Ghost Council Tribe Preview for W5

[BadFurryFanFic]

After seeing this, I can’t say the hair is the same as Maria.
https://twitter.com/ellyawn/status/1...zKwyLC60noc0hg

Wow. I thought he'd just thickened and faded the braids but nope...mashed two real people together is worse.

And I'm not sure if turning a real Mongolian man into a faux-Saami guy is better or worse.

Didn't this guy get the job because he knew Outstar?

[Damian May]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/609799022873673729/1111449485160239184/W5-GhostCouncil1.gif

Yeah........

[Ana Mizuki]

So uh, wow. Just... wow.

It is a GOOD thing we have people who can track those 'references' down.

The fact that there are two (noticed) of these in the Ghost Council page and one guy got race bended on top of everything is just... cherry on top of this shit sundae.

[ZakRulz]

…Didn't this guy get the job because he knew Outstar?

I don’t know about that. I’ll I’ve seen is unsubstantiated claims of it on the internet.

[AkatsukiLeader13]

Wow... The more I see and hear about 5E, the more I'm convinced that the whole edition outside of OPP's work and some of the fan stuff, is an incoherent, hastily put together mess. And that the 5E WoD as a whole is going to at best be held back from it could be, at worst suffer and possibly outright kill it as they continue to stumble around blindly.

Honestly this is starting to get PAINFUL to watch. While I wasn't entirely crazy about V5 when it dropped and I've talked about my issues with that before, I was still kind of optimistic about the edition. OPP's V5 was great and proof that the in the right hands, 5E could be great. But ever since the switch off to Renegade and the SI and Sabbat books, it's been nothing but overpriced, undercooked disappointments. H5 removing the Imbued frustrated me and then hearing about how all over the place the final product was even worse. W5 is likewise shaping up to be H5 again but with traced/stolen artwork, something I didn't expect to see again after Exalted 3E.

At this point I have no confidence in any official 5E WoD product that isn't from OPP and I am actively dreading M5 and Wr5 if we get them one day.

[AnubisXy]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...stCouncil1.gif

Yeah........

In the Glass Walker's debacle, Liam Stevens said:

Let me be blunt here; World of Darkness is fortunate that their cultural incompetence was caught in a pre-publishing preview. Had any other page in their book been the subject of this preview, it is highly likely that this appropriation of Tāme’s likeness and our cultural traditions would have been published. And I do wonder what other wrongs exist in the pages yet unseen.

Well now we've seen two previews and in both of them the artist has been caught appropriating other people's likeness. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if every single Tribal picture contains people that the artist has appropriated. That blatant level of appropriation of someone else's art and likeness is not acceptable at all. I don't know if the artist has been shitcanned or not, but I hope the publisher goes in and removes all of that artist's artwork before publication because it's safe to say that there will definitely be more massive, glaring issues and it's better to fix them now than to publish it and try to play defense afterward.

I'm worried though that they're so intent on getting the physical release for Gencon that they won't take the time to hunt down, scrub and replacea of the problematic artwork.

[werewolf43]

WTF is this? How a proffesional artist could go THAT easy!. How? I understand inspiration, but this seems to be 1:1 picture copy with some elements added. Why they just didn't hired artists that created art in othe editions that was good, Steve Prescott or Ron Spencer for example. They try to put photo like art BUT it doesn't fit everywhere. It would even be funny but ... it just isn't. In what light does it put them in front of potential buyers. The other art previewed is very good, like cover or introdution, they could follow the concept. Ehhh shit in golden paper.

[Damian May]

Whisper is the folks in charge hated Spencer's artwork.....yeah.....

[Ana Mizuki]

I'm worried though that they're so intent on getting the physical release for Gencon that they won't take the time to hunt down, scrub and replacea of the problematic artwork.

I get the nasty feeling they aren't going to change the art since we have ONLY seen 3/11 of the tribes and already 2/3 have suspect art noticed. There is simply too much art and too little time to get new art done.

If they were smart, they'd cancel the gen-con release and go over the art VERY carefully.

[Knightingale]

I'm worried though that they're so intent on getting the physical release for Gencon that they won't take the time to hunt down, scrub and replacea of the problematic artwork.

They have to push through or cancel this book entirely which will cost them. On her WOD-news-show in the week after the whole GW-preview-debacle happened, Outstar talked about how they had to replace the art and the reason is that they had to talk to the printing company on this. So things were already at that stage at that time. So now it's pretty much unimaginable, I'd say, they could go back and change an image here or there.

