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At first I was a little disappointed at the sculpt but I think this was reflective of my unreasonable expectations. The more I look at it the more I like it and I’m now at a point where it’s perhaps my favourite primarch sculpt together with Horus (Magnus gets an honourable mention however I just can’t get over his tiny out of scale thighs).

Stepping back and thinking about the Sanguinius sculpt from Forgeworlds perspective, they were always on a hiding to nothing to a degree. IMO Sanguinius was always going to be the most controversial and polarising model. In our minds he is this otherworldly white winged angel that in the fluff had a presence and aura only the Emperor surpassed. How do you sculpt that in a tiny 3D miniature and pull it off? I’m not sure it’s possible so I’m grateful for this model as I do sincerely think it’s a fantastic effort all things considered.

i dont know. It just seems very awkward. i think a standard flying pose like Saint Celestine would have done it more justice THEN do a special scenic version with the bloodthirster or something.
And the wings seem quite small.

I'd like them to make a resin version of that unique bloodthirster actually for actual use.

The thing is, lets say they did a standard angel flying pose. No one's going to say well that doesn't look like an angel flying, cause it does. This looks like a very specific pose he's doing in a specific situation and the way its resting on the stone makes it seem strange. if they could make it hover in midair like that, it would be better IMHO (which obviously cant be done). Maybe on a super thin clear plastic flying stand it would look better.

The thing about models that "tell a story" in its pose, dont always look the best with an army. Imagine having a large blood angels army, or blood angels with a group of Custodes, or something like that, led by Sanguinius. but instead of him being in a strong forward leaning flying battle pose, he's diving down to poke the ground with a sword....

I hazard to guess that about 10% of primarch models sold are actually used for gaming, though.

 ShortyPreds wrote:
And look close...he has a laurel in his hair...so this must be in the final stages of the heresy...Time of the Imperium Secundus AFTER the Fight against Kabandha.

Why? I’m sure wearing laurels in his hair wasn’t unheard of at any point. The book is set around Signus. The models aren’t really set at any point (until we maybe get later stage versions, which was spoken about earlier on in the Heresys life).

Gorgon - thats fine but then they all should be pure scenic. Like massive scenery pieces like the ones you see at World Model Expo, etc. The fact they balance on all that on a smaller gaming base implies it is meant for gaming as well, which is where the few complaints seem to be .

the pose seems off but could be fine for a display piece, etc.

im still considering getting it and resculpting where needed to change the pose, but cosnidering its not evn the best angel model around, not sure its worth the hassle.

I really don’t like the Sanguinius model but there’s nothing objectively wrong with it. It’s just not to my taste. I just really don’t like minis posed as if fighting invisible opponents in hand to hand combat.

 Prometheum5 wrote:
He's got a weird-ass pose like Fulgrim that would look great in an art print but translates terribly to a 3D model on your table. All the details and design are spot on, but it all just looks off.

Fulgrim was apparently designed as a two-part diorama with Ferrus Manus; as soon as you put those two together (and their bases are designed to fit together), the pose make sense. Ferrus is swinging the hammer and Fulgrim is jumping back out of range. I assume Sanguinius is similar; when we see what it is he's stabbing at, I think it'll look better.

I'm in the "wow that's fugly" camp. I hate Blanches art enough by itself. Seeing these travesties given physical form is so disheartening. I don't think there is a single primarch model I would own, let alone pay for.
Forgeworld hasn't just dropped the ball...
They lost it entirely. Time to let Jes Goodwin design them and have them made in plastic. That way they will not only look fantastic but they would actually look like they belong in the Warhammer setting.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

 Prometheum5 wrote:
He's got a weird-ass pose like Fulgrim that would look great in an art print but translates terribly to a 3D model on your table. All the details and design are spot on, but it all just looks off.

Fulgrim was apparently designed as a two-part diorama with Ferrus Manus; as soon as you put those two together (and their bases are designed to fit together), the pose make sense. Ferrus is swinging the hammer and Fulgrim is jumping back out of range. I assume Sanguinius is similar; when we see what it is he's stabbing at, I think it'll look better.

