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Having just read the WD and the vampire counts "drawings" am I the only one who thinks he cannot draw or paint. I know people say it is a style, but often the perspective is out and the scale is distorted and please someone show him that there are other colors in the pallette. there are definitely better painters in GW employ (well maybe not now) so why is he this icon?

No you're not the only person with that opinion. I don't share it but some people do.

fullheadofhair wrote:Having just read the WD and the vampire counts "drawings" am I the only one who thinks he cannot draw or paint. I know people say it is a style, but often the perspective is out and the scale is distorted and please someone show him that there are other colors in the pallette. there are definitely better painters in GW employ (well maybe not now) so why is he this icon?

No, you are the only one. You alone. And once we convince you the domination of the Blanche Army will be complete.

Nah it's the vision he brings to things. Along with Goodwin he's done more to create GW's skull-encrusted, dirty look. There are more realistic artists in the GW stable but generally they're just copying what he does.

I know people say it is a style, but often the perspective is out and the scale is distorted and please someone show him that there are other colors in the pallette.

Do you think that because you pre-empt the response, said response is no longer usable? As you said, it is a style. De gustibus etc.

Prepare to be burned alive. On the positive I agree with you as well.

Isn't he the only artist that stayed with them without moving on? His stuff is OK the EPIC boxart was quite nice but his sketches all look the same to me. Give me Adrian Smith or Mark Gibbons any day.

I've always thoughts he was pants, his drawing always look flat and have greta wide areas of nothing. Gibbins if probably the best artist they have.

There's a difference between illustration and art, and much of why people don't like him is because they prefer illustration.

I can say that if you look at one or two of his things you might give him the benefit of the doubt as an artist since it can convey the whole gothic grimness look. I enjoy some modern art so I like the abstract, but if you try to apply the same to blanche you can't just gloss over the mistakes unless they're there for some abstract reason.

Is the perspective weird because it's meant to show a cruel world that's out-of-focus, losing its once great bastion of humanity? Maybe. His style could convey that. But you keep seeing that over and over and it becomes illustration as, to me, it loses its value as art. And that's when I criticize him for that. But hey, he's "just a concept artist".

edit: But the big beef with me is the whole skulls thing. Yeah, skulls. We get it. Maybe start adding phallic references to the weapons and you can do something similar to what Geiger did. And at least it'll be funny.

Adrian Smith überalles.

That said, I can respect Blanche as a concept artist with some solid sketch work to his name. I really enjoyed in the INQ rulebook having the juxtaposition of Blanche's character sketches in the background and Smith's reworks from them in the foreground. Kinda how it ought to work, as opposed to the 40k rulebook where IIRC there are all these Blanche full-page sketches all over the place. I personally don't think it has any negative affect on the 40k Grimdark theme and my enjoyment there of, but odd that he's given such a high pedastal to stand upon.

And for those that missed them, here are some blurry photos of Blanche's CSM models taken at some Games Day in the last year. Interesting to see his aesthetic and color preferences carry over.

- Salvage

Meh, I dislike his stuff. In fact, his style was largely what I disliked about GW stuff for a long time. In retrospect it was sort of silly to consider the quality of his artwork equivalent to the quality of the game, but I really dislike his sense of style. It always strikes me as just blotchy and messy, even beyond the raw adolescent sillyness of what he is representing.

Yes, I am aware that the entirety of 40k has a lot of adolescent sillyness in it, but just going by the Witch Hunter's codex alone, every illustration I hate has his name on it. He is like Boris... damnit what's his name... the 80's artist that did all the pictures of people 3/4's naked with a big sword and curvy woman Conan pictures. Only his work has lots of visual appeal, as opposed to Blanche's.
Also, looking at his stuff in the back of the Citadel "How to paint Citadel Miniatures" his stuff sucks compared to the Golden Demon winners and other things in the "show case". I will grant that much of them were probably done in the hoary past of miniature work, but still, there is little inspiring there.

Give me Dainton, the Kopinskis, or Gibbons any day.

Blanche is a great concept guy. He comes up with some pretty awesome ideas. His execution of those ideas, however, is crap. I really wish that GW would ease up on putting his stuff in every publication. They could be using those panels for good artwork...


