Monday 30 March 2009

Horus Heresy: Legion

This was a difficult one, halfway through we decided the angle of the shot wasn't working so I had to re-render the whole thing from scratch to revise it. I think we ended up with a moody and atmospheric piece. I had great fun working on the 'Imperial Guard' in the pic, they were really exotic compared to the Space Marines I'd been used to.

Artwork (c) Games Workshop 2009. All Rights Reserved. Used without permission

I like the sky and general moody atmosphere in this piece - I was going for a Lady Elizabeth Butler feel with this one - if you get a chance Google her, do it - she seems to be a forgotten and underrated artist.

Trivia:
The Imperial Guard were based on photos of me in a trench coat, kneeling on my living room floor holding a broomstick - Aah, the glamour of being an illustrator!

Wednesday 4 March 2009

Grudgelore

Dwarf! Dragon! Coins! Corpses! Cavern! I went crazy for detail on this piece: jewellery, tattoos, the axe, dragon scales, charred corpses.

Once submitted, Marc Gascoine at BL wanted a few changes to make it more gritty and 'Fantasy' which I was more than happy to do as Fantasy art has a different aesthetic to it than Sci-Fi. The frustratingly great thing about this is, whenever these kinds of changes are made, I've always found the result to be better than the original.

Looking back at this piece now, I feel that my technique has moved to a more painterly style - so maybe Fantasy is a genre I'll revisit at some point in the future.

Artwork (c) Games Workshop 2009. All Rights Reserved. Used without permission

Trivia:
Each coin in the piles surrounding the scene was individually modelled with a 'head' and a 'tail'.