Got my copy of the Eldar Codex with all the new plastic goodies this monday, and had ordered the Tau codex at the same time.
Very very impressed.
Games Workshop is close to receiving the most improved overall product experience award over anything I've seen for a while in any product or brand category. Jes Bichkam has totally saved the White Dwarf. All the new Codexes are well written, the rules are in good balance and benefit variety, and much to my surprise the old art digitally colored looks very very tasty and has a new aesthetic unlike anything I've seen else where. The miniatures are better and better and the sheer output from GW seems to have doubled.
Well done and thank you!
So two of my favorite armies came out in the space of few months and I'm itching to work on something else than Legion after August. I have a big Tau army and a reasonable start to an Eldar army. Both aren't up to my current standards for creating art - but then again, I'd like to play more in the future and do something new and different.
But don't really know how to make more time.
So this has gotten me into thinking about designing the look and feel of the new direction, and outsourcing some of the assembly, priming and base color work to a competent studio. To work more like a designer. Then go in an finish the units with depth and weathering. Obviously the special things I would still do from scratch.
The big dilemma at the minute is weather either of the old schemes is cool enough for me to keep it with the expansions... for the TAU (finished ten years ago) it's a no and also I have 3000pts of them to play with if there is an urge to just park and shoot the crap out of the opponent, which isn't my ideal idea of Warhammer 4000 anyway - so this points me towards my Eldar who are nice and bright. They have one major mistake - the black. I've found that pure black kills a lot of realism and nowadays always paint black as hues of dark grey. Only the most shadowed area of black is actually black opaque black. With this switch I could see myself doing a nice Eldar army. And none of the new units would have the black black mistake.
But (again) obviously I'd like to make the Eldar army of all Eldar armies...something no-one is expecting Eldar to be...and launch myself to another eternity project that might still be the right thing to do with the Allied rules and the Legion and Xenos storyline synergy.
This is where I got several years ago:
Hardanth Eldar @Dakka
Should I add to this army, I will document the working with a painting studio process and hopefully provide plenty of good tips on how to work with such a service provider and how to combine good basics with your own stamp.
I'm also very happy with the new format of Codex books (as a Daemon player, I got mine just a few months ago). I think those are a real step forward in terms of production and presentation, and I absolutely love the new covers. I still have one gripe however: presentation of the background.
ReplyDeleteTo me, the peak of 40K background was in 3rd edition under Andy Chambers, Jervis and Gav. Now, this might seem like a paradoxical statement seeing as most of the Codices of those time had very little in the way of background story at all, but the background was there. It was in short stories in WD and battle reports, and finally, in the later days of 3rd edition 40K, they made the best two books background-wise ever IMHO, with Tau and Necrons.
What was so great about it?
First, Background was totally interwoven with the art - for example, you had a huge double-sided drawing of Tau descending with their battlesuits down to waiting Kroot, and the story was also written on these very pages, where the picture would fade out towards the top. Brilliant. Nowadays you have a complete separation of art and story, everything is in neat little boxes with frames and almost nothing is connected together anymore in this direct way.
Second, what I bemoan most was the step back to the "word of god" approach with all story telling. Everything is told by a detached narrator, leaving very little place for individual perspective or emotions. The old background was full of pieces written from the perspective of a e.g. an Eldar Farseer, a Chaos heretic or what have you. All of this rich texture and taste has been totally cast out. Incidentally, these pieces have been called "colour text" back then, and they certainly were.
Third, the "bittyness" of background presentation has been removed. What I have always loved about 40K was the small snippets of background text or even just quotes thrown in, or small pieces of art depicting just a little snapshot of a scene. These enriched the whole story in a direct and concise way that is hard to achieve with the current approach.
All in all, I feel a lot of colour, life, innovation, art and creativity have been taken out of the background. Currently, it seems much more sterile and rehashed and repetitive.
Just recently, I read through the original Realm of Chaos books (because I'm currently building a warband using the old system), and this difference of storytelling hit me in the face just goinge over the very first pages.
This is really sad, because almost everything else has improved so much or is still on par.
Valid point on the background. I guess after decades in the hobby, that stuff is so ingrained in my imagination that I am mostly driven by the miniatures and Black Library has taken a big role in building the story. IMO the Codex main background pieces are really good, representative and a good summary of evertyhing that has come before, but you're right some of the flavor has taken a hit.