~Eric

I always thought GW's fascination with skulls was odd, especially for the Imperial forces. Then I remembered that the Emperor is often referred to as "The Carrion Lord," which explains the skulls a bit. But even the Pope doesn't have as many relgious icons on him as some models do, especially Imperial Guard special characters! Commissar Yarrick alone has five of them. Ogryns, who are supposed to be fanatically superstitious and believers in the Emperor, so they get a pass with their sometimes six skulls. Personally, I like his art, maybe not his subjects, but I like the "old manuscript" look he does, but I think the morbidity level could be brought down a few steps.

Wehrkind wrote:Yes, I am aware that the entirety of 40k has a lot of adolescent sillyness in it, but just going by the Witch Hunter's codex alone, every illustration I hate has his name on it. He is like Boris... damnit what's his name... the 80's artist that did all the pictures of people 3/4's naked with a big sword and curvy woman Conan pictures.

Boris Vallejo. Just remember the paints! LOL

No- you aren't the only one who dislikes the Blanche. He is often considered the worst artist GW has--- or at least, no one seems to complain about any of the other artists. The Golden Throne did a few strips on him.



Mark (or was it Matt) Gibbons comes to mind as a very good artist. But he doesn't do GW exclusively.

There are blanche paintings that I like, but there are far more that I dislike. The real wonder is why he has been given so much to do? Why does he get so many covers when other artists could have produced better work? Why did he get both the second and third edition box art?

His characters tend to look very flat, sometimes are poorly symmetrical and have extremely poor perspective. There are a few times where his "Style" of making drawings intentionally look very messy works out well for him. There are times when his pictures' business has worked out alright for him.

But I have a very hard time forgiving him for the Second Ed box art. That was just awful.


mind- I do sometimes like the minis based on his work. But I find them infinitely more interesting than his original paintings.

Taarnak wrote:Give me Dainton, the Kopinskis, or Gibbons any day.

Blanche is a great concept guy. He comes up with some pretty awesome ideas. His execution of those ideas, however, is crap. [...]


~Eric

That is the true part. My greatest problem is that with the new demons his style gets a little to close to the model sector.

I guess I like Blanche's art because it is so self-aware. Here are drawings etc. that are consicous of how grotesque and ludicrous they are (and 40k is) and that at the same time contain elements that cannot be rationalised away. When I look at any of the other GW artworks, I am dismayed by how seriously they take themselves. "Realistic" depictions of Space Marines hacking up Orks, Orks beating up on IG, IG shooting Eldar. . . it is all a little naive, is it not? A scientist's view of a gothic reality.

I am afraid I don't see how the drawings are conscious of anything. All I see is work that looks like it was done by a 14 year old. Shouldn't art take itself seriously, or at least more seriously than his work seems to imply?
If the idea of the artwork is to point out how silly the who fluff side is, ok, his work fits it perfectly.
If, however, the point of the artwork is to give us a look at the "real" 40k world, to create versimlitude by way of visual reinforcement, are not the more... ok I am struggling to not say "talented" or "skilled"... artists not a better choice?

I don't know, maybe it just reminds me too much of the crap I drew in middle school, which even I recognized at the time as "bad."

odinsgrandson wrote:He is often considered the worst artist GW has--- or at least, no one seems to complain about any of the other artists.

Wehrkind wrote:All I see is work that looks like it was done by a 14 year old.

Ouch. Both of these sentiments seem overly harsh. I think Blanche has to be the most different artist GW has, which clearly won't jive with everybody. All the same ...

odinsgrandson wrote:The real wonder is why he has been given so much to do? Why does he get so many covers when other artists could have produced better work? Why did he get both the second and third edition box art?

... that's a good question, and one reason I'm overjoyed Adrian Smith got both of the new Demon army books. For the record though, I liked the 3rd ed. box art, much much more than the very generic Battle for Macragge (if that counts as the 4th ed. box) art.

- Salvage

Can "different" in this case mean "rides the short bus and has trouble eating Cheerios out of a baggie"? If that is the case, I can get behind you

I just don't think he is a good artist. He was probably the best they could get in the early days of RT since they no doubt had a tight budget and skilled scifi artists probably were not exactly thick upon the ground. Now, I can't help but think his paycheck could be feeding two art school students who would do better work.

Blanche is real hit or miss for me. Alot of his art I love (Witchunter's Codex, about half the 40k Rulebook) and some of his art I absolutely hate (The entire Vampire Counts Army Book and the other half of the 40k Rulebook).

Sometimes it really is just dark and gritty and epic looking, and very much fits the theme. The abstractness works well for the 41st Millenium, I think, as it is so far fetched to be abstract itself.

