GW's Modern Art

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**Desubot**

Iv no issue with the new art. i happen to like it for what it is

Chances are though that they just dont have the rights to the older images or cant get them from previous artists who also probably dont want to make more for gw so they are cutting all of that out and going for a new set and stylization that they can protect.

**Vaktathi**

I've not really been a fan of the artwork coming out the last few years.

Part of it is exactly as has been noted, it's not just pictures of new kits, it's very literal, exactly proportioned, representations of new plastic kits, and basically nothing else, even the background is is often GW terrain looking stuff. Not much to fire the imagination.

A lot of it just lacks that 40k "feel". I mean, it's very good from a technical perspective, but often lacks any atmosphere.

Blanche, England, Gallagher, Gibbons, Goodwin, Bonner, etc all put out excellent art that really enveloped the world in its own look and feel. Their feeling of a dark and imposing world does not come through the art that GW puts out now with newer artists or with the computer-colorized iterations of older art.

In terms of style, the newer art largely could come from any universe, any movie or videogam advertisement. Much of it is extremely reminiscent of Warmahordes or MTG. I think the "full color" nature of a lot of it has some drawback, the B&W of the older art felt much more representative of the setting. The way they've done the colorization also doesn't help, in a lot of instances it just doesn't feel right.

**Guildsman**

I'll agree that some of the recent artwork coming out of GW isn't as interesting or exciting as it has been in the past, but I don't think digital art has anything to do with it. Digital art is just another medium for artists to work in; if the end result isn't good, then the blame rests with the artist for not doing well enough or the client for their poorly-worded briefs or rapid deadlines.

One of my favorite artists that I follow online is Kai Lim, who goes by Ukitakumuki on Deviantart. He has done a lot of work for GW in recent years. (I wondered why all of my favorite 40K pieces had a similar style!) Often, he'll include some commentary on the design process and his dealings with GW in the image descriptions. In particular, the description of his Abaddon piece (done for Eternal Crusade) sheds some light on what it's like to work for GW. As we've suspected, it's a very difficult process with a lot of creative restriction, especially when you're creating an image of someone who has a model.

Here's the actual picture, spoilered for size.

Spoiler:

**Buttery Commissar**

It is a real shame to see a company that built a strong aesthetic for themselves lose direction gradually. The quality of the pictures isn't what bothers me, so much as them lacking unification.
I realise that these days we can no longer have one artist fill an entire book, but instead we get this weak stew of very talented, but fairly mismatched creative input.
When they reuse art, it stands out like a sore prick, and serves to remind what we no longer have.

As a random aside, last week I accidentally walked backwards into, and apologised profusely, to a life-size copy of the Astra Militarum codex cover painting, so they are pretty convincing illustrations.

Blacksails wrote:
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.

Yeah, the RPGs really put the various modern GW books to shame. Only War is just a delicious menu of imagery.

**weeble1000**

Ditto. FFG has consistently handled the 40K universe better than GW.

On a side note: GW might be overly restrictive partly because it was pointed out in the CHS case that the asserted 2D artwork featuring SM shoulder pads exhibited incredibly wide variability in the basic underlying shape of the pad.

It wouldn't have mattered if GW had made reasonable claims in the first place, so it's totally a problem of GW's creation. GW learned all the wrong lessons from the CHS case.

**Aszubaruzah Surn**

text removed.

Reds8n

**Horned**

I am working with design and it is clearly that GW changes style. To be onest, the old one was better, but maybe i am too old...

**The Grumpy Eldar**

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.

So your basically blaming GW of going along with its time?

I tought blanches art was okay. But seeing to much of it is meh to me. To much of the same color and scribbling going on. A codex made with just that art going on would be horrible. Thats more for art books. And nowadays his art would stick out like a sore thumb with the rest of the art

**Kain**

Guildsman wrote:
I'll agree that some of the recent artwork coming out of GW isn't as interesting or exciting as it has been in the past, but I don't think digital art has anything to do with it. Digital art is just another medium for artists to work in; if the end result isn't good, then the blame rests with the artist for not doing well enough or the client for their poorly-worded briefs or rapid deadlines.

One of my favorite artists that I follow online is Kai Lim, who goes by Ukitakumuki on Deviantart. He has done a lot of work for GW in recent years. (I wondered why all of my favorite 40K pieces had a similar style!) Often, he'll include some commentary on the design process and his dealings with GW in the image descriptions. In particular, the description of his Abaddon piece (done for Eternal Crusade) sheds some light on what it's like to work for GW. As we've suspected, it's a very difficult process with a lot of creative restriction, especially when you're creating an image of someone who has a model.