DeleteI think the new books look very nice, and seem well written. I have been a bit disappointed with the art, however. Most of it is very good, but I really do not like how they have gone back in and colored pieces that were never intended to have it. But worst of all is not necessarily the coloring, but how they have actually changed the art, redrawn things and coloring out other things. The Dark Angel codex has a lot of examples of this, the worst offender being the ravenwing art. It was the same picture that was in the 4th edition book, a wonderful piece with a biker holding out his hand with a raven on it (a Kopinski piece I think). It was always one of my favorite pictures from the book, and was happy to see that it was used in the new book. But when looking at the new colored version, they smeared out most of the detail and converted the biker into one of the codex's new units (Black Knights), changing the bolters to plasma talons. They also replaced landspeeders in the background with hastily done bikers. This disrespect for the artist's work disappoints me. Don't get me wrong, I feel it is still an excellent picture, one of my favorites of the new book, but it just seems a little sad that they felt they needed to change it to be more flashy. And to top this all off, GW does not even credit their artists anymore, just the design studio. For such an important aspect of the hobby, and one of my favorite parts of it, I think they should get more credit (the art is the main reason I am excited about the release of a new book these days).
ReplyDeleteWhole heartedly agree on the Raven Wing piece. And the DA art in general did not work so well in color. The rest of it recently though, I am really happy with and GW has done a great job of keeping the classic masterpieces in the books and in their full glory. BTW, a lot of the B&W art from the earlier days was B&W in codex, but the actual painting was color. This really surprised me on one of my Studio visits ten or so years ago.
DeleteThe 6th edition rule book to me is the pinnacle of GW hobby. When things change, something dear is always left out, but that book underlines how incredible the hobby has developed and the worlds and races have grown into so much more.
It would be great if GW released more artbooks showcasing different artist's work. That way they could be presented in a way that is more faithful to the original. Because as it is now, it can be difficult to determine who's work the pictures are. Karl Kopinski has a facebook group that he posts pictures of a lot of his work, GW or otherwise, where he tells you the medium and materials used, something that I find fascinating.
DeleteThere new books are quite nice and are fun to collect. They certainly have high production values and seem to be written pretty well. I will agree with Godwyn that they have taken a step back in terms of the art, particularly in their lack of giving credit where credit is due. The only artist they now credit is Raymond Swanland who is the cover artist for all the new 6th edition books. The even managed to thank the playtesters for the book but they couldn't manage to list the artists by name.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of your other armies, good luck! It is really tricky to find the time to trim, assemble/convert, and paint an army of models. For the past few years I have only really found the time to assemble and convert models...
I'm torn by Swanland's work. I love the fact one guy is doing them all and they have such strong, coherent look - but I really think they are missing the point of 40k, the epicness of it all, the world's in which the games happen, the enemy, the scale of it. The 1st gen Daemon Hunter cover is probably my all time favorite. Even if it's basically a shot of just the inquisitor, but it's more powerful and descriptive than a 1000 words, where as say the Dark Angels cover is easily summarized in a tenth of that.
DeleteYeah, you are certainly right about the covers. That original Daemon Hunters cover was really impressive. There is so much emotion and tension captured in it. That vortex of teeth swirling up above the stalwart defenders of the Imperium. I also really like how it showcased the army without reverting to simply showing Space Marines. By keeping it to an Inquisitor and his acolytes it makes everything feel more gritty and nightmarish.
DeleteI think the new covers are definitely a step forward, as they are now very good and very consistent.
DeleteI can see your point about not enough epicness, but this is also true of many past covers. In general, I think the covers for the different Codex books have had a mostly consistent quality, there haven't been any serious let-downs like with some Warhamme Armies books.
Sisters of battle 2nd edition. It even tops the deamonhunter codex in sheer 40k ischness....
DeleteThat's a classic! I love that one, but I bought it a few years later, already familiar with the image, so it didn't have the sheer surprising impact of the Dainton piece combined with years and years of built up expectation for an Inquisitorial army in 40k. It's interesting how things become favorites.
DeleteI think the point with both the 40k and WHFB armies books is to present a clear archetype of the particular army, on a kind of personal level. It's as if the books present to the (potential) player the idea that, "choose this army, and BE this guy." Swanland manages to convey a lot of drama in a relatively tight space, which I think makes up for any lost epic-ness.
DeleteI concur with the comments above mine: while the books have definitely improved in terms of material quality, the content hasn't in many respects. And yet the prices continue to rise and rise... But that's another story and I will not continue down that road here.
ReplyDeleteOn the topic of your new army (armies?), I'd definitely like to see your take on Eldar. The way you describe your own ideas is very interesting. I look forward to future updates!
I second the topic of Eldar! I've always been interested to see what a John Blanche/80's Jes Goodwin take on Eldar would look like.
DeleteI just bought the new eldar codex and while impressed by the general design, background and cover art, there's a sort of sterility to it. There's no life - no playfulness.
