My problem with the aesthetics you guys are discussing is they're basically devoid of personality. I'm ok with some characters in fantasy going with the juggernaut aesthetic, but the genre has suffered such a drive towards escalation of everything over the last couple decades that most works of the genre try to cram that aesthetic onto absolutely everything. Every game or movie iteration seems to feel the need to make everything a little more fantastic. It gets to a point where the whole genre ends up completely one-dimensional.
I saw this painting at Gencon a couple years ago and had a chat with the artist about this very subject. It illustrates the point perfectly. On the actual painting, that text at the bottom read "The Evolution of the Troll". From left to right, it shows how the design of this creature has changed from 1st to 4th edition D&D.
Now this wouldn't be so bad, maybe, if it were an isolated case, but every single humanoid has undergone this evolution in pretty much every work of mainstream fantasy. They all end up looking the same, except for skin color and a distinguishing feature or two. In this case, the nose. On the far left, the entire visual package of that creature has distinguishing personality. On the far right, the only distinguishing feature is the nose. It's stupid.
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Topic: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Read 1597504 times)