on well-written products: it doesn't get all the praise it deserves (a few recent Paizo books come to mind). Encourage the arts. And Paizo: please hire more artists so they get more time per frame. It's an investment and not a silly unnecessary cost.
Speaking as one who has a hand in the conceptual creation of Pathfinder's art and nothing to do with the actual physical creation, I've got to snicker a little bit here and ask the big Really? Come on folks, are we really going to have a thread about "I liked this piece of art, I didn't like this piece of art?" Could we find something more subjective to discuss? (Which is better!? Blue or Green! Leaves or Crickets! James Jacobs or Don Flamenco!) As that is of course what this comes down to: different strokes for different folks.
I'd also advise against taking any one piece of art or the art from any one article or volume as definitive of a new philosophy in either product design or creature design - especially when we're talking about a race as fundamentally disparate as tieflings, especially in an volume with a half dozen varying examples of that race, especially heading into an Adventure Path thick with such creatures, especially when we haven't even shown off our Iconic Tiefling yet.
And to comments criticizing the ongoing artistic efforts of a half dozen artists and staff members in one volume in comparison to entire complete Adventure Paths (LOL): Your comments have been noted. Now where's my clown hammer.
All that being said, I can be as knee-jerk in my reactions about the things I love as anyone - just get me going about the Transformers or G.I. Joe movies some time. But in such cases, I find that it's more helpful to take a deep breath, fix up a rum and coke, and play an hour of My Life As a Darklord or Heroes of Might and Magic III. Slaughtering the innocent always puts the world and my control over it back in a much more manageable perspective.
It's like the 3.x scaly mariliths and medusae. I don't dislike them. I think they're fine examples of what these creatures can look like. I just don't think it should be the only way they're represented as looking. (and Golarion was already ahead of the game as far as that went for tieflings. Compare Pamodae to the girl from The Demon Within!)
Mikaze gets one free cookie point!
I'll admit, I really -really- don't care for the giant brow-ridge horn style of tiefling that's a monolithic trait for 4e tieflings (monolithic or ubiquitous are two terms that should never be in the same sentence as tiefling). And for what it's worth, I didn't care for the look when it was pioneered initially to some degree in Dungeon magazine for Savage Tide AP.
And if Paizo is looking for more artists, I've promised a friend of mine that I'll pimp her art at GenCon, and she gave me business cards too. ;)
(monolithic or ubiquitous are two terms that should never be in the same sentence as tiefling)
<cough, cough>
|
I must chime in even though I haven't seen any of the art in question except for the preview on the Paizo Blog. The generally negative reaction to the appearance of tieflings in this adventure makes me wonder how much of this reaction is coloured by people's negative view of D&D 4e, which has taken the brow-ridge-horns tieflings as the standard.
I do understand the fuss, though: in a setting like Golarion which has a decidedly old school flavour you'd expect tieflings to be more in line with the flavour of previous editions, i.e. extremely variant in appearance. People are likely to be frustrated when a product is released which portrays most tieflings as pretty much the same. (I won't say 4e style because, as has been made plainly obvious by the kind staff of Paizo, Paizo actually pioneered this appearance of tieflings.)
But yeah, the only game where I'm willing to tolerate uniform tieflings is 4e, simply because in 4e tieflings are a completely different beast from their predecessors: by the fluff tieflings are actually a true-breeding race with one single origin (Infernal pacts made in ages long past), so one could assume that there wouldn't be too much divergence between tieflings in appearance, what with them pretty much all coming from the same bloodline.
With that said, in old school settings with old school flavour tieflings can come from any number of sources and thus should have wildly divergent appearances. That's why I'm glad to hear that Bastards of Erebus won't be the last we'll be seeing of tieflings on Golarion, as I personally can't get enough of tieflings.
Also, I hope Paizo doesn't take the easy way out and simply start making all tieflings hotties with little horns and prehensile tails. Tieflings have a penalty to Charisma, they should look weird, not like every single one of them came out of one of my magazines. ;) (With that said I can tolerate a hottie tiefling every once in a while, but too much of a good thing is something I can't remember.)