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Something's been bothering me about GW's direction in terms of codex art in recent years, and I think I've finally figured out what it is. At first I thought it was the "obviously digitally painted" style a lot of the newer artists have, and while it's true that there are a few pieces making it into codices these days that look more like they belong on a DeviantArt fanpage, it's not that; it's the subjects.

Everything is of the new models. Codex art, and GW's art generally, used to be about exploring the setting; sure when new stuff came out they'd feature it, but if you think back to older books they had drawings of random Guard regiments, little glimpses into the workings of the Imperium or xenos cultures, and all that's gone now. Look at the new AdMech books - there's a lot of new art in them, and some of it is quite excellent, but it's relentlessly promotional; Vanguard, Rangers, Vanguard again, Ironstriders, Onagers, Rangers & Vanguard together, art of Robots that depicts only the Kastelan models, every new work featuring a Techpriest is of the new model.

For me, what made Warhammer art so appealing was those instances where Blanche or Kopinsky pulled back the curtain and let us see the world as they saw it, now it's just a relentless parade of "here is a prototype of the new model we're releasing, draw it with some pew-pew going on in the background".

I tend to agree. But this direction has been apparent for the last few years.

Corporate GW are solely interested in selling the minis they decide to release. To give us glimpses of something they will not release is anathema to their current outlook and, in their litigious minds -with recent history - offering any substantial view of something that a competitor could produce would be heresy.

I think there's quite a risk that they'll not want drawings of anything they're not releasing now they've found out that a drawing does not give absolute ownership of the 3D representation. For me one of the big draws of 40k was that interest and rich art hinting at so much more, but maybe they don't see it that way.

Not sure the original observation is accurate to be honest, in skitarri there are pictures of Mars, close ups of skitarti eyes, feet etc detailing their augs, maps of the Galaxy and organisation structure pics.
In Eldar there are external and internal pics of Craftworlds, aspect shrines, crone worlds and individual characters.
In Knights there are pics of knight worlds and internal rooms.

I grant there are not a lot of them and there should be more but they are there.
My issue of late is every other picture depicting a full in battle scene or war setting. A bit more atmosphere and character would be welcome rather than the pewpew.

The last two codexes I've bought have contained very little new art. Almost entirely model pics or recycled art from the last codex. In the case of DE, two or three single pose drawings just copy-pasted and color swapped as well. Thoroughly disappointing.

In the new eldar codex everything is Saim-Hann. They even made a couple of laughably bad photoshop jobs to change old (great) art to Saim-Hann colors and iconography.

I agree with you about a lot of it, but personally I think digital art is every bit as valid as any other form of art and disagree with the notion that traditional art is somehow superior. It takes talent to do both.

And yeah, I think Mr. Burning's got it right, too. They seem to think they can't show off anything that doesn't exist as a plastic kit or that they intend on producing as a plastic kit because they think other people are going to "steal" their ideas, and then they can't sell models for it later.

 Jimsolo wrote:
The last two codexes I've bought have contained very little new art. Almost entirely model pics or recycled art from the last codex. In the case of DE, two or three single pose drawings just copy-pasted and color swapped as well. Thoroughly disappointing.

Yeah, I hate that. The Harlequins codex has those, too, but it's a lot lamer as they're almost done in a cartoony-looking style and painted with flat colors to represent the different masques. It looks terrible.

Mymearan wrote:
In the new eldar codex everything is Saim-Hann. They even made a couple of laughably bad photoshop jobs to change old (great) art to Saim-Hann colors and iconography.

That reminds me, there's a bad Photoshop job in one of the Tau books, too. They changed some old artwork of Farsight standing next to his battlesuit and replaced the old style suit with the new sculpt. I love the new sculpt (hate that it's Finecast) but it's very obvious that it didn't fit, as the new suit was clearly painted in a different style to Farsight himself. Should have just repainted the entire thing if they were going to do that, in my opinion.

 Sidstyler wrote:
I agree with you about a lot of it, but personally I think digital art is every bit as valid as any other form of art and disagree with the notion that traditional art is somehow superior. It takes talent to do both.

Not having seen many new books, and just going by the deviantart quip, I think that's his point. A bit like 3D sculpting, I think: just 'cos it's 'done with computars' doesn't mean everything's auto-tuned to a masterpiece.