You're almost certainly right. I just think it makes the individual models look awkward on their own and lousy on the tabletop. I imagine the gaming purpose is a concern for very few folks who purchase the Primarch figures, tho. I'm hoping for a massive daemon head/bust as the display base which will definitely help the pose make sense. My problem with that is, it will look awesome on its own in a display case, but make no sense when placed amongst a display of your Blood Angels legion.

 DeffDred wrote:
I'm in the "wow that's fugly" camp. I hate Blanches art enough by itself. Seeing these travesties given physical form is so disheartening. I don't think there is a single primarch model I would own, let alone pay for.
Forgeworld hasn't just dropped the ball...
They lost it entirely. Time to let Jes Goodwin design them and have them made in plastic. That way they will not only look fantastic but they would actually look like they belong in the Warhammer setting.

Dunno. We have yet to have single good looking plastic primarch.

Finally a Forge World primarch that looks good.

tneva82 wrote:

 DeffDred wrote:
I'm in the "wow that's fugly" camp. I hate Blanches art enough by itself. Seeing these travesties given physical form is so disheartening. I don't think there is a single primarch model I would own, let alone pay for.
Forgeworld hasn't just dropped the ball...
They lost it entirely. Time to let Jes Goodwin design them and have them made in plastic. That way they will not only look fantastic but they would actually look like they belong in the Warhammer setting.

Dunno. We have yet to have single good looking plastic primarch.

Subjective. I think all three so far are nice.

tneva82 wrote:

 DeffDred wrote:
I'm in the "wow that's fugly" camp. I hate Blanches art enough by itself. Seeing these travesties given physical form is so disheartening. I don't think there is a single primarch model I would own, let alone pay for.
Forgeworld hasn't just dropped the ball...
They lost it entirely. Time to let Jes Goodwin design them and have them made in plastic. That way they will not only look fantastic but they would actually look like they belong in the Warhammer setting.

Dunno. We have yet to have single good looking plastic primarch.

Personally I think there’s been one. Mortarion.

However, this miniature looks nothing like a John Blanche’s concept art for Sanguinius. If it did, I’d like it a lot more.

May i ask how he does not look like that artwork? All the elements ae there, the hair, the eyes, the pelt, the cats head, the halo...Or what exactly do you mean?

 Padre wrote:
That is a massive miss for me - I'm really disappointed at this.

I think that, particularly when there are other high quality not-Sanguinius models on the market, FW have dropped the ball.

When you can get this kind of quality from a 3rd party, at (probably) a similar or cheaper price...well...

I was just going to link to this and say that I much prefer it. A lot of my favourite Primarchs from FW really miss the spot for me (Sanguinius, Peturabo, some others). The only ones I really like are Horus, Ferrus and Lorgar, and maybe a couple more that I can't think of right now. But yeah, this new Sanguinius from FW is inferior to the knock-off that you've shown here imo.

JWBS wrote:

 Padre wrote:
That is a massive miss for me - I'm really disappointed at this.

I think that, particularly when there are other high quality not-Sanguinius models on the market, FW have dropped the ball.

When you can get this kind of quality from a 3rd party, at (probably) a similar or cheaper price...well...

I was just going to link to this and say that I much prefer it. A lot of my favourite Primarchs from FW really miss the spot for me (Sanguinius, Peturabo, some others). The only ones I really like are Horus, Ferrus and Lorgar, and maybe a couple more that I can't think of right now. But yeah, this new Sanguinius from FW is inferior to the knock-off that you've shown here imo.

That knock-off is terrible. The wings are FAR too large and he's frickin chubby looking.

Seriously though how big do you people think wings typically are on birds?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

JWBS wrote:

 Padre wrote:
That is a massive miss for me - I'm really disappointed at this.

I think that, particularly when there are other high quality not-Sanguinius models on the market, FW have dropped the ball.

When you can get this kind of quality from a 3rd party, at (probably) a similar or cheaper price...well...

I was just going to link to this and say that I much prefer it. A lot of my favourite Primarchs from FW really miss the spot for me (Sanguinius, Peturabo, some others). The only ones I really like are Horus, Ferrus and Lorgar, and maybe a couple more that I can't think of right now. But yeah, this new Sanguinius from FW is inferior to the knock-off that you've shown here imo.

That knock-off is terrible. The wings are FAR too large and he's frickin chubby looking.

Seriously though how big do you people think wings typically are on birds?

