FASA Games, Inc.

Not much content in this one, but a couple of pretty pictures, and a peek behind the scenes at the art development process!

http://www.fasagames.com/blog/?post_id= ... -cover-art

SQUEE (I don't do that a lot ).

Wow, great concept, great art direction and execution. Kudos to all 3 of you (Josh, Jeff, & Milivoj)!!

This will definitely draw people into the game.

It looks nice! Really love the reference to the 1stEd cover; thanks for doing that!

Fantastic work Milivoj! I want to say this first so what comes next isn't mistaken for a criticism of your talent (Rank 15 Artisan Skill I'm guessing? )

I love this piece, but as a cover does it capture the spirit of Earthdawn? I'm not sure it does.

Without the Obsidiman it could easily be a cover for any number of fantasy books (ie elves, dwarves, swords, dragons etc)

Where are the T'skrang, Windings or Trolls? Why isn't there an airship sailing in front of all those clouds? The game is saturated with magic, why can't we see someone using a talent\spell? Where is the variety of Disciplines? To me it just looks like four warriors and an archer, not an ideal representation of the myriad of Disciplines that might entice new players.

The saying is never judge a book by its cover, but I reckon the reason ED was never as popular as it should have been was because the 1st ed cover was so uninspiring (a submerged statue in a swamp doesn't scream "buy me" to potential new players). I think this new cover needs to show more of what makes Earthdawn so special and why a new player should pick it up.

Again, please don't take this as a criticism of the quality of the art. It's outstanding, and I can't wait to see what other new work will grace the pages of 4th edition.

As Sundahk has said the quality of the artwork is great. I’ve previously stated I don’t like the new Earthdawn logo, the quality or design of it, so was a bit worried about how the rest of the art direction might go, but this makes me feel a whole lot better. I do agree it might not shine as the proverbial ‘This Is EarthDawn’ beacon and it is reasonably generic fantasy, having said that, it’s much better than the cover of the original book and I really like the homage to it even if I didn’t like the original. I also like the pattern on the stones as they remind me of the shield design in the original logo. Compared to the 2nd edition cover which did show more races/disciplines (I hated that cover) it’s so much better, a league of its own in fact. I don’t think it’s fair to try and compare it to the 3rd edition cover which I love because you would not be comparing like with like. I think it has more than enough merits that people won’t simply pass it by without having a look.

@Sundahk

I don't think it's an obsidiman. It doesn't look like an obsidiman. It has ears. It has sharp teeth. The arm pad looks too agressive, more like troll-made or ork-made. I first thought it was a troll, but there are no horns too. And for an orc it's too big and "square-shaped" (Warcraft-like).

The art is top quality, but I agree it is not so much inspiring. There is not much magic and Earthdawn feel in it. No trolls, no airships, no windlings, no t'skrangs, no Disciplines...

It looks quite generic fantasy to me.

I like the quality of the artwork and the combined cover concept. And as FWD the standing stones are very good.

However, I am concerned regarding the artist's lack of knowledge about the Earthdawn world. (His early sketches show dragons in many non-Earthdawn formats, such as a dragon-rider?) He also uses dark army or evil army as terms. Also, why would a dragon be so prominent on the front when they are not PC's and most are mastermind behind the scenes types? The dragon on the cover inspires me to think D&D clone which would have prevented me from ever playing Earthdawn to begin with. Most of us here know that Earthdawn is not a D&D clone and I would hope to avoid that conception as much as possible.

I'm also curious about that "wizard" does it have 2 familiars or is it a dual disciplined Wizard / Beastmaster? I could see the argument with a player now, but that Wizard on the cover has two wolves, why can't I? ....

I see this cover as a generic fantasy style that "could" be Earthdawn rather than a cover that says "Welcome to Earthdawn here is what our world looks like!"

On a separate note: I also agree with FWD and have stated in the past about my distaste over the Earthdawn logo and would love to see it get a change for a revision as well.

Graymayne

*edited to add some left out thoughts.

Another option would have been to have a Horror in there somewhere, perhaps looming In the background or replacing the dragon.

Well, nice work of art, but I have some issues with the whole concept.
First of all like the whole concept is a too generic fantasy setting, much more suited for D&D but certainly not for Earthdawn.
Left side: a human warrior/swordfighter in heroic pose with a nice shield and 3(?) weapons, damn, that guy must be paranoid about loosing his weapon!
Then hiding behind the human, a dwarf with a horned helmet, not much else to see about him, no discipline specific weapon/item
An elven archer, staring into the sunset..ok for me, maybe if placed 1-2 Steps behind the human we could actually see more of him
Another human/dwarf(?) behind the right arm of the central human, if this is a dwarf he must be sitting on the other dwarf which would be hilariously funny for a cover
That thing behind them is neither a troll nor an obsidiman, those would be towering over all the other namegivers! Looks almost like a cavetroll (before eating the dwarves, look at his hungry eyes!).
Center:
a mysterious human sized namegiver with a staff and a scroll in his hand, 2 wolves at his/her(?) side. Well, ok for me, human casters could have beasts with them via versatility or maybe they are long trained via certain skills. But why the heck is this namegiver standing alone with his/her buddies facing off? I don't get it what he/she is doing there, preparing a spell? Casting a ritual? And please remove the hood and give the caster a t'srang or bloodelf face, something unique to earthdawn to immediately be recognizeable for player in the center of the picture that shows that this is something else than D&D (hooded casters...my my, slain hundreds of them, yawn).

Right:Great work on the stonehead, please keep it! The dragon, well, nicely done. With all the runestones in the center showing off dragon motives he may have a lair here, so well, he can stay.
The sky is seriously missing a windling!

As a general rule imho every Earthdawn cover should include:
A Windling
A T'skrang
An Obsidiman
cause these races are unique to Earthdawn

And please not only male characters.