Any pics or scans, Yodhrin? I imagine some fuzzy, muddy airbrushing overlaid by fairly hairy sketching.

 Vermis wrote:
Any pics or scans, Yodhrin? I imagine some fuzzy, muddy airbrushing overlaid by fairly hairy sketching.

Here's one from the Harlequin's dex...

I can't really fault GW too much for making art for new models/releases. Art for those units has to start somewhere.

I can fault them, however, for not producing new art that focuses on older/not new things. Fortunately, FFG has some great art to compensate.

And totally not biased or anything, but I'd love for more art of Mordians. No bias.

I think computer generated art lacks a certain intensity or passion to it. Technically they can be a high standard, but it's often soulless. I've been considering buying a book collecting the art of Ian Miller, and nothing done on a computer can match the appeal for me.

I can't really see that. I've seen plenty of digital art with buckets of passion to it. It's like any other art form, though: most people suck at it. Most of the remainder are just perfunctory hacks earning a check. Again, like every other art form. Truly good people are not the norm.

If you're actually interested, PM me and I can send you some links.

But as far as codexes go, I don't really care between digital, line art, watercolors, or Kirlian photography: just as long as its evocative, and original.


@sidstyler- I dunno. When they do the 'sample color schemes' section, I'm a lot more forgiving about the flatness of the art. I'm supposed to be using it as a guide, after all, and I damn sure can't paint to a photorealistic standard, so it'd probably be best if the guide pics are something I can reproduce.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
I think computer generated art lacks a certain intensity or passion to it. Technically they can be a high standard, but it's often soulless. I've been considering buying a book collecting the art of Ian Miller, and nothing done on a computer can match the appeal for me.

It's just a different tool for creating art. There's as much soul in it as the artist wants to put in it, like with any other way of making pictures.

 Jimsolo wrote:
The last two codexes I've bought have contained very little new art. Almost entirely model pics or recycled art from the last codex. In the case of DE, two or three single pose drawings just copy-pasted and color swapped as well. Thoroughly disappointing.

That's one of the things that has bugged me about the recent releases. Now GW just puts a line drawing of the standard model and colors it in to show different color schemes are markings for the different armies/cultures/worlds/etc. It used to be GW actually painted models for this purposes (anybody remember the old IG codex with the one Cadian model in about 20 different color schemes showing the different regiments on one page?).

Another art change: the current IG codex. The Manticore, Hydra and Deathstrike pictures have all been edited to match the new plastic kits instead of the old FW/epic models, even though it probably saved very little time over just making new art of the current kits. Though they apparently didn't care enough to edit the Deathstrike in the background, which is still clearly the old epic-style missile from the original art.

It is such a waste really. This is the company that employs John Blanche, and instead of his weird and wonderful work all we are get these boring illustrations. What is even sadder is that there are people who actually prefer this stuff to Blanche.

 jorny wrote:
It is such a waste really. This is the company that employs John Blanche, and instead of his weird and wonderful work all we are get these boring illustrations. What is even sadder is that there are people who actually prefer this stuff to Blanche.

That's not sad. That's called 'different tastes'.

 jorny wrote:
What is even sadder is that there are people who actually prefer this stuff to Blanche.

No, it's not sad at all. Blanche's stuff is part of the history of 40k, but there is plenty of legitimate criticism of it. Similarly, the style of the new art isn't the problem being discussed here, it's the content of the art. I happen to like the style of the newer art and consider most of Blanche's work a kind of embarrassing history that should fade away into the background, but I don't like the fact that the content of the new art is becoming nothing more than the current plastic kits. I would be quite happy to see GW keep the current style of art but treat it as art, not just painted versions of the catalog photos.

 Sidstyler wrote:
I agree with you about a lot of it, but personally I think digital art is every bit as valid as any other form of art and disagree with the notion that traditional art is somehow superior. It takes talent to do both.

