Stumbled across a thread regarding old 40k artwork verses new stuff while browsing the net and thought it’d be an interesting discussion to have here. Do you think modern artwork produced by GW is better than the old stuff? Or is it the other way around?
For my answer, I’d say neither. There are good and bad pieces from both eras and you I think that you can’t pin down one era as superior to the other. Overall, if we’re to generalise, then I’d say the newer stuff is technically better (as in the techniques used are better/more complex/etc, is more detailed, etc), but the old stuff usually has more soul. A similar thing could probably be said for the miniatures, new minis are more detailed and more refined due to CAD, but lack the essence possessed by old hand sculpted minis.
I dig the more recent stuff. As you said, it is definitely technically superior, but it’s not only that. It kind of captures the soul of (current) products better than in the past! Plus, I love colors
To make an example, look at these. You might be a fan of AoS or not, but you can’t deny that a yelling Bloodpriest standing defiantly in the middle of a blizzard, eyes glowing red, his buddies charging in the background, it’s too epic to pass
The techniques are less refined, but it coveys the soul of 40k even today. There’s probably not much difference between them per say, but I find the Rogue Trader artwork more engaging than the AoS ones.
Aye for colours! I’m however under the impression that uninspired or unimaginative might be a correct description of quite many later GW artworks. At the very least they seem to depict only the models in art, instead of surpassing whatever one could achieve on tabletop or in miniature sculpting with the setting… New IP policy’s ugly head rearing again? This artpiece is nevertheless grand and tasty:
As for the Rogue Trader cover, its still a really neat piece even though the lacking technique is obvious. It had much more character than the bland and boring 3rd ed 40k Space Marine cover (which was based on RT), but both soul and technique award for a similar battle scene goes to the 4th edition space marine cover:
I like most GW artwork through pretty much all the years, and dislike no era’s art. They’ve always put out enjoyable decently crafted images.
GW artwork, like all continuous creative efforts, have its periods, its phases. Some parts of this cycle are likely to be recognized as high points, whether linked to nostalgia or not. I agree with Skink that many of GW’s newest artworks are gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. The codex covers nowadays are great. In fact, the quality reminds me instinctively of the best from 6th edition, whose artwork for both army book and regimental box covers were a major factor in pulling me fully into the hobby. Much of the artwork took a dip downward come 7th edition in my view (just compare cover artworks between editions for Dark Elves, Empire and High Elves), but was still quiet neat though it looked washed-out and uninspired for the most part. 8th was an improvement upon 7th.
The current style, which at last immersed itself into the high quality art style which Black Library books had sported for years on their covers, is very fine. The cover art for the Skitarii codex managed to strike a chord with me which few cover arts for army books/codices had done since 6th ed WHFB, and it was not only because Ad Mech was finally released as a force of its own. Obviously it’s the colours and the great lighting effects which does the trick and steals the show, for the composition and the attention to details is not that impressive (the Genestealer Cults cover is a better example of the style):
Some of 3rd edition’s more advanced artpieces from the big rulebook are still hailed as great stuff among older veterans.
IIRC what came afterwards was done on a more limited budget for reasons of ownership shift, yet the artworks of 4th-5th editions contain gems too and boast the most humorous of pieces. Great play on colour, too.
And FW’s work is top-notch as always, and CDs had the fortune to be treated by them!
As for John Blanche, I liked his artwork even better when it aimed for more realism and had more efforts and advanced techniques invested in it, but his later style with coloured sketches are still evocative and sometimes very well-crafted and nice looking, particularly when considering how quickly they’re churned out. Neat concepts and fantastic nightmare visions of the fictional worlds, if spiky. His artwork has never lost soul or flavour, despite style changes. He is usually at his best with the Imperium’s quirkier sides! The below more recent Ad Mech image is right up there with his best older artworks in my book:
Much of 6th edition’s better artwork always strike a chord with me, naturally because it suited my tastes and natural inclinations prior to joining in the Warhammer fun just like Starcraft I did, and obviously they still do since I don’t really change much in core tastes. In fact I wonder whether entering during any other WHFB edition would have hooked me as solidly as 6th did. That era might not be the best for artwork, but it nevertheless sports some fantastic artwork and might be top contender for the realism aspect. Malekith on the Dark Elf army book cover, for example, and many black and white pictures of good quality.
And most importantly, 6th edition sports the best image of Dwarfs ever created, one which will be very hard for future artists to beat. The component parts might not be the very best around, but the overall impression is magnificient:
I find some of the new stuff lacking. It’s not a blanket catch-all (GW have always been strong on art) but too often these days, the artwork is technically splendid and, indeed, colourful, but visually messy. It’s like the Star Wars prequels - sure, the battle scenes have got three hundred spaceships on screen at once instead of just two, and there’s laserbolts everywhere, and it’s visceral and overwhelms the senses… but… you’ve no idea what’s going on, and Luke flying his X-Wing solo along the Death Star trench is still far more iconic.