ReplyDeleteNo conversions in the miniature gallery. No short stories. No Jes Goodwin sketches. How can you produce a eldar codex and not utilise Jes's sketches?
Initiate rant mode:
As a illustrator grown up on GW artwork I'm sad to say the artwork has declined in the new codices - all the pictures are plain rather uninspired illustrations of something that looks exactly like the model it supposed to represent ( especially the vehicles who are obviously just paintovers of the actual models) set i a vague, warlike environment.
In the olden days the art added something - they were illustrations of what the minis represented, not of the actual minis. Often they showed scenes not directly connected to battle. Generals planning. Soldiers sharing a cigarette ( eldar don't smoke but you get my drift). Lastly the decision that everything has to be in colour just because the codex is printed in colour seems pointless unless you actually produce new, real colour art - slapping some paint on a black and white illustration in photoshop doesn't quite cut it... It just looks cheap. GW can, and has, done better.
And for crisis sake, bring back Blanche! 40k isn't 40k without him.
My five cents...
I agree with this. What GW's best artists do is illustrate something and add their own creativity to it. They do not concern themselves with proper wargear or anything like that, or restrict their vision due to what models GW released. I think Karl Kopinski's stuff was some of the best GW has had; so many small details but all well proportioned and full of life. I feel the best artist inject new life into 40k, much like I fell Dan Abnett has in his books in the 40k universe.
DeleteI totally agree about the lack of colour and flavour.
DeleteMany paintings look a lot more like a product presentation than a depiction of individuals in their context. 40K has so much more to it than a Space Marine standing on a random battlefield firing his bolter.
To me hobbyists stuff and sketches belong in White Dwarf and we get that in great quantity and quality now. That's my ideal split. A polished product for rules, story, art and miniatures that GW completely owns, and a hobby magazine that showcases widely and regularly the many great facets of the hobby...most importantly gamers' armies and painters' minis.
DeleteEldar should be bright, so yellow is spot on. I think with a less black black they will be up to your modern standard. As for the Tau I've always thought that they work best with Chris Foss-style colours (http://www.chrisfossart.com/) I looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
ReplyDeleteThe new codexes are good and 6th ed is unquestionably the best edition yet. And the miniatures are simply fantastic. I can't imagine how they could be any better but with the progress in quality over the years they probably will. I can't wait to find out how :-)
As for the art I do agree a little with some of the other posters: there does seem to be something missing for the art in some of the new books. I can't define it but I wonder if it's a combination of our familiarity with the the images that have been coloured and also with the universe. That it doesn't have the impact that it once did because we know it. One of the first things that I do when I look through the latest book is hunt out the new art and it is almost always good. The two page spread of all the tau and marine aircraft in the Tau Codex is a good example of this. Perhaps we are just a bit jaded :-)
On a slightly side note I asked Kevin Chin about the coloured art at Games Day Oz last year and he said a lot of the pictures are not recoloured but completely redone. With the artists taking the opportunity to rework their classic pictures. I didn't get a chance for any follow up questions so I may have miss-understood him but it seems a bit extreme in the age of photoshop. Maybe they have just been redoing parts and colouring the rest.
Interesting to hear Kevin's comment. He has certainly been a great addition to the team!!
DeleteI would agree the improvements to GW books and products have been amazing, even in the course of a year. More has happened in their products in a year then has in the last 5 before it in my opinion. I think what I see as the big change to the art work has a lot to do with full page printing and colour use. Having so much of the old art just in black and white made it feel dark, not just tonally but it gave the atmosphere to the whole hobby by being that way. It made it feel like tomes hand drawn or recreated by monks redrawing and writing out every copy for distributions. I always pictured the drawings as images captured by servoskulls and then their creepy spider pen arms redrawing them out in varying styles and accuracies depending on the adept who built them's tastes or abilities. The new art work feels more like concept art from gaming companies and films. It is beautiful don't get me wrong but I think the use of colours and digital painting has drastically changed the feel of everything kind of taking the edge off everything. It's safer scifi. The edge in a lot of the art seems to be gone.
ReplyDeleteThe colourization of the old art work I haven't decided my stance on, It seems odd a lot of the time or kinda quickly done. Almost like water colour in a colouring book for kids. But in some instances I have noticed detail and elements I had never noticed or focused on before which I guess is a good thing since its making you look at old art work in a new way.
The two recent codexes truly are amazing I am a Blood Angels player myself and our last codex was truly an answered prayer and all the fresh artwork it had was amazing but now these new codexes have me almost pleading to get the same treatment. It all has certainly come a long way from 3 page supplements that required other main codexes to be used. I'm glad they are taking their publishing more serious and think it is in fact worth cost I just fear the creep towards the $100 mark.