Oh don't mistake me, I'm not disputing that, but there's a particular "style" about a lot of the new digital art and, if not done carefully, you look at it and think "that was done on a computer". Contrast with something like the 2nd Ed SoB codex cover(regardless of what you think of Blanche, personally no Blanche means I have no interest in 40K); you can zoom in on that image until it's barely more than pixels and you'll still be finding new little details, whereas if you move your eye away from the intended focal point of a lot of the new digital images all you find are vaguely defined copy-pasted smudges. For me the problem with digital painting is not that it's digital and trad art is somehow "superior", it's that the form offers a lot of options for taking shortcuts that a trad artist doesn't have access to, which see a lot more use than they should when people are turning out commercial work on a deadline.

And that's really the issue the topic is about; a lot of the new stuff feels very much like assembly-line art, like the priority given to the artists in their brief is to turn out X number of images of Y plastic kit by such and such a date, with quality, originality and expression very much a tertiary concern.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Look at the new AdMech books - there's a lot of new art in them, and some of it is quite excellent, but it's relentlessly promotional; Vanguard, Rangers, Vanguard again, Ironstriders, Onagers, Rangers & Vanguard together, art of Robots that depicts only the Kastelan models, every new work featuring a Techpriest is of the new model.[/i]

I'm not seeing your point here. It's an entirely new range of models which has at most, been represented in vague literature references(Skitarii in general) and a handful of models (Kastelans and Techpriests) from the early days of GW. A lot of John Blanche's stuff is nuts lol. I'm sure they'll pull a few more models out of that pile though.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Contrast with something like the 2nd Ed SoB codex cover(regardless of what you think of Blanche, personally no Blanche means I have no interest in 40K); you can zoom in on that image until it's barely more than pixels and you'll still be finding new little details, whereas if you move your eye away from the intended focal point of a lot of the new digital images all you find are vaguely defined copy-pasted smudges.

That's not something unique to digital art. Plenty of "traditional" art has backgrounds that are barely-defined smudges, either because it's not intended to be viewed at a high enough resolution for the background to be clear, or because blurring out the background a bit puts more of a focus on the main subject (a trick every photographer is very familiar with). The "details no matter how closely you look" aspect of Blanche-style art is just that: style.


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 angelofvengeance wrote:
I'm not seeing your point here. It's an entirely new range of models which has at most, been represented in vague literature references(Skitarii in general) and a handful of models (Kastelans and Techpriests) from the early days of GW.

The point is that there's no imagination involved, the art is little more than taking a catalog photo and adding a "brush strokes" effect in photoshop. The plastic kits must be clearly presented, exactly as they appear in the catalog pictures, and anything you can't buy on the shelf at your local GW store must be minimized or removed entirely. Instead of the older style of art where GW would say "paint some cool looking admech stuff, and here's some references to use" the modern stuff looks more like "paint a picture of this plastic kit so that people will buy it".

As far as I know, more of GW art is freelance now than it used to be, so it's probably a symptom of that; if people who don't know as much about the universe are doing art for it they'll probably draw more from the models than anything else.

Part of it is likely the freelance process; before you had in-house artists or at least long-contracted artists who either knew or helped develop the aesthetic of the universe, with more or less direct feedback from the designers. Jobs were more word of mouth or sending in copies of portfolios, people lived in or near the country the developer studio was based in and that was the pool of artists companies picked from. it was more reliable to maintain contact and cheaper to ship final drafts if they worked remotely. The way the original prints were done, from hand-rendered images, which took time to complete. Then passed on to the editors who'd copy, scale, crop if need be, transfer the images on to final publication.

Now in the digital age you import the finished files and tweak from there, companies no longer need maintain an in-house artist staff beyond the designers or unless they really like the artists, and have a greater international pool to select from, for variety of styles and ahem costs of living.

The modern [digital] artwork can totally be as vibrant and imaginative as the older stuff, check out drawcrowd or artstation portfolio sites. It depends on the skill of the artist, the tools they use, but and more likely the time invested in each piece. Older editions took longer to release, aside from game balance and production, that allowed for paint to dry on the canvas (literally).
The vibe I get from the more recent editions, which certainly have more frequently codices and rulebook turn overs than in past decades, is that they likely have more demanding deadlines. The artists will have only so much time to complete whatever agreed upon number of illustrations, based on the limitations of the assigned brief and taking cues and feedback from the company Art Director, who may be international timezones of contact apart.
So aside from being limited what the artist knows about the game's backstory, what they can include in the final images as directed, mainly representing the plastic product in universe, another reason we get adequate art is because of time limits.
*edit: and how the company values aka prices that time.