As for colour itself, sure, colour is good… but on the other hand look at this (or indeed anything else Mark Gibbons did for GW) and tell me it’s not incredible artwork.
On the whole, though, art is the one thing GW do nowadays that actually isn’t markedly worse than it used to be. I personally think it might not be quite up to the same standards of old, but the difference is minimal - and largely down to personal taste. In that respect the artists have done better than the rules writers (modern rules universally worse), model designers (recent models are vastly superior technically but hideous aesthetically), and fluff writers (the modern fluff is uniformly abysmal by comparison to what came before).
Disclaimer: some of the GW’s recent releases (GSCs being the most obvious) are going back in the direction it used to, thankfully. I hope that trend continues.
My personal preference is the art made a few years back. The very oldest are great because their archaic unique visions before anything was fleshed out. Like this:
But if i have to choose favorites i’l always go with Paul Dainton, Karl Kopinski and Adrian Smith. They have all made some really great stuff! The newer art being produced especially book covers i dont care for much. Most stuff looks really rushed and “shopped” compared to the older works.
The newer stuff is more consistent. The older stuff had a lot of different styles, from cartoonish to wild, and some of it was really bad but a lot of it was very good. I think GW just got a bit carried away with doing full-color books so everything is a huge painting now rather than the fun mish-mash of little images too.
Seeing this angelic host Archaon cavalry charge image brings proof that some new GW artwork has not lost their special pull. I predict this will be an enduring image which people will return to with some admiration in years to come:
Seeing this angelic host Archaon cavalry charge image brings proof that some new GW artwork has not lost their special pull. I predict this will be an enduring image which people will return to with some admiration in years to come:
Admiral
See, that's an interesting perspective, because my thoughts on that piece are almost entirely opposite. In my view, it's a bland, stereotypical hash lacking focus, composition and verisimilitude. A mass of knights in black armour riding horses that fly through the air (only the dragon actually having any apparent means of doing so?) seems like something that a ten year old would brainstorm as "cool" - not that a ten-year-old could paint like that, of course; I don't question the execution, just everything else.
Art is a funny thing, I guess, and YMMV obviously. For me, that picture encapsulates everything that's wrong with Age of Sigmar: dialled up to eleven with no subtlety nor believability, and with nothing whatsoever to mark it as different from any other soulless designed-by-committee fantasy world (except that I bet everything in the image has got a copyrightable name). For you it's a potential timeless classic. To each their own, and all that.
The AoS one is good from a technical standpoint, but ends up meh. It doesn’t really do anything for me and ends up a mess - are the horses flying through the air in a stream? Or are the jumping out what looks like a warp rift? Or off the top of some tornado chaos beast? Who knows. I think if you cropped out the top half of the pic losing Archaon and most of the flying knights the image would improve a hundred fold.
One analogy comes to me, it’s a bit like special effects in films, sorta like comparing a practical effect (e.g. Ray Harruhausen) film to one using CGI. While you might be more aware that you’re seeing a sfx when watching the Harruhausen work, it can feel more real than some CGI stuff because of the imperfections (although this would be a better analogy for traditional sculpted minis vs CAD sculpted ones come to think of it).
The End Times Archaon is more iconic, believable and down-to-earth, indeed. Yet let us for a moment abandon concepts of less-is-more and give the angelic host charge piece a chance to stand on its own legs. (And obviously some finicky Chaos Warp magic is at work - a hellway through the air isn’t much of an imagination strain in itself for anyone accustomed to the Warhammer world.)
The funny thing with much of the current AoS artwork is, that some mainly 17th century mythology paintings mirror the issues at hand. Whether or not they’re soul-less (I for one don’t find them much inspiring), they’re shining with technical brilliance. The image compositions are also bold and crowded and teeming with figures and motion. They always try to pull off a balance stunt to not end up utterly bewildering, and do not always succeed. Compare the above Archaon aerial cavalry charge with the following images, and you might find it not so completely alien and freakish in composition after all:
Do the Archaon cavalry charge through air hold up so poorly in this genre? I’m not talking about brushwork and such techniques perfected in the hands of the old masters, but more about things like composition.
Aye, these mythology paintings stand lacking in the taste department, but there is one place for believable pictures earthed in mortal concerns despite fantastic elements, and another for overblown cosmic clashes beyond the mundane and the interesting little stories of the world. Regardless of GW’s intentions: The less cluttered images rather more depict the fictive world as it appears for mortal eyes, while the mad scenes of bewildering grandeur rather more depict how the sagas and myths and prophecies of the Old World appear to mortal minds. And in that regard the cavalry charge is not half shabby.
It’s pretty empty hyperbole falling flat if one was to ruthlessly compare it with a lively and relatable piece like this Dwarf battleline, just like the above mentioned baroque mythology paintings, but so is Age of Sigmar as a whole.
And in the genre of what it is, there sure is a lot of merit to the Archaon cavalry painting in question. :hat off
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