To be fair, the size of bird wings relatively to body weight is not linear. I remember doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations for the size of wings needed for a humanoid of roughly equivalent weight to a human to fly.

It was pretty huge, at minimum about the same wingspan as the largest known bird in the fossil record (~8m) and this bird-human would've found it almost impossible to take off, requiring a jump off a drop or a favourable wind to gain sufficient lift. It would not be capable of more than a few seconds active flight, and would have to glide and rely on updrafts and ridge gliding the rest of the time (like condors).

Sanguinius in armour would need ridiculously big wings to actually be able to even glide, and it is essentially impossible for him to have active flight with bird-style wings and be as big and heavy as he is.

Fortunately, he can basically fly through warp-trickery (a plausible mechanism in 40k), so the wings just have to look right in comparison to his body.

I agree the 3rd party sculpt looks pretty bad though, that sword is very generic impractical fantasy.

 Haighus wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

JWBS wrote:

 Padre wrote:
That is a massive miss for me - I'm really disappointed at this.

I think that, particularly when there are other high quality not-Sanguinius models on the market, FW have dropped the ball.

When you can get this kind of quality from a 3rd party, at (probably) a similar or cheaper price...well...

I was just going to link to this and say that I much prefer it. A lot of my favourite Primarchs from FW really miss the spot for me (Sanguinius, Peturabo, some others). The only ones I really like are Horus, Ferrus and Lorgar, and maybe a couple more that I can't think of right now. But yeah, this new Sanguinius from FW is inferior to the knock-off that you've shown here imo.

That knock-off is terrible. The wings are FAR too large and he's frickin chubby looking.

Seriously though how big do you people think wings typically are on birds?

To be fair, the size of bird wings relatively to body weight is not linear. I remember doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations for the size of wings needed for a humanoid of roughly equivalent weight to a human to fly.

It was pretty huge, at minimum about the same wingspan as the largest known bird in the fossil record (~8m) and this bird-human would've found it almost impossible to take off, requiring a jump off a drop or a favourable wind to gain sufficient lift. It would not be capable of more than a few seconds active flight, and would have to glide and rely on updrafts and ridge gliding the rest of the time (like condors).

Sanguinius in armour would need ridiculously big wings to actually be able to even glide, and it is essentially impossible for him to have active flight with bird-style wings and be as big and heavy as he is.

Fortunately, he can basically fly through warp-trickery (a plausible mechanism in 40k), so the wings just have to look right in comparison to his body.

I agree the 3rd party sculpt looks pretty bad though, that sword is very generic impractical fantasy.

I mean, we don't really know how powerful the wings of a Warp Creature can be. Bloodthirsters probably shouldn't be able to fly.

These wings are more subtle and angelic, the way he's supposed to be portrayed.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

I mean, we don't really know how powerful the wings of a Warp Creature can be. Bloodthirsters probably shouldn't be able to fly.

These wings are more subtle and angelic, the way he's supposed to be portrayed.

That's why I mentioned warp-trickery

I was more pointing out that birds are not a great comparison though. If you look at the range of birds, the larger ones have odd proportions, like condors and albatrosses, whereas very small, agile birds often have quite short, chubby wings.

 Tombard wrote:
May i ask how he does not look like that artwork? All the elements ae there, the hair, the eyes, the pelt, the cats head, the halo...Or what exactly do you mean?

I'm guessing he likes tiny heads? A lot of the old Warhammer 40k artwork and models is what kept me AWAY from this hobby for a loooong time. That artwork looks awful IMO, but the Forgeworld sculpt actually captures its essence extremely well while actually giving Sanguinous proper proportions.

I just think the pose looks bad (at least from this angle).

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

JWBS wrote:

 Padre wrote:
That is a massive miss for me - I'm really disappointed at this.

I think that, particularly when there are other high quality not-Sanguinius models on the market, FW have dropped the ball.

When you can get this kind of quality from a 3rd party, at (probably) a similar or cheaper price...well...

I was just going to link to this and say that I much prefer it. A lot of my favourite Primarchs from FW really miss the spot for me (Sanguinius, Peturabo, some others). The only ones I really like are Horus, Ferrus and Lorgar, and maybe a couple more that I can't think of right now. But yeah, this new Sanguinius from FW is inferior to the knock-off that you've shown here imo.

