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It's a different style from GW's 'house style' but I've become kind of fond of the 60s/70s art by Ralph McQuarrie and others. McQuarrie is well known for doing concept art for the original Star Wars trilogy, but I believe he (or someone in a similar style) did some really neat illustrations of proposed colony cylinders (spinning 'tin-can' space colonies, like Babylon 5) and such that had a neat optomistic/realistic mindset.

Seeing all the RT era artwork really takes me back, since that was when i was first getting into the hobby, it does however make me wonder why i even got into it in the first place, never liked the artwork back then, and for my personal tastes it really seems to have aged badly, i prefer the crisper art you get now.

SgtSixkilla wrote:

Importance and quality are two different considerations. I never said the old art wasn't important. I said it looked silly and childish. Personally, I don't think old religious art is very good or of high quality. It may have been compared to other art at that time. But we're not at that time. We're now, and we have to compare it with what we have now. And compared to current warhammer art, the early stuff just can't compete. Unless you have nostalgia-bias, that is. Which was my entire point.

I think you really have to look at some of the earlier pages in this thread (3-4): The earlier work by Adrian Smith, Christopher Fangorn, Mark Gibbons, Les Edwards etc. is technically excellent, and I would say better than most of the artwork coming out these days. GW used to spend a lot of money commissioning professional artists (like Edwards) to do art for them, and it showed. I'm not saying all of it, because a lot of it is somewhat lacking (especially in the RT rulebook for example, but then they were trying to collect enough imagery for a brand new rulebook so I think that explains it), in the same way some of the modern artwork (the BA codex, if we want to talk about awkward proportion, or the GK picture for the cover of WD) is not as good as some earlier work.

Not only that, but the older artwork was more prolific, GW employed a lot more artists than they do now, and made more use of new art in both publications and on box covers (I would say photoshopped models are a poor alternative to a well done piece of art, but they are obviously a great deal cheaper). Take a look through the new O&G army book and look for new artwork to see what I mean, it is nearly all regurgitated from previous books.

I admit that this is in some sense because the game universes are a lot more defined nowadays - the artists have less opportunity to break new ground, and GW can be more firm in what direction, and specific area, they want the commissioned artwork to fill. As someone said earlier, most SM art now is screaming bald men, and in that sense I miss some of the sense of wonderment created by those older pieces of art - that you looked at them and didn't fully understand them, and that was what drew you into the universe, and made you want to pick up the book and find out more. Although, this is not so much a criticism of the art itself, but rather the culture that surrounds its creation.

But, thanks again for your posts of artwork - only a couple of the ones you have posted have come up before.

There is another thread in the 40k discussion section talking about ork culture (or 'kulture' ) which made me think of the RT era ork supplements. These books were absolutely packed with information about orks, and I think are a big reason why so many veteran gamers still have a soft spot for orks today.

So, without further ado, here is a selection of art from the 'Waargh the Orks' book. I'm still going through it, so will post more over the next few days!













As a side comment, note the pwnd marine in the picture above. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, a dead marine is something you very rarely see in modern artwork.

More pics coming up over the next few days!

Didn't read the entire thread, but if you like sci-fi B&W art like that in the original post, you should defintely check out the "Kryomek" rulebook. It's packed with that style art and fluff and since the rules are fiddly and outdated, it's often avaialble quite inexpensively.


http://www.nobleknight.com/ViewProducts.asp_Q_ManufacturerID_E_-1086169478_A_ProductLineID_E_-66308237_A_CategoryID_E_5_A_GenreID_E_

Pacific wrote:There is another thread in the 40k discussion section talking about ork culture (or 'kulture' ) which made me think of the RT era ork supplements. These books were absolutely packed with information about orks, and I think are a big reason why so many veteran gamers still have a soft spot for orks today.

So, without further ado, here is a selection of art from the 'Waargh the Orks' book. I'm still going through it, so will post more over the next few days!

Edited by Mannahnin. Please don't quote giant images.

Why hello nostalgia and orky lovin'!!!! Damn I miss those days where you had so much info packed into books the rules fought for space with them. And ofcourse bolter wielding BS3 standard orks!!

As for the dead marines used to be loads of them through the books, like "Sister Sin" meltaing/flaming some Ultramarine in preultrasmurf days

++EDIT++ guys if you quote images, please put spoiler tags around them so people viewing the thread don't have to see the same things more than once!

Some more pics in between more scans from the old ork books. These are some pictures borrowed from the FTW blog, I hope that's OK!
I have no idea why but many of the pictures have either a sepia or other coloured tint to them. The originals were not like that, and I have no idea why it has been done to them. Perhaps copyright concerns? (Just fishing here, really I have no idea).



A black and white copy from the cover of the boxed game 'Tyranid Attack'. This game was made along the lines of other GW boxed games of the time, and featured squads of scouts travelling through the inside of a Nid ship to destroy its internal organs! I remember it being pretty good fun although it has to be at least ten years since I played it last. If anyone has a scan of the colour version (which had lovely vivid colours) I would be very grateful if they could post it!


Also, Mohawks are awesome. 2 things modern 40k art lacks: Dead marines and mohawks

Does anyone have a credit for this painting? It's beautiful



One of said pictures with said tinting. I think the Eldar have had some of the most technically impressive but also evocative artwork over the years.



And it's been too many pages without dwarves in space, let's have some Chaos ones

Just the other day, I said to my buddy, "I miss the days when things looked (expletive deleted)ier."

Today I find most GW stuff to be a little overproduced for my tastes...but hey, maybe I'm just being nostalgic.

the current artwork is terrible
if the marines looked like they did in rogue trader I would go out and buy an army right now lol
I think the skulls everywhere is stupid, and GW seems to have a hard on for skulls

92acclude wrote:that used to fill the pages of White Dwarf?


Check out more on my blog.

That was like....ULTRA!


God I do miss the humour of old 40k. I think there are gems and stinkers in both the new artwork. Personally I love anything Steven Tapping did.

As to John Blanche, the guy can do amazing traditional art work, but most of his stuff is a.....aquired taste. I got a fever and the perscription is MORE COWBELL....I mean more Blanche. =o]

Pacific wrote:

A cover from WD, I'm not sure if it was used on anything else?

It was used on a jigsaw, I know because I lost the last piece before finishing it

Hi all.
Pacific wrote:


A cover from WD, I'm not sure if it was used on anything else?

It was used in 'Hero Quest' ,in the rule book of one of the expansion packs .(I forget which one.)

I believe it was the Kellers keep expansion, my cousin had a copy we played to death.

Sorry it has been a while but some more art from 'Waaarggh the Orks', this is a collage I have put together of Paul Bonner artwork which is found scattered throughout the book (and a lot of the books of this time)



I'm not sure why but the image has been shrunken when I posted it, the originals have got an amazing amount of detail and are higher resolution than this copy.

I think it's simply a case of both new and old art had their good and bad pieces.

Simple as that. I don't blame people for missing the old art, or preferring it over the new. Similarly, I don't blame anyone for preferring the new art. When I've got some more time, I would like to make a post compiling some pics that display how both the old and new had their good and bad artwork, but I think to flat-out say one era of artwork was bad is wrong.

Mannahnin wrote:Put me as another in the category of people who found John Blanche's work less appealing and enjoyable when I was a teenager, but increasingly appealing and evocative as I grew and matured.

Same here man.

Pacific wrote:Does anyone have a credit for this painting? It's beautiful

Dave Gallagher is the name that comes to me for their piece.

Just something quick I found. Epic.

I think it deserves mention that there is a large distinction between retro STYLE and *bad* artwork. It would be cool to get good artists to draw retro marines

As said, most of the RT art is just bad same with most of the RT models.. Some are good and retro, most are not

Awesome stuff 92acclude, that's a much better resolution than the one I managed to find previously

Kirasu, I agree with you to an extent, although I would argue GW has not managed to match anything like that 2nd edition Epic cover box for instance

I really enjoyed Paul Bonner's work. It was a great bridge between the humorous but rough art from the beginning, and today's technically sound but overly-serious art. He had a lot of technical skill and a sense of humour.

This thread totally sold me on making a digital collection of this stuff.

Howard A Treesong wrote:

Pacific wrote:Does anyone have a credit for this painting? It's beautiful

Dave Gallagher is the name that comes to me for their piece.

That is one of my favorite pieces of 40K ever.

Pacific wrote:Awesome stuff 92acclude, that's a much better resolution than the one I managed to find previously

Kirasu, I agree with you to an extent, although I would argue GW has not managed to match anything like that 2nd edition Epic cover box for instance

I agree with you, I loved both the boxed art for Space Marine (the scarface marine) and 2nd Edition Epic (the Ultramarine box). I believe it was Blanche who did the UM art for E:2nd ed.


I personally don't care for the 'huge armoured shoulders with tiny heads so you see how massive my armour is and how much blng I have on it' marine artwork of today. It was Mr Sibbings artwork of the Crimson Fists last stand artwork that drew me into 40k. I took one look at that cover art and said to myself "I must own this and find out who the hell these guys are!".

More stuff from the internets.

I'm loving SOME of this old art.

Unfortunately allot of it is too much humour...although that's probably due to me joining 40k in 4th...I think...


Anyway I found a picture ages ago...was a lovely piece of fan art that I think encapsulates the style of the old art...yet uses the more modern arts themes...it was a dead sob with an emperors prayer book open beside her...anyone know where I could find that again?
Or does anyone have it?
Sorry if that last bit was off topic :/

I love John Blanche's art work. His work on Sob and Orks were my favorite.

John Blanche's work always makes me feel something when I look at it. It's definitely always evocative.

Hmm that last one is definitely the guy who used to do Kano and the comic strip 'Bad Company' in 2000AD in the early 90's, can't remember his name unfortunately.

2nd one down, I always though the Spider motif and black striped armour with grey fatigues was the Necomundan regiment? Guess I was wrong about that one

3rd one down was the cover from the 1st edition Terminators boxset. Used to be a bunch of termies in there for about 12.99, boy how times change

Great stuff anyway, I'll try and get the final scans from the 1st edition Ork books up soon.

Pacific wrote:Hmm that last one is definitely the guy who used to do Kano and the comic strip 'Bad Company' in 2000AD in the early 90's, can't remember his name unfortunately.

It's from Chainsaw Warrior, a single-player boardgame. The mid-game baddie was the Meat Machine, but I can't remember the end.

Pacific wrote:3rd one down was the cover from the 1st edition Terminators boxset. Used to be a bunch of termies in there for about 12.99, boy how times change

That box is the reason I restarted playing 40k. I found it in the loft, and bought the AoBR to add it to.

Anyone else getting a "Not int he face!" vibe from this guy?