And they're definitely going for a physical release at GenCon. After all, the store-page has had this line added a couple of weeks ago:

Going to Gen Con and want to pick up your copy early? Use code ... at checkout.

Of course, now that we know the artist's love for tracing... Maybe for the art director as one person, it would be hard to find all the photo-references for the art used but the internet at large will solve this in no time. So when the book comes out this could cause further controversy very easily. After all, there are eleven (!) sets of people drawn by this artist in the book.

And BTW, the cover-art is also from the same artist, so I'm wondering if the factory we see on the cover also involved tracing. Maybe it's a photo of a steel-mill or something that was used as a reference there...

[Ragged Robin]

Whisper is the folks in charge hated Spencer's artwork.....yeah.....

thats an....interesting mindset. Spencer isn't to my taste but I'd take it over the mediocrity incarnate of 5th ed art and that's before we consider the endless gaffes.

[11twiggins]

It's remarkable how much good will has been evaporated. Some with bad output, some with contempt.

I'm wondering what the spin will be, if W5 ends up bombing. "The old fans were Too Racist" might have some legs; on twitter there was a solid week where anyone saying they didn't like Eternals was presented as having been put off by the diverse cast, and not the film being awful.

My first news of this preview was a GIF showing the Shepherd preview turning into a real-life guy. Again. STOP MANIPULATING PHOTOGRAPHS OF REAL PEOPLE!

Anyways looking at the tribal art for W20 is so refreshing after these previews. They're in a variety of the three Breed Forms, they are in a cool comic book art style, and you can identify the Tribe's identity and vibe INSTANTLY by looking at them.

[Ana Mizuki]

My first news of this preview was a GIF showing the Shepherd preview turning into a real-life guy. Again. STOP MANIPULATING PHOTOGRAPHS OF REAL PEOPLE!

I feel I must note something; You should not manipulate images of real people that you have no permission of using. Stock images exist for a reason, even if it is looked at a bit askew in art circles to trace from them. Heck, there are 3D programs with free realistic human models to trace from. Or you could take your own photographs. There are plenty of non-stealy options.

The issue with this fellow is twofold; First of all, these are straight traces with very minor edits of people with fame. Second, this edition is supposed to be the non-racist one, yet we have race bending in this preview. Nevermind the GW one.

And as you said, they could have chosen to go a more comic-book way and this would not have happened.

[AnubisXy]

Of course, now that we know the artist's love for tracing... Maybe for the art director as one person, it would be hard to find all the photo-references for the art used but the internet at large will solve this in no time. So when the book comes out this could cause further controversy very easily. After all, there are eleven (!) sets of people drawn by this artist in the book.

I suspect that when the book releases, within hours you'll have internet detectives finding many, maybe dozens of people who had their likenesses appropriated without their permission, and I suspect that the controversy will overshadow any positive points about the game's release on social media.

I hope Outstar is already polishing their apology tour because I expect this will go over like a lead balloon with most people. Tracing photographs in order to steal people's likeness and make money off of them isn't something that I see anybody approving of. This is the kind of thing that can kill a game in its early stages if it has the deserved reputation for stealing artwork or other material from people. Why would you want to support a company that does that?

[Ragged Robin]

It's remarkable how much good will has been evaporated. Some with bad output, some with contempt.

I'm wondering what the spin will be, if W5 ends up bombing. "The old fans were Too Racist" might have some legs; on twitter there was a solid week where anyone saying they didn't like Eternals was presented as having been put off by the diverse cast, and not the film being awful.

My first news of this preview was a GIF showing the Shepherd preview turning into a real-life guy. Again. STOP MANIPULATING PHOTOGRAPHS OF REAL PEOPLE!

Anyways looking at the tribal art for W20 is so refreshing after these previews. They're in a variety of the three Breed Forms, they are in a cool comic book art style, and you can identify the Tribe's identity and vibe INSTANTLY by looking at them.

its been a slow erosion. The tacit disdain and laziness of most products and protective antipathy about the fans has taken its toll. You're talking about a company which seems to hate its fandom while trying to charge 15 bucks for a single dice.

Maybe, trouble is wod fans genrally arnt racist. At worst they're culturally insensitive sometimes with a few bad eggs inevitable with a product. You also run the risk of cry wolf and the irl danger of cognitively linking socially conscious art with crap.

Yeah just draw your own shit.

wod has always benefited from stylised larger than life depictions rather than realistic. Look at theo Bell in v20 and revised vs his look in 5th to see my point.