Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
[DCM]
Chief Deputy Sub Assistant Trainee Squig Handling Intern
How do!
So here’s a topic I don’t recall seeing in all my many days clogging up various Forums with my inane babbling. And it’s nice and straight forward, as per the thread title.
What I want to see is the artwork that got you completely sold on 40K. Or indeed even a specific army.
Here’s mine, from when it was a White Dwarf cover (think I’ve got both that WD and the Compendium. Defo got the Compendium.
First, that’s Tycho before he was Tycho. I think. I know Tycho was first named in a Battle Report, and got his in-background scarred visage when a Weirdboy blasted him with Waaaaaagh! energy/
Second? Just. Look. At. It. Now, I’m no student of art, so I won’t waffle about composition in that way. But this art tells you so much about 40K. The vibrant colours of the Blood Angels. The darker tones of the Genestealers. And still the stark darkness of space and the architecture.
The massed yet disciplined ranks of Marines, Bolters blazing. Terminators looking hench. I swear Terminators have never looked this good.
The banners. The heraldry. The odd alien goop in places. Casualties on both sides.
It’s just.......
Needless to say it’s stuck with me, and I absolutely love it. A cracking, beautifully painted, evocative piece. If I could get it on a print, I would, regardless of cost.
But how about you?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/02/01 21:09:20
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
I don't have a image of it, but what sold me on 40k was a picture of a Baneblade in side profile in the 5e Rulebook. My friend brought it into middle school when he got it, and we spent lunch break going through it.
I saw it and was like "Katherine wants!" [Actually what I said was "That looks like a big Panzer IV." followed by "How much does it cost?" and then "Oh."]
Nowadays, I don't actually have a Baneblade [yet], but I do have a Shadowsword, because "big Stug III" is awesome as well.
Guardsmen, hear me! Cadia may lie in ruin, but her proud people do not! For each brother and sister who gave their lives to Him as martyrs, we will reap a vengeance fiftyfold! Cadia may be no more, but will never be forgotten; our foes shall tremble in fear at the name, for their doom shall come from the barrels of Cadian guns, fired by Cadian hands! Forward, for vengeance and retribution, in His name and the names of our fallen comrades!
Fun fact: I already played Fantasy and I had (don't know why honestly) the second edition (? I think ?) with Blanche illustration that I loved, especially for the Imperium vision.
But the single set was the BT one. And funnily I never collected them... Take my time, read a Capitolum Adprobavit (don't know the name in English, the fluff publication with a handful of chapters detailed) and was sold on the DA (so, still Black, still Robes, still Knight)
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/02/01 22:14:05
I can't condone a place where abusers and abused are threated the same: it's destined to doom, so there is no reason to participate in it.
Most of the artowk by John Blanche, but in particular his Adepta Sororita image.
The glossy black armour against the ruddy oranges of the backgrounds. How the bright, yellow hazards and the glowing white hair seem to pop out amongst all the murky browns. And the whole thing sells that comically, over-the-top aesthetic of warhammer 40k.
Plus, I'm a sucker for woman wearing fire spitting heels.
Ask yourself: have you rated a gallery image today?
I think my first exposure to 40k in any form was the Space Crusade box cover.
I didn't think anything of it after I got it until I walked passed the hobby shop down the road and saw things very similar to it in the store. I picked up my first white dwarf (182) partly because of the amazing cover.
I was hooked at space crusade, but not necessarily due to it being 40k.
What absolutely cemented it was the art in the 2nd ed rulebooks. John Blanche has always been the soul of 40k, an artist that puts emotion into his art. While the other illustrators at GW are fantastic, I've always found JB's work to have an atmosphere nothing else can really match.
That sold me! Titan Legions boxed set, its a walking castle with insanely big guns! There are troops running down the toes of its feet; vast rockets; huge machines. That the core game on the back also generally showed titans, knights and tanks was a big sell for me.
And that was it, that was my gateway into Warhammer, into miniature wargames; into all this madness for years and years to come.
Since then I think painted models have sold me on more models than anything, but art is certainly always there too, just nothing stands out in my mind as being that influencing all on its own than that Titan Legions box art.
Other art that has inspired me to collect armies
Spoiler:
WHY can't we get updated Eldar that look that good why!!
Other art that inspires me every time I see it but has yet to fully sink its claws in.
Spoiler:
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/02/01 22:41:44
I never saw that Blanche SoB piece when I first got into the hobby, but now I have the 900x600mm print up on my wall. It's a gorgeous piece.
Anyways, it was probably the cover of the 3rd Ed Tyranid codex that got me invested (yeah I know this is the 3.5 reprint/update):
...Shortly followed by Gitdakka's submission of the Black Templars from the 3rd Ed rulebook. I didn't even like Marines and still thought that was an awesome piece.