Sometimes it looks like he ate a box of Crayolas for lunch and spent the afternoon in the bathroom 'making art'. (I refer you to exhibit A: The Abyssal Terror drawing for the new VC. Utterly horrible).

I still respect him as an artist though, whether or not some of the stuff he does is GOOD, it's still quite imaginative. I can definitely see how most of his concept art sets the mood for 40k, if in no other way than to inspire other artists, be they illustrators, modellers, or painters.

When I first saw John Blanches work I was chastised for not loving it :(

What Kid Kyoto said! The man has vision!

- G

While I prefer Goodwin's stuff to Blanche's, his artwork has been the foundation for much of GW's miniatures. And I totally dig his CSMs - nice conversions!

Wehrkind, IMO art can't take itself seriously and at the same time take the epic battle between Galactic Rangers and Space Fungus seriously. I'm not saying it should treat it all as a joke--and Blanche's work doesn't--but I like that it reflects the fact that the 41st millenium basically doesn't make sense. It's a universe gone mad, in a way that's horrifying but also absurd, and I think he captures it perfectly.

and thus it is art of the highest kind...because there is a legion of fans who love it and a legion of people who hate it. ^_^

I dislike his visual style, especially the way he seems to 'scribble' pictures. I prefer the art of Mark Gibbons. His pictures capture 40K more for me than any other of their artists.

That said, the concept behind Blanche's work is often quite good and none of us can ignore what a huge impact he's had on the visual tone of 40K.

Something I do like of his are the Vostroyans. They are the only Guard miniatures that match his old 'Imperial Army' sketches, and they are more '40K-ish' than most of the things in 40K.

BYE

tegeus-Cromis wrote:I guess I like Blanche's art because it is so self-aware. Here are drawings etc. that are consicous of how grotesque and ludicrous they are (and 40k is) and that at the same time contain elements that cannot be rationalised away. When I look at any of the other GW artworks, I am dismayed by how seriously they take themselves. "Realistic" depictions of Space Marines hacking up Orks, Orks beating up on IG, IG shooting Eldar. . . it is all a little naive, is it not? A scientist's view of a gothic reality.

This sounds like the reasoning for the re-vamping of the Transformers for the new movie. Think about it... If you saw the old 80's boxy characters walking around the screen, it'd look pretty hokey. Blanche introduces a lot of ideas that, let's face it, are pretty ludicrous if you simply happened upon them in the middle of a suburban street. Every artist has their crap pieces, but personally he's more "hit" than "miss" as far as I'm concerned.

I think the reason you still see him even though GW's budget has increased is because he's been there since the beginning. Hell, I believe he did that Harry the Hammer piece GW's basing their new limited model on! Loyalty should be rewarded (as long as it doesn't mean by promotion or power). He's had a huge hand in a lot of their concepts. The ones that stand out the most are of his Tech-Seers and Adeptus Mechanicus.

I'd be willing to bet that most (not ALL) of the people here who don't dig his work weren't exposed to the 2nd edition stuff. I think his artwork's more suited in the package that RT and 2nd Ed offered. It was on a crappier paper stock, things were professional but their priorities were on the rules and the models. Now everything's packaged up pretty and on nice paper and I think that has an effect on how your perceive his art. For those of you who've picked up just about any art book, notice everything's on a thick glossy stock paper. Blanche's art doesn't suit that (not his b&w stuff anyway).

Actually, what I really like is how GW moved away from box artwork to box photos. That was a brilliant masterstroke. First, GW has their house painters painting for the inevitable WD advert. Now GW gets to leverage the models for the box package. And the Customer finally sees what the models actually look like.... Genius!

Now, imagine if every GW boxed set had Blanche's artwork on it? You'd have no clue what the models actually looked like.

I don't think anyone will take issue with that. Of course it's nice to see what we're buying, and of course John Blanche's sketches will tell us nothing of the kind.

"I'll take one box of Amorphous Blobs, two boxes of Slouching Hooded Guys, and a Tentacled Thingummy set."

tegeus-Cromis wrote:"I'll take one box of Amorphous Blobs, two boxes of Slouching Hooded Guys, and a Tentacled Thingummy set."

And the wierd thing - those would be the Dark Angels!

odinsgrandson wrote:

But I have a very hard time forgiving him for the Second Ed box art. That was just awful.

aw... who doesn't love this image: