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I can never understand how an artist can turn in a really detailed piece of work only for the effect to be ruined by proportion being out of whack by a huge margin. I am of course referring to the latest WD cover with the Grey Knight. Rather than him being a seven foot tall giant judging by the size of his head he is really small and probably knicked the armour when the GK was at the bathroom! It was the same with the recent Blood Angel (same artist?). There is just no way that the GK body would reach the armour's feet. So come on Artists for Gods sake get your proportions right and I'll stop giving you it in the neck!

I dunno, Marines are supposed to be freakish monstrosities/genetically enhanced super beings.

Maybe the artists take is that GK's have freakishly long legs and model hosiery in their spare time?

"Artists," implying that they aren't?

He may have taken the exaggeration a bit too far, but these aren't Iron Man suits. They have to stand up to more than a little small-arms fire.

I still think regardless of proportion(s) GW artists turn out amazing work. The artwork is what got me into the hobby and I know I would never be able to draw/paint anything close to that GK on the cover.

Derp?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Honestly though, the reason why this is done is because in order to make someone a killer nine foot tall Space Marine with all their extra organs and superhuman strength, you have to give up on a few systems in order to make sure the body has enough energy to go to the 5 hearts and 41 kidneys they have. As a result, the reproductive systems were removed, and their brains were allowed to atrophy to the point in which that their heads appear somewhat shrunken now.

Not to mention the fact that smaller brains makesthem easir for the Imperium to control.

bushido wrote:"Artists," implying that they aren't?

He may have taken the exaggeration a bit too far, but these aren't Iron Man suits. They have to stand up to more than a little small-arms fire.

Lol you're right iron man CAN only tank a direct tank round to his face and then fall out of the sky impacting with sufficient force to leave a massive crater he must CLIMB out of XD oh and still not pulp the puny 'umie wearing it...

Back ON topic I concur with the OP. As an amateur artist myself (I'm still called that cause I don't have enough gallery work...ugh) proportion is a major part of how we draw. It's a mockery of good art to then go and ruin those proportions. After all, drawing on your examples, the blood angels cover is full or disproportionate figures, where as the interior art is more reflective of a realisitc expectation of a super soldier, i.e. yea they're large but at 7 feet tall they don't look like either arnold schwarzenager or like someting I woulda drawn 10 years ago back in middle school. They're awesome pieces of work yea but the simple mistake in proportions makes the authenticity of the piece feel violated. It detracts from the realism, which is really what the art's there for. It's supposed to seem real enough that you can believe there are 7 foot tall super monks running around with burst fired RPG launchers. And a lot of the time, dating all the way back to RT, the art just seems...comedic...And for a supposedly "GRIMDARK" universe, comedy is not always what we want (just look at all the bio picks for every single blood angels unit. it's ALL gloom and doom.)

Of course on the other side of that coin, it may be that they're deliberately trying to mirror the older art. They could be trying to maintain some realism while still harkening back to the old days where space marine scouts looked like disco stu and imperial guard had land speeders...and to that I say. NO THANK YOU SIR!!

The GK on the cover of White dwarf is by Clint Langley, I believe. Clint is a freelancer of considerable reputation, who has done a lot of work for the Black Library. This piece was originally used on the front cover of the Grey Knights Omnibus.

The art of GW is not intended to be a photorealist portrayal of the Dark Millennium. Rather it is attempting to convey an impression of the characters and their place within it. The small-head-big-body look of marines isn't because the artists don't understand proportion and anatomy: most of them have fine art degrees. Rather, they are using the artist's licence to portray the imposing build and stature of their subjects.

R.

dbsamurai wrote: It's a mockery of good art to then go and ruin those proportions.

Actually, a lot of 'good art' (as can be seen inany national gallery or art collection) often does just this. Art is about an impresion of a thing- not always about the techniclities of proportion. Picasso, for example, pretty much ignored everythinga about 'traditional' art and si still regarded to be a master artist.

GW art is notoriosly wierd when it comes to proportions, but it does convey a good feel for the world it reprisnts. Space Marines are giant, brutish looking men wearing tin cans. Orks are also giant brutes, wearing less tin cans. Everything is exaggerated. Personally I think it works well.

This is not just a problem with GW art. Comics have had this problem forever. I think its just a natural extension of dramatic license all artists/writers/filmakers take in their respective creations.

Proportion in GW's art (both the physical models and the 2D stuff) has always been pretty flexible as far as proportion goes...just look at your average guardsman model. I don't really see a problem with it, as I see the art as trying to capture the feel and emotional impact of the setting, as opposed to a realistic portrayal of human anatomy.

dbsamurai wrote:It's a mockery of good art to then go and ruin those proportions.

Yeah, or...you know...it could be his style.

I'm sure an anime/manga artist understands full-well that a person's eye doesn't take up half his/her head. I'm sure a comic-book artist understands full-well that real women don't have 10-inch waists and that real men don't have shoulders that are 4 feet wide.

When someone's artistic vision doesn't conform to your own, it doesn't mean it's bad art.

