Granted, this is probably going to be mostly from a nostalgic point of view, but when someone says "D&D art", what do you immediately think of?

I started in 1981 with Moldvay's basic set.  So for me, some of that art I have a very special soft spot for, and I think it's "D&D" to me whenever I see it, or talk about D&D.  It might not be the most technically proficient, but it just oozes the D&D experience.  It's kind of weird how some illustrations stand out way more than others from the same publication.  Specifically:

The picture that defined the game for me has always been "Emirikol the Chaotic."  You can tell just from the image that Emirikol is indeed chaotic, and also a dick.

Early D&D - bad art. Like the superhero guy on the left, I mean yeah sure it is kind of punny, but really

Although I sort of like this guy despite or even because the art is bad.

Lately - way too many belts and spikey armor...or is that Pathfinder?

To be honest, I think the fantasy art that defined me as I grew up was more Warhammer and Fighting Fantasy than D&D. There is very little D&D stuff that I remember or even recognise. The exceptions are probably the various novel covers.

For nostalgia purposes:

Clyde Caldwell's covers for the Gazateers of the Known World setting.

Jeff Dee's interior illustrations.

Quote from: Saplatt;776779For nostalgia purposes:

Clyde Caldwell's covers for the Gazateers of the Known World setting.

Jeff Dee's interior illustrations.

Caldwell's cover of DL1 definitely goes up there for me.

It honestly doesn't mean too much to me. In fact, if it features "conspicuously badass" characters, I find it a bit of a turn off. Some WotC art has resembled super hero panels, which, for some reason, I just can't dig. Most of the time, though? Neutral. Doesn't matter at all.

I liked a lot of the art in the original books and what came later in AD&D and The Arduin Grimoire... though the stuff that looked like superhero comics never did much for me.
But when someone says 'D&D art' my mind goes straight to Larry Elmore... which I really dislike... along with most of the overblown 'cinematic' stuff that's come since.

The art that has inspired my gaming has come more from Heavy Metal, underground comics and video games.

Erol Otus, 'nuf said.

Personally it's Larry Elmore because he illustrated a lot of the Basic stuff I started with, did some Dragon covers, and of course Snarf Quest in the back pages of Dragon for a while. It's Bargle and Aleena and company when I picture D&D.

Oh, and those ads in comic books where they encounter green slime and a werewolf and whatever else there was...I always wished the story went further.

The vibe of a lot of it reminds me of the cover of Dio's The Last in Line:

One of my passions that I bitch about here a lot is how the old Sucky D&D artwork had folks getting all nostalgic.

Sutherland basically couldn't draw. His artwork annoys me because of the noslagia fanboys who praise it.
they made him art director and he continued to use his own illustrations.

The excuse is always TSR couldn't afford to get decent artists etc etc . The fact is they had decent artists Trampier, Otus and Dee for example. If you compare the artwork of Diety and Demigods to the stuff in the 3 core books the difference in quality is simply enormous.

Marley already posted the Otus Pantangian sorcerer I used on the other thread to illustrate that TSR had artists they could have used to produce professional work but there are numerous other examples.

when I started getting into D&D I had just watched the Bakshi LotT movie, my walls were covered in Boris and Frazetta posters, I read comics filled with illustrations by Brian Bolland, Carlos Ezquerra and Dave Gibbons and yet here in the holy grail of the hobby I would spend the next 35 years engaged with was artwork that was at best risible if not downright insulting.

The exception was Diety and Demigods why couldn't they have put Jeff Dee in charge of art at TSR....

So that is what early D&D art means to me... missed opportunity.

Diterlizzi's work for some reason. Never even played Planescape in tabletop form (video game was awesome though).

But I started with Fighting Fantasy, not D&D, so Russ Nicholson still holds the greatest aesthetic sway over me outside of JRPGs and Magic: The Gathering.

Something about monochrome fires my imagination.

It's nostalgia talking, but the two images that really sunk their teeth into my impressionable young mind was the Paladin in Hell in the AD&D PHB and the original Barbarian picture. When I was too young to really play with my dad's group, I'd sit and listen and flip through the books they were using.

I didn't much care for the badly drawn 'comedy' art that was in it, I also didn't like the cover of the original Monster Manual.

As another person noted, the art quality was very mismatched, probably just due to a lack of quality control. Hard to blame them at that point, however.