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The Primaris are SIGMARINES IN SPACE. The reivers are the guys from Crysis.

The Death Guard came out of Bioshock (no joke. Poxwalkers are splicers and even the plague marines have some elements of the splicers too).

Roboute Guilliman is trying to be sigmar.

And so forth.

I think it's because GW is starting to hire designers from the video game sector, who obviously bring their own designs and experiences to the game (whether intentionally or not).

I'm just kinda disappointed that the gribblies went to the DG. The last set of Plague Marines were unique because they looked bloated and shriveled at the same time (as diseased, bloated corpses should). The new one turns them into cthulhu marines. It has it's appeal, but I mourn the loss of the more unique style Plague Marines had.

I think tentacles would have been better for noise marines and they should have saved the rest for generic chaos marines (like the monolithic horns and gnashing teeth out of nowhere).

Tycho wrote:

he Death Guard came out of Bioshock (no joke. Poxwalkers are splicers and even the plague marines have some elements of the splicers too).

So wait ... the DG that existed something like 15 years before BIO-Shock actually CAME from Bio-shcok!? Mind blown .... lol/jk

In all seriousness, I get what you're saying to a point, but I only see the most vague similarities between Splicers and Poxwalkers. The truth is, both are based on the classic generic zombie template, so there's bound to be similarities. I don't quite see the Plague Marine comparison at all (it's been a while since I played Bioshock though so maybe I'm forgetting something), but you have to remember that a lot of the people you mention (ie. video game designers) all grew up on 40k. You would be shocked how many gaming companies have small in-house 40k leagues. It's inevitable that 40K would influence some of their designs.

It's also inevitable that there would be cross over in the other direction. Like how the original Hormagaunt heads (and several other 'Nid designs) were inspired by Giger. Of course elements of the "Nids themselves would later inspire large portions of the Zerg in Starcraft. It's perfectly natural and it always kind of urks me when people look at this as laziness on the part of the design team. Especially when it's a design like Splicers or Poxwalkers that are both based on a pretty common archetype.

The DG though I think specifically had a Bioshock influence. Ignoring their similarities to the Big Daddies, a lot of the Plague Marines and Blightlord Terminators have elements that were first popularized by the original Bioshock. THe most notable one is the one Blightlord who looks like he's going all insectoid, which is one of the most notable pieces of unused art for Bioshock. In addition, the mutant tentacles, flesh bloating out of armor/fusing to armor and clothes, and makeshift fixes were all things rather unique to bioshock (still is, to a lesser extent) as generic zombies tend to still go towards the "desiccated rotting corpse" side of things rather than "hideously disfiguring mutations). This also applies to the AoS and End Times nurgle figures too (which is where the actual inspiration came from). The brass-looking piping some of the marines have going on also evokes that steampunk feel.

As for the poxwalkers and the splicers, certain sculpts reminds me of certain splicers. Like the guy in the orange jumpsuit and mask reminding me of Spider Splicers and one guy with really fat hands (from the easy to build ones) reminding me of the "Yamhand" guy (also an unused design). The Rictus grin doesn't help either.

I think he's talking about me. I don't think the Bioshock influence is a bad thing, I just think it's out of place with Death Guard and Plague Marines, who in lore are suppose to be rotting and dead from the inside, but look more like fat tentacle mutants. But that's my preference. It also creates a dissonance between the old DG models and the new ones.

Also, on another note, I think people calling the new style "cartoony" actually means it's more stylized. Like, look at the chin on the plastic painboy; his entire expression is very stylized and his facial features sharpened beyond what would be the norm for "realistic". If you look at the old Dok Grotsnik, you'll see he has a more realistic look where things are more runder and leathery. Or just look at things with furs; they use to look like realistic bundles of hair, but now they either look like thick grooves running the length of the model or nachos.

The stylized look is a valid look and it is the way GW is heading, likely because they've basically abandoned GS sculpting and shifted over to digital sculpting (where the vast majority of people are more trained to do stylized sculpting and do not shrink realistically like GS). But it does create a dissonance with existing models. Another thing is the sculpted on smoke effects (or special effects in the case of Ynnead) whereas such things were very rare or nonexistent before.