Hi everyone,

First time poster here and long time lurker. Thought I'd chime in. Not that I'm claiming that the cover artists are making these choices by design or accident but heroic scale does have some pretty lengthy history in art. As an example we are hopefully all aware of I would point to Michaelangelo's "David". The head and hands are quite large, and of course Michaelangelo spent years disecting corpses to learn about proportion and anatomy. As taken from a wiser source than myself:

Galleria dell'Accademia - Museum/Gallery, San Marco

"As Michelangelo well knew, the Renaissance painting and sculpture
that preceded his work were deeply concerned with ideal form.
Perfection of proportion was the ever-sought Holy Grail; during the
Renaissance, ideal proportion was equated with ideal beauty, and ideal
beauty was equated with spiritual perfection. But David, despite its
supremely calm and dignified pose, departs from these ideals.
Michelangelo did not give the statue perfect proportions. The head is
slightly too large for the body, the arms are too large for the torso,
and the hands are dramatically large for the arms. The work was
originally commissioned to adorn the facade of the Duomo and was
intended to be seen from below at a distance. Michelangelo knew
exactly what he was doing, calculating that the perspective of the
viewer would be such that, in order for the statue to appear properly
proportioned, the upper body, head, and arms would have to be bigger,
as they are farther away from the viewer's line of vision. But he also
did it to express and embody, as powerfully as possible in a single
figure, an entire biblical story. David's hands are big, but so was
Goliath, and these are the hands that slew him."


I think this is a fine example of considering the manner in which the models would be viewed and the advantages of heroic scale. I'm not certain how I feel about the art since they are highlighting the power of the armor at the expense of the marine. But ideal proportion isn't the only school of thought on sculpture and painting.

Good lord do people love getting butt hurt over the littlest things. So we've got two whine-threads going about the WD cover now?

The proportions look completely fine to me, but then again I like the image of power armor as being something the wearer is literally encased in, with waldos, neural links, being used to transmit the wearer's movement to the armor because it's just that much bigger than the wearer.

dbsamurai wrote:Lol you're right iron man CAN only tank a direct tank round to his face and then fall out of the sky impacting with sufficient force to leave a massive crater he must CLIMB out of XD oh and still not pulp the puny 'umie wearing it...

The ability for 2cm of material to dissipate the kinetic energy of a tank round without any of it transferring to the skull inside is quite impossible and simply an example of comic book logic.

bushido wrote:

dbsamurai wrote:It's a mockery of good art to then go and ruin those proportions.

Yeah, or...you know...it could be his style.

The first time I went to school, I was working on a painting that involved something on fire. The professor came by and said the fire needed to be fixed.

"But that's my style" I replied.

That pissed of the professor greatly, and I got a stern lecture about pulling that crap in front of the class.

Of course there is style, and that comes with time- knowing how to really draw something well and making changes to it. When I see someone who is drawing/painting in a realistic manner, and I see something grossly out of proportion, it looks like a problem. Or worse a mistake. I don't care if that's "Supposed to be like that", if it LOOKS WRONG IT IS WRONG. There's plenty of examples of this in the GK codex, the worst offender being the Grand Master picture. Horribly tiny head that ruins the peace, which is doublebad because the artist took time to render other parts of the piece nicely, but the head makes you ignore the rest of the hard work.

When you're a student and the instructor asks something to be a certain way, you do it or you get a poor grade. When you're a professional and as long as the client signs off on the piece, the cries of armchair critics are pretty meaningless.

What "ruins" a picture for one person could be completely irrelevant to another. Opinions are wonderful things.

It's still a bad choice if the client signs off on it, but the end user doesn't like it. Those choices are made all the time, and products are pulled/ ad campaigns are dropped because of it. "Client sign- off" does not automatically equal a good call.

And yes, I agree that opinions will always be wide and varied.

Don't their bodies only occupy part of the armor? Like his real hands are only in the forearm of the power fist, etc.

The_Stormrider wrote:Hi everyone,

First time poster here and long time lurker. Thought I'd chime in. Not that I'm claiming that the cover artists are making these choices by design or accident but heroic scale does have some pretty lengthy history in art. As an example we are hopefully all aware of I would point to Michaelangelo's "David". The head and hands are quite large, and of course Michaelangelo spent years disecting corpses to learn about proportion and anatomy. As taken from a wiser source than myself:

Galleria dell'Accademia - Museum/Gallery, San Marco

"As Michelangelo well knew, the Renaissance painting and sculpture
that preceded his work were deeply concerned with ideal form.
Perfection of proportion was the ever-sought Holy Grail; during the
Renaissance, ideal proportion was equated with ideal beauty, and ideal
beauty was equated with spiritual perfection. But David, despite its
supremely calm and dignified pose, departs from these ideals.
Michelangelo did not give the statue perfect proportions. The head is
slightly too large for the body, the arms are too large for the torso,
and the hands are dramatically large for the arms. The work was
originally commissioned to adorn the facade of the Duomo and was
intended to be seen from below at a distance. Michelangelo knew
exactly what he was doing, calculating that the perspective of the
viewer would be such that, in order for the statue to appear properly
proportioned, the upper body, head, and arms would have to be bigger,
as they are farther away from the viewer's line of vision. But he also
did it to express and embody, as powerfully as possible in a single
figure, an entire biblical story. David's hands are big, but so was
Goliath, and these are the hands that slew him."


