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Hmm well that's John Blanche, but where was it first printed?

I sure as hell dont miss old Ork art. God they looked awful back then. Most art has only improved from edition to edition, how much better the DE look in the 5th vs 3rd Codex is a good example.

Pacific wrote:Hmm well that's John Blanche, but where was it first printed?

2nd ed chaos codex 1996?

johnstewartjohn wrote:

Pacific wrote:Hmm well that's John Blanche, but where was it first printed?

2nd ed chaos codex 1996?

Could be, I'm not sure myself, looks like Abaddon on a throne.

92acclude wrote:

johnstewartjohn wrote:

Pacific wrote:Hmm well that's John Blanche, but where was it first printed?

2nd ed chaos codex 1996?

Could be, I'm not sure myself, looks like Abaddon on a throne.

I’ve had a flick through some of 2nd Ed codex’s. Seems it’s on page 6 of ‘’angels of death’’ with the caption of Horus.

I generally found that the old Epic and Adeptus Titanicus books had much better art than the Warhammer and 40K books.

If you look at the early Star Wars concept art, that is amazing stuff.

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An ultramarine dropship! Good finds here I like the realm of. Chaos one too

92acclude wrote:

Everyone (including lexicanum) always posts that guy as being Nurgle. Yet apparently there are two of them....

Yea, he's just a GUO.

Harriticus wrote:I sure as hell dont miss old Ork art. God they looked awful back then. Most art has only improved from edition to edition, how much better the DE look in the 5th vs 3rd Codex is a good example.

I know this thread is too long now, but you don't have to read it, just look at the pictures posted over the last half dozen pages to see that there was some damned fine art earlier in GWs life, a lot of which has never been surpassed.

ph34r wrote:Many old pieces had a great deal of feel and atmosphere. Sure, they were outnumbered by the "we need some art to fill the book" pieces, but they were definitely there. You posted some good examples.

whatwhat wrote:

ph34r wrote:

Brother SRM wrote:How does it feel to be wrong all the time?

Art is subjective. However, if you honestly think that old 40k art is better in any way other than comedy value, your art opinion does not hold much weight.

If it is subjective, which i agree entirely that it is, then no one person's opinion holds more weight than any other.

Though how much worth you attribute to a piece of art can be entirely subjective, you can say things like "I think this 5 year old's sketch is technically superior to this professional artwork" and be just wrong. There is some room for objectivity in art.

In my opinion, some 5 year old's drawings ARE better than professional pieces of art. How much "artistic talent" can it take to paint a square on a canvas anyway?

I like the old 40k art. i wasn't alive when it was released, but I feel that most of the comedy value of the universe has been lost in transition to the 21st century. The only army that have sort of maybe possibly retained that original charm is the Orks, but they've always been a "not very serious" army. The fluff in their codex shows that the G-Dub creative team are still capable of having a laugh with it, they just choose not to because they prefer their fictional universe to be filled with Bruce Willis's in power armour shooting really big guns at evil Bruce Willis's in power armour.

Now what I really want to make a return, is the noise marines with guitars.

I think a lot of the discussion and points made here are rendered moot by the fact that many of the images posted would be better described as illustrations, not art. The main aim in many of these works which have been posted is not artistic expression, that becomes secondary when you have been contracted to illustrate according to a given brief. Critiquing the work of someone who has full creative control is completely different to critiquing the work of someone who had probably created several versions of the same image only for someone with no artistic talent to go "Could you make his hands a bit bigger."

I'm not saying all "art" involved with GW is produced in that context. But a significant number of what has been posted in this thread definitely is.

OK I have been a bit lax with posting stuff on this thread recently, so here are some scans from the old Realms of Chaos book, Slaves to Darkness Book.

These books were unusual at the time, as they served both WFB and 40k, and have lead to all the subsequent discussions (some of which still go on to this day) that there is crossover between the 40k and WFB universes. Of course, Citadel making chaos warriors with boltguns and the like did nothing to dispel this idea!

First of all, going back to when I was about 12 years old and first read this book with my friends, there is some seriously weird stuff in this book. The whole concept of 'chaos' absolutely blew my mind at the same time it creeped me out. This was no skulls on top of skulls with skulls in them (you get the picture), or screaming angry men. OK, well there was some of that, but primarily Chaos was just strange. It represents the concept of infinite possibility - the opening of a pandora's box that lets you know the secrets of the universe, but once opened there is a price to pay, and that price was one of these guys holding your eternal soul in a little cage around their neck, or worse.

I think somewhere along the way GW's background writers have lost that Moorcock and Neo-pagan-inspired concept of 'Chaos', of what it truly means, or perhaps have decided (rightly?) that the stuff in these books was a little too odd for most kids. Perhaps they don't think that much of the intelligence of those that play their games, and so have reverted to two-dimensional concepts of what 'chaos' is. i.e. evil for its own sake, and lots of cackling men with black circles around their eyes throwing bags of kittens into rivers.

Anyway! I talk too much, here are some pictures




Incidentally, I loved the older Keeper of Secrets model, even if the scale is a little small compared to stuff nowadays. I wish someone would re-do it.


What the hell is going on in this picture? It looks very chaotic..





One of the cool 2-page layouts of how a chaos champion could actually progress into a complete bad-ass.




What is going on with this picture? I have absolutely no idea, but it's disconcerting!

Good show!

Just been scanning in some pics from all my 2nd edition stuff that I like.
Not all the old ork stuff was naff, this pic is my case'n point.








And this just becouse if any one need to see the armour threw the ages

Everytime I see this picture I think "So that's where the Eye of Thundara comes from."

Here's some Necromunda stuff I found.

92acclude wrote:Here's some Necromunda stuff I found.

Of course, it was called Confrontation back then

Yes, actually I believe the first 2 were from Confrontation (although reprinted in 2nd edition 40k), the last one is one of John Blanche's much later ones for Necromunda.

I was just being a smug faced git

But fairly accurate.

I really enjoyed this thread.....some of the pics really took me back :-) Thanks