The art is just the cheapest solution for GW.

If it's bad art, it's bad art. I don't think this is bad art.

Bad would have been poorly done photoshop. However, I
haven't looked too deeply into their books. Digital vs. paint aside,
Are they good or bad quality?

The quality may vary, though I think some folks are too set in older editions and the art style it featured then, or that "proper hobby" art can only be produced through the traditional medium of physical paper and whatnot.

There's bad digital art, like the covers of the Space Marine Battle novels and there's good art, like well, see spoiler tags, for what I personally consider some of the good new art, but again, opinions on what's good or not vary from person to person.







And of course..

My problem with the art is it shows less "new" things to the setting.

My Harlequin Codex (the only latest one I have) shows models that can be assembled against models that can be assembled. I cant think of anything in that book thats contrary.

The old Tau codex had pictures of Kroot meeting Tau, Fire Warriors escorting workers off a planet and water caste negotiating etc.

The older Imperial guard Codex had regiments that never had models for example.

I am personally not interested in looking at the same few models over and over again. This is made worse when each unit has pictures of models instead of art next to it. I am literally looking at the same few models page after page.

The art should be there to show a glimpse of things beyond a GW table and inspire people to get creative. Instead its model after model after model. Personally it makes I have never in my life been so bored of GW models and I can probably attribute it to the fact they shove the same few models they sell in my face every chance they get. They need to realise its their setting thats cool, not just their models.

Just goes to show what they think makes them popular I guess. Models.

Yeah, that's what I found so disappointing about the new Tau codex. I would really like to see more glimpses into a Tau's life off the battlefield. I want to see Tau cities, seeing the insides of the factories producing suits and tanks would be cool, Earth caste engineers testing experimental weapons, Water caste trading with other races, more alien auxiliaries (but no we can't until there's new plastic for them), etc.

 Flashman wrote:

 Vermis wrote:
Any pics or scans, Yodhrin? I imagine some fuzzy, muddy airbrushing overlaid by fairly hairy sketching.

Here's one from the Harlequin's dex...

Spoiler:

Yeah, I don't see what's wrong with this. This is probably one of my favorite ones from the book, actually. If you wanted examples of "bad" art I personally would have picked the Death Jester on page 28. Just looks a little rushed too me...because it probably was.

 BrookM wrote:
The quality may vary, though I think some folks are too set in older editions and the art style it featured then, or that "proper hobby" art can only be produced through the traditional medium of physical paper and whatnot.

And I think you're attempting to dismiss perfectly legitimate criticisms of both the form and content by trying to cast the people making the criticisms as elitist, out-of-touch grognards. Address the points people are actually making, instead of the ones you've imaged them making.

 Yodhrin wrote:

And I think you're attempting to dismiss perfectly legitimate criticisms of both the form and content by trying to cast the people making the criticisms as elitist, out-of-touch grognards. Address the points people are actually making, instead of the ones you've imaged them making.

Here's my take on this:

It doesn't matter if the illustration was made with traditional tools (acrylic, gouache, pencils, ink, oil) or with digital tools (photoshop, sketchbook pro,…) when the end result is a printed image in a book. There are enough illustrators working in the digital medium who have emulated looks that are traditionally attributed to oil paints (some started with oil paints and transitioned to digital tools for reasons) as well as any other medium so that people seeing these illustrations in some printed medium won't be able to see a difference (we are not talking about macro photography blowing details of painting up to ridiculous sizes).

That, of course, does not work if you compare the print of digital illustration (emulating usual oil painting techniques) with an original oil painting. People assuming one medium is better for an illustration that ends up printed on paper in a magazine are looking for problems in the wrong direction (in my opinion). The illustrator doing the work is what makes one image better than the other, not the medium used to create the original work.

The medium used is not an indicator for the quality of the work but the composition, draftsmanship, subject matter, theme, and colour scheme are. Here lies the problem as GW seems to only want illustrations of stuff they are selling (because of the CH lawsuit) so nobody can create add-ons and profit from GW. That has resulted in technically wonderful illustrations that lack the flavour that came with the illustrators exploring the worlds GW created (moving more and more to freelancers probably also didn't help).