Here's the actual picture, spoilered for size.

Spoiler:

Abaddon looks like such a goober.

**Guildsman**

Kain wrote:
Guildsman wrote:
I'll agree that some of the recent artwork coming out of GW isn't as interesting or exciting as it has been in the past, but I don't think digital art has anything to do with it. Digital art is just another medium for artists to work in; if the end result isn't good, then the blame rests with the artist for not doing well enough or the client for their poorly-worded briefs or rapid deadlines.

One of my favorite artists that I follow online is Kai Lim, who goes by Ukitakumuki on Deviantart. He has done a lot of work for GW in recent years. (I wondered why all of my favorite 40K pieces had a similar style!) Often, he'll include some commentary on the design process and his dealings with GW in the image descriptions. In particular, the description of his Abaddon piece (done for Eternal Crusade) sheds some light on what it's like to work for GW. As we've suspected, it's a very difficult process with a lot of creative restriction, especially when you're creating an image of someone who has a model.

Here's the actual picture, spoilered for size.

Spoiler:

Abaddon looks like such a goober.

He does, but from the artist's comments in the description, that's GW's fault. He had ideas to tweak Abaddon's look a little, and was shot down because he had to look as much like the miniature as possible.

**Ensis Ferrae**

Guildsman wrote:

He does, but from the artist's comments in the description, that's GW's fault. He had ideas to tweak Abaddon's look a little, and was shot down because he had to look as much like the miniature as possible.

And that, to me is a bit of a problem. As a former player, now collector/painter, I never once thought that a model's appearance needed to exactly emulate an artists rendition of it. I've always understood that the "scale" that GW makes miniatures in is an odd one, and if you draw in that exact scale, you get some seriously funky proportions and designs.

I was just in my local GW today, and the Empire Battalion box for WHFB caught my eye. I'm currently doing a bit of research on Landsknechts, and the artwork on the box, while not really reflecting anything actually in the box, still looked mighty fine on that box front. Obviously, box art is a far cry different from what is/should be in the books, especially if you're talking about an individual unit box/package.

**insaniak**

Ensis Ferrae wrote:

And that, to me is a bit of a problem. As a former player, now collector/painter, I never once thought that a model's appearance needed to exactly emulate an artists rendition of it.

Up until they got schooled in court , neither did GW. Unfortunately, since the Chapterhouse case , GW seem to have become much more wary of providing inspiration through artwork, and so are focusing less on world building and more on their existing model range.

The end result is that there is still a lot of great art.. . It just doesn't have the same scope that it used to have .

**MWHistorian**

Mario wrote:
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).

Absolutely this.
As an artist and illustrator, medium doesn't matter. The problem with GW's latest books isn't the digital art. Some of it is quite awesome. (Especially that Byzantine Eagle on the Imperial Fist's shield in one of the above pictures.) The art direction is the problem. Think of it like a director. The art director is maybe saying "only draw stuff that we have models for." If so, so much of the world gets left out of the codex and as a result it ends up feeling bland and lifeless.

**Vaktathi**

An increasingly large part, on top of the strict literal representations of existing models, is that the style often just doesn't feel "GW". The Abaddon picture from above (and lots of other newer GW art) almost looks more at home in League of Legends or World of Warcraft than the Warhammer 40,000 universe, despite being otherwise very well executed pieces.

**monders**

I'm amazed they still have such a raging boner for top knots.

**Plumbumbarum**

The new artwork style is bad, you can make digital art looking good and proper grimdark I guess but what made it into the codieces is not that. What it is though is clean, characterless and cartoonish videogamey looking stuff for Halo fans or sth.

That Abaddon pic is imo awful and mood breaking, for example.

**Mysterious Pants**

I think GW's been having some control issues. I saw this in the way the End Times played out, it's also pretty visible with the new art.

When dealing with creative types, I'd rather they just give them a vague outline and see what happens from there. The new art is, well, a lot more boring. I agree with OP.

**Sidstyler**

Vaktathi wrote:
The Abaddon picture from above (and lots of other newer GW art) almost looks more at home in League of Legends or World of Warcraft than the Warhammer 40,000 universe, despite being otherwise very well executed pieces.

Honestly I think it looks too cartoony to pass for League of Legends art. I like the artist but that's definitely not their best, and it's nice to know that's mostly GW's fault.

**Bottle**

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