After seeing the intro movie I must say that I really hate the artwork. It's plain disgusting.

The "artist" fails at drawing power armor, he fails at drawing faces, he fails at colouration, he fails at drawing correct proportions, he fails at everything.

I for one will NOT BUY the book as I don't want to award and pay for the crappy artwork.

What does everyone else think?

I think buying a tabletop RPG for the artwork is silly.

I think that someone never really looked at the artwork - from an artists standpoint, there have never really been and still havent, been anything in the warhammer/wh40k books from the wargames to the video games to the rpg's that could be called bad art.

But hey, its your choice not to like the art, but technically the art is great.

vril said:

I, for one, am curious as to why you felt the need to (if I'm not mistaken) create an account just to post this rather inflammatory post that seems to have little in the way of purpose.

If you feel the need to voice complaints about the game, I can respect that, and I may even agree with you on some of those points. While I, personally, do not see the point in posting about something like the artwork in a book, over which the rules take precedence, I understand that it is of particular importance to some people, and I could even see myself supporting a civilly worded complaint about something like that.

However, your post seems to show little respect for the time and effort put in by those working to produce the game (the artist, as well as those who chose the art) and is unnecessarily antagonistic, especially considering that you have not paid any money for the book you are criticizing. Nobody is demanding you buy the book.

I, for one, would prefer it if you would refrain from giving voice to your complaints here if you cannot do so in a respectful way. These people work hard for us.

My main hope is they do not use any john blanche art as imho he is rubbish i like this art as do my group and even my table top opponents prefer this art to most of what is put inot the table top books

The Boy Named Crow said:

I created the account a while back.

Maybe I overreacted a bit but I just could not believe my eyes. Most of the Rogue Trader and Dark heresy Artwork is absolutely beautiful, so I guess that's the reason why I was a bit disappointed here.

I tried to change my post to make it more respectful but there seems to be no edit function.

I am actually an artist myself, and I have always felt (imo, of course.) that WH40k in all it's different forms has some of the most incredible art I've seen of the genre, and still does. But I personally buy games to play. But... to be honest, good art can boost sales and promote atmosphere I'm sure!

I don't mind the cover art. But if I were producing the game, I would have used a different illustration.

I've only seen a few pieces of the artwork and, yes, I would agree that the (as I think of it) "Lord Flashard" Space Marine on the front cover of Deathwatch is one of the weaker pieces that I've seen. Not atrocious, and certainly not something that is going to be stopping me buying the game, but then again I'm primarily buying it to see what they've done to make power armour interesting (as hinted about in one of their 'blog postings). Soo... I'm weird that way.

Other than that, I'm quite fond of most of the art from Final Sanction and really like the covert art for that booklet. I'm also rather fond of the border art/template stuff that they've had going through most of the books (the Rogue Trader one was the weakest, IMHO). The line art of power armour was a bit disappointing, but here's hoping that they've got something a bit better in the main rulebook, perhaps even an homage to the earlier Beaky armour "technical drawing." (I doubt that last, but there we go!)

Overall, though, I would be quite comfortable agreeing with earlier statements about how Games Workshop has always realised the importance of "cool artwork" and has continually had some very talented artists working on their products. Indeed, it would seem that for the most part the artwork is one of the strengths of their material. On the other hand, there are certainly different aspects that could be worked on, at least insofar as it pertains to Games Workshop (i.e. I'm not saying anything about FFG here!).

Kage

I like it, little 'busy' sometimes in terms of details but its good quality artwork.

I don't have a problem with the art in general, I am one of those who thinks the 'Flasheart' cover is pretty poor though and a bad choice for the cover.

Drake56 said:

Keels over, arrhg, how can you say it, he's the only one of the games ILLUSTRATORS who actually is an actual artist. The rest have good skills, but its not art, its illustration and there is a big difference.

Kind of agreeing with them on that point, though. I think that I've only seen one John Blanche image that I actually like...

Kage

UncleArkie said:

This, a thousand times this.

Everything that is 40K has come from his mind. He has shaped and created the very essence of the 41st millennium. Everything that people take for granted as grimdark 40k is because of him. That is enough to respect his talent even if you don't like his paintings and drawings.

Court Jester said:

I think it comes down to how much grimdark people want in their 40k. John Blanche's work I find to be by far some of the darkest. Personally, I love his work dealing with landscape, xenos/chaos, mobs of people, and spaceships, but for singular characters I'd look elsewhere for my inspiration.

I've found quite a few of the marine art pieces have some very strange and awkward forshortening and perspective. Specifically I think it's the Dark Angel marine with power fist.

The art is ok, but the perspectives have thrown me off on quite a few.

As for JB, for years when I was a kid I disliked his art, but after a while I realised that whenever I thought of '40k' his images were the first to pop into my head. His art is atmosphere and emotion, it's great for depicting the demeanour of 40k - crazy, frenetic and bizarre.

To me an illustration is an illustration, it's just a picture designed to represent visually an object. JB's stuff is more than just an illustration and perhaps the expectation of an illustrative image is the reason people don't like it.

Hellebore

vril said:

Hey, more books in print for everybody else

KjetilKverndokken said:

Seriously, fine someone does not like the art, then someone does not like the layout, I have heard the font story a billion times when it comes to new world of darkness, and really cant see the problem there either...

So if the most important thing, if the setting and rules are great/good (whatever), but the two others are not, then thats enough reason not to get the books?
Well, maybe if one buy the books for the artwork...
I really do not care, but find it strange, as it feels like self punishment.

I was being facetious.

And people who quote themselves are very arrogant.

BYE

H.B.M.C. said:

H.B.M.C. said:

No edit button man, thats why.

Well, leaving the whole 'GW Artwork' discussion aside; from a personal standpoint as a Roleplayer & WH40K Fan as well as my professional experience as a Graphic Designer and 3D artist; I personally feel that the cover for the DW core book is below par compared to the other books. By no means it's crappy artwork but the general proportions and 'feel' of the marine don't sit right with me, also colourwise it's a bit of a cacophony. I feel that the other DW artwork; displayed in the news items as well as the artwork for the DW commercial pages, is of much better aesthetic quality.

From what I see of the screenshots showing the content of the book, that seems more along the lines of the other DH and RT core books.

In short: I'll buy the book for the content and rules but I won't be showing off the book to whomever happens to pass by my place. The cover of DH always provokes a positive response, even from the non-rpg'ers. the artwork, details and atmosphere are just amazing. The RT book not so much but not bad either (it's 'cleaner' and more colourful).

But I'm 100% that the cover of DW will conjure many an uncomprehending frown on people's faces. It looks like the cover for a bad action movie.

Especially the helmet gives me the creeps, that looks so wrong...

Anyway, it's not that it's a bad illustration per se, it's just that I feel it's not high quality enough to warrant it being the cover for one of the most anticipated RPG's of recent years... and to be my own Devil's Advocate: over the past decades I've played many an RPG with much, much, much worse artwork, some even not worthy of being called a doodle, so in the end it's the content of the book that matters...

[/Rant mode off]

KjetilKverndokken said:

Well, these books ranks among the top ten in art in the rpg industry, so maybe people are getting very picky then. If so, then rpg industry will have harder and harder time, as art is one of the most expensive parts.

H.B.M.C. said:

Internet, text, stuff like this do not go off very well as in real life conversation. I do not do sarcasm etc etc on the internet - and still your texting tone is quite harsh.
But hey, I really dont give a ****