I think this is a fine example of considering the manner in which the models would be viewed and the advantages of heroic scale. I'm not certain how I feel about the art since they are highlighting the power of the armor at the expense of the marine. But ideal proportion isn't the only school of thought on sculpture and painting.

I'm a little unclear why you quoted this particular part: the bolded part rather sharply undercuts what I thought was your point. That is, Michelangelo's David diverges from realistic proportions not because of fidelity to some "heroic style" per se, but because it is designed to look realistic to the viewer, given that the viewer will be far away.

My biggest problem with the space marine aesthetic is less to do with "proportion" itself, and more to do with the absolutely ghastly anatomy that so many seem to have. Seriously, look at the "realistic" sculpts by the Perrys in the LotR range, and the more realistic infantry in the Dark Eldar range, and the shortcomings of so many power armored figures stick out like a sore thumb... the one that I simply can't get past is the legs and pelvis. Seriously, you realize that space marines would need to have the hips and legs of an anorexic girl in order to possibly fit into their pants?

Uch...

You would think that to be the case looking at the GK picture, maybe two normal sized people inside with one standing on the other's shoulders, using pulleys to control the arms

Totally agree with your point Bushido. But, in relative terms the fact that the GK picture (and it's predecessor the BA) have spawned multiple threads across the internet, the vast majority of it not being complementary. Art is very much a subjective thing, but that shouldn't make it immune to criticism. Some people may applaud Damien Hirst cutting a cow in half and putting it in a glass box, some will find some deep resonance or meaning with it and like it, but the vast majority thought it was crap and just laughed about it. If that is happening here, then you have to take the view that perhaps this direction isn't the correct one to take.

Furthermore, I think you could make a pretty good case for the quality of GW art having gone downhill over recent years. The cover of the BA codex would never have made the cut ten years ago, I certainly don't think, and the distinct lack of new artwork in new Codecies and Army books (spot the new art in the new O&G book for instance) makes it appear to me that it's just one other area of GW that isn't getting the funding it once did. Switching from pieces of artwork to photos on the covers of boxes was a complete fallacy to me, and completely underwhelms what was always one of GW's core conceptions of the hobby - that it is about art and imagination, taking the static models and rolling dice and building it up to something more within your imagination.

Who can forget the travesty of the incorrectly assembled Leman Russ on the box cover. While pretty amusing in one way, I think marked a low point for GW's presentation level.

Since this is revolving around the topic of proportions here's a great resource from the sadly departed Andrew Loomis.

http://escapefromillustrationisland.com/2010/01/07/free-andrew-loomis-art-intstruction-downloads/

Anyone want to post the cover for the WD for those of us who do not enjoy shelling out $10 a month for an advertisement? Is it the codex cover?

Its not as bad as some of that John Blanche b+w ink-work he did for the plastic ork/gretchin version of 40k (I forget the version number.) THAT was truly awful, and made worse by the fact that Blanche is actually a great artist.

Moopy wrote:Since this is revolving around the topic of proportions here's a great resource from the sadly departed Andrew Loomis.

http://escapefromillustrationisland.com/2010/01/07/free-andrew-loomis-art-intstruction-downloads/

Wow, I have to thank you, those are some fantastic reference items! Some real gems, and free!

On the topic of this thread, looking from the amazing illustrations in the Loomis books to the "art" in GW publications.... it just makes you sad.

Pacific wrote:Furthermore, I think you could make a pretty good case for the quality of GW art having gone downhill over recent years.

The internet serves exactly two purposes: 1. To distribute an endless amount of porn. 2. To give people everywhere a forum to complain about any- and everything imaginable.

If it is to be believed, every form of entertainment has been "going downhill" since the beginning of time. But especially now that we can share our profound thoughts with our thumbs while we're supposed to be paying attention in class, or on the road, or at work. Cave paintings were the pinnacle of human culture and everything since has been a cheap money-grab perpetrated by evil corporations.

Man when will people stop complaining about a freakin drawing. Of course his proportions are wrong because he is a 7-10ish super human with x amount of the same organ that is from a game you play with plastic toy soldiers. I hate when people bash on an artist when most of them don't even have the talent to draw a stick figure. Seriously guys its a picture or drawing or whatever.

Buzzsaw
it is a problem but not by much.
AFAIK the head is not increased by the same proportions as the rest of the marine.

So a true scale marine will look as though his head is freakishly small. You are also probably used to seeing a 28mm marine sculpt that is not only far too small comparative to a normal human, but the hands and head are way oversized. This is skewing your perception of what would be closer to accurate imho

Am very tired and will try and read the above posts more thoroughly later. But from what I have seen the comments about viewing statuary are correct.

If you think GW's bad, check out Privateer Press . I love 'em, but their proportions are more out of whack by far!

Ultrafool wrote:I hate when people bash on an artist when most of them don't even have the talent to draw a stick figure.

A complete argumentative fallacy- being able to draw has nothing to do with the right to critique.