OK, to get this out of the way, I liked the Infernal Syndrome. A lot. And the art in the adventure itself is just fine. But the supplemental articles are another story. Most of the monsters, with the exception of the spartoi, look unfinished. They're cartoony and weirdly textured, and the cerberi's front-facing head is in shadow! And the Hellknight on page 73 is... well, it's awful. Easily the worst piece of art that's ever appeared in a Pathfinder book.
Were there deadline problems?
Creative Director
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OK, to get this out of the way, I liked the Infernal Syndrome. A lot. And the art in the adventure itself is just fine. But the supplemental articles are another story. Most of the monsters, with the exception of the spartoi, look unfinished. They're cartoony and weirdly textured, and the cerberi's front-facing head is in shadow! And the Hellknight on page 73 is... well, it's awful. Easily the worst piece of art that's ever appeared in a Pathfinder book.
Were there deadline problems?
Not deadline problems as much as success problems. With the Pathfinder Core RPG and, even more to the point with the Pathfinder Bestiary, we sort of created for us an author shortage. As in, all of our regular authors were doing monsters or art for additional book lines, which meant we had to branch out and find additional artists. And since they're new artists, their styles are different. Our art team does a GREAT job getting artists with compatible styles, but art being art, sometimes an artist's style won't appeal to some folks.
We do the same with authors, in fact. Usually we're pretty good picking new authors and new artists, but sometimes their styles simply aren't a good match for our products. And one way we find out that things aren't a good match is via customer feedback. :-)
Yeah, I'm afraid I have to agree with the OP...I'm no art critic by trade, and I personally can't draw my way out of a wet paper bag, but a LOT of the art in the non-adventure portion of this issue was horribly amateurish (sp?) in a very big way (unfinished is being too polite). Proportion, texturing/detail, shading....you name it, I thought it was WAY below Paizo standards.
And conveniently (for purposes of "correcting" this mis-step in the future), almost all of the pieces I didn't take a shine to were all by the same artist. Funny how it worked out that way....
Cheers,
Colin
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Creative Director
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I'm relatively certain, in any event, we've moved away from using the artist(s) in question, but I can't say for sure.... I'm pretty sure we've not used them again up through Pathfinder #32. (If we have... their art styles got a lot closer to the Pathfinder norm.)
Maybe it's part of my personal curse to have nonstandard art show up in adventures I write or help write... :-P
There's a fantastic adage in the magazine/periodical biz that subscribers to anything should probably hear. The gist is: "Don't like something? Wait a month."
Although the realities of monthly deadlines sometimes leave us working with the tools at our disposal, unless you see something persisting for probably about 3 consecutive months, don't think of it as a trend or "new direction." We try new things (whether by need or experiment). Sometimes they work out great, sometimes not so much, but still worth the effort.
With our livelihoods hanging on your satisfaction, rest assured that we are our products own toughest critics. So, don't be worried unless you have the same concern month after month after month.
Which, in this case, I assure you you won't.