That knock-off is terrible. The wings are FAR too large and he's frickin chubby looking.

Seriously though how big do you people think wings typically are on birds?

I'm not a huge fan of the knockoff, I haven't even considered buying it. I do still prefer it to the official one though. Neither have any great appeal to me so it's kind of moot (except maybe for the fact that the BAs are my favourites and I was looking forward to this one, but like I say, so far they've been hit or miss for me so I was ready to be underwhelmed for this release).

 Tombard wrote:
May i ask how he does not look like that artwork? All the elements ae there, the hair, the eyes, the pelt, the cats head, the halo...

Yeah, they tried to make one Blanche mini - Valdor. He looks like pile of excrement, like someone thrown random bits of mangled animals at him, not to mention ugly armor, comical weapon, and one of the worst heads GW had ever made. If anything, I love how nice and realistic the snow leopard skin on Sanguinius looks, along with pretty good armor, making Valdor look even worse in comparison. Really, after Valdor and Veridyan I just hope GW burns the rest of JB concept "art" or at least never looks at it again, both models were solid contenders for the worst of the decade...

Also, on second look, the "art" above is where BL illustrator found the drill hair, the one element of Sanguinius portrayal pretty much everyone hates with a passion, along with huge, goofy even for SM shoulder pads, plus demonic looking wings. Why I am not surprised 3 of the most despised and protested elements of every single new HH cover portraying the Angel were made by JB...?

I find Valdor to be one of the best character models FW has ever put out. The vedic demi god like look of the model is fantastic. Definitely better than most of the primarch models.

 BrotherGecko wrote:
I find Valdor to be one of the best character models FW has ever put out. The vedic demi god like look of the model is fantastic. Definitely better than most of the primarch models.

You're more than welcome to having an opinion, even if its wrong. Valdor is awful and the one Custodes model I am most loath to add to my collection, which eventually I will, just to have all the Custodes.

I agree with Irbis on the JB stuff for the most part, it should be done away with, at least for anything other than a throwback.

All the JB hate is hilarious - seems folk need reminding yet again that without JB art there wouldn't be a 40K, and that he's the one who's been steering the output of all the other artists for years now.

If the model is garbage(which I don't think it is, just underwhelming), blame the sculptor or whoever painted the model, because the very fact 40K exists is evidence Blanche's concept work can lead to incredible miniatures, and the fact INQ28 exists proves his style in particular can be used to make them as well.

 Yodhrin wrote:
All the JB hate is hilarious - seems folk need reminding yet again that without JB art there wouldn't be a 40K, and that he's the one who's been steering the output of all the other artists for years now.

If the model is garbage(which I don't think it is, just underwhelming), blame the sculptor or whoever painted the model, because the very fact 40K exists is evidence Blanche's concept work can lead to incredible miniatures, and the fact INQ28 exists proves his style in particular can be used to make them as well.

I dont have to like his art to recognize its importance in getting 40k to be where it is. Just like I don't have to like them making stuff directly based on his art. Other artists have made much better art for the setting. As a concept art its fine. In my opinion its not good enough for full models to be based entirely on, being done completely based on it, should be done away with.

Yeah, I understand the importance of Blanche, but I'm a much bigger fan of Jes Goodwin personally. Goodwin translated the essence of Blanche into something that works on the tabletop. His old concepts of things like Imperial denizens still hold up anazingly today.

 Haighus wrote:
Yeah, I understand the importance of Blanche, but I'm a much bigger fan of Jes Goodwin personally. Goodwin translated the essence of Blanche into something that works on the tabletop. His old concepts of things like Imperial denizens still hold up anazingly today.

Avatar checks out (Gothic & Eldritch is a great book for Goodwin stuff). I love all things Blanche.

The funny thing is that most miniatures have been inspired in one way or another by John Blanche. The whole Stormcast and Kharadron Overlord range, for example.

Things like Veridyan are that weird because they don't take "inspiration", they are direct translations from concept art to miniature.

JB does very good concept art. But then that needs to be converted into a good miniature by a proper sculptor

 Omega-soul wrote:
I think it's just bad shooting angle from a photography standpoint.
Hope it get better with alternative base.

That looks so much better. I was just looking at my copy of Antor Delassio, and that pose looks much more natural;