Fantasy Visuals: John Blanche - Part IV (the '10s)

Continues from Part III. 

John Blanche's art in the 2010s is not very much unlike that in the 2000s, except that the trends emerged in that period seem to take momentum and impact even more than before. In a nutshell: Blanche, having set up a studio that is able to work by itself, takes more and more distance from the Warhammer products, providing occasional pieces (mostly for the 6th edition of 40K) and a lot of concepts that, although not meant for publication, still make heir way into the Codexes and Army Books. There is, still, a passion that looks back at the '80 in a number of artworks, as if John was remembering old stuff and reworking it into his later art, a quality that is higher than anything in the past ten or fifteen years. 

Necrons (2011)

Nightmare (2011)

Vampire Counts (2011)

Zombie Dragon (2011)

Beast of Nurgle (2012)

Death World (2012)

Exterminatus (2012)

Hour of Darkness (2012)

Imperium (2012)

Keeper of Secrets (2012)

Plague Drones (2012)

Sanguinius (2012)

The Changeling (2012)

The Enemy Within (2012)

The feeling is that creativity is back along with experimentation.  There's less mandatory product sketches from marketing and more stuff that comes from the artist's own imagination. There is an old attention to detail that was almost forgotten after the mid 1990s, this time benefitting from the experience of a navigated artist. The result is amazing.

When Warhammer Fantasy is killed and Age of Sigmar takes its place, John Blanche is only involved in the concept: he will not officially work on it, as his semi-retirements starts.

Kairic Acolyte (2014) 

Nurglings (2016)

Kharadron Overlord (2017)

There is little to no published material of his in the 7th edition of 40K and none at all in the 8th. At this point John mostly draws for himself, for friends and for games he plays. Look at the art below and consider how much it looks like a direct update of the earlier art from the '80s.

 

"Let us dance" 2019

Tarot card (2019)

Innocentius (2019)

Unkown Title (2020)

These days he publishes his sketches through a Facebook page, and he gets involved in many fan projects along with other gamers. Blanche can be occasionally met at gaming conventions around Nottingham, where is often a guest of honour, one of them being BOYL in Newark.

Overall John Blanche is one of the most influential artists in British fantasy art, and certainly the most influential in the history of GW. Even if his art is polarizing and not for everyone, no one can deny that even today all of GW's art exists in his shadow. He is also the only artist that is going to get four posts in Fantasy Visuals on this blog - that was a long ride started a year and a half ago and it took me a long time to go through all his published works. But it was fun, and I learned to appreciate him even more than I did before. I hope you do too!

Leave a comment, if you like, and tell us about your favourite piece from John Blanche. Soon I'll post on a new artist from the '80s.