Never liked that editions change to how Tyranids looked for the big bugs; but the art I love. Honestly tyranids have had pretty darn good art on their codex every edition from 3rd onward
Mad Doc - simply spreading the artistic inspiration and draining wallets of course
Mr Nobody wrote: Most of the artowk by John Blanche, but in particular his Adepta Sororita image.
The glossy black armour against the ruddy oranges of the backgrounds. How the bright, yellow hazards and the glowing white hair seem to pop out amongst all the murky browns. And the whole thing sells that comically, over-the-top aesthetic of warhammer 40k.
Plus, I'm a sucker for woman wearing fire spitting heels.
Interesting.
That's one of my less liked SoB images. The heels and the hair, among other things, are specific things I don't like about it. Her pose looks like a pinup model, and all the spikes make her look more like a weird sexy art piece than somebody at war.
I'm not actually a fan of old 40k artwork though. It's colorful, weirdly proportioned, and has lots of random "weird" stuff. I actually largely prefer the "more realistic" looking modern art, and most of all the photo-edit art of models in dioramas you find in the IA books and on old model box covers that look really grimy and gritty and well, "grim and dark where there is only war".
The MkIIIc Immolator box art is one of my more favorite ones, because it shows that at least at one time, someone in GW knew how a flamethrower worked better than the Dawn of War people.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/02/01 23:16:06
Guardsmen, hear me! Cadia may lie in ruin, but her proud people do not! For each brother and sister who gave their lives to Him as martyrs, we will reap a vengeance fiftyfold! Cadia may be no more, but will never be forgotten; our foes shall tremble in fear at the name, for their doom shall come from the barrels of Cadian guns, fired by Cadian hands! Forward, for vengeance and retribution, in His name and the names of our fallen comrades!
[DCM]
Chief Deputy Sub Assistant Trainee Squig Handling Intern
Other art that grabbed me as a squeaky little yoof? Comes from 2nd Ed Epic Space Marine, the first proper GW game I got to grips with.
Here’s a selection, because frankly it’s all brilliant. Yes I’ve a heavy nostalgia bias but.....look at it. With your eyes. Because your elbows are poor sensory organs.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
My older brother was doing oil painting lessons in his teens. My mum often picked up interesting artbooks for him. One day, she ran into Adrian Smith's artbook at one of those big bookstore chains that is long out of business. She didn't didn't know what warhammer was, but she knew we liked Magic the Gathering, and that this was similar, and the exact thing teenage boys are into.
I came to 40k through the minis - both seen on the tables in the local store & in pics in WD etc - far more so than the art.
If I had to point to art? Then a piece that always comes to mind when I think "40K" is a RT era B&W piece of an eldar farseer in his baroque bug-eyed gasmask like helmet just in front of a veiwport(?). Of course I can't actually find the image....
It wasn't a picture but the game Dawn of War 2 (video games are art many would argue). While the game itself was fun, it's the Orks that really sold me on the setting. Relic really had a way with their portrayal of Orks and imo capture the feel of the Orks better than most other media. They balanced the comical tone of the Orks with the in-universe seriousness that the Orks deserve as a legitimate threat. One of the best examples of the silliness of Ork logic while still being fitting to the setting.
That said whole the Orks can be silly from our perspective, they are also brutal and deadly on the battlefield which for me DoW's Nob squad really hammered home (pun intended). They are a figurative dump trukk without brakes smashing their way through the enemy and the voice work is fantastic at conveying a hulking brute who's meaner, greener, and far deadlier than your average Ork. Being able to control a unit of Nobz that can smash so many things into paste was a real joy to play.
Anyways the game is what got me into liking 40k and set the stage to trade in a load of MtG cards to jump on board to the WAAAGH!
"Hold my shoota, I'm goin in"
Armies (7th edition points)
7000+ Points Death Skullz
4000 Points
+ + 3000 Points "The Fiery Heart of the Emperor"
3500 Points "Void Kraken" Space Marines
3000 Points "Bard's Booze Cruise"
It's a piece that came several years after I first started painting 40K stuff (I started with the Tyranid Attack boardgame in 2nd edition), buit it's one that I have always thought was awesome. Although I could also link to basically everything in the original Necromunda rule- and source-books.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/02/02 03:42:28
"By this point I'm convinced 100% that every single race in the 40k universe have somehow tapped into the ork ability to just have their tech work because they think it should."
Hellebore wrote: I didn't think anything of it after I got it until I walked passed the hobby shop down the road and saw things very similar to it in the store. I picked up my first white dwarf (182) partly because of the amazing cover.
It's because most of the current art is to sell the actual model kits, rather than the setting.
"By this point I'm convinced 100% that every single race in the 40k universe have somehow tapped into the ork ability to just have their tech work because they think it should."
:strip_icc()/pic5711658.jpg)
:strip_icc()/pic5711659.jpg)
:strip_icc()/pic5711672.jpg)
7000+ Points Death Skullz
4000 Points
+ 
+ 3000 Points "The Fiery Heart of the Emperor"
