Fantasy Visuals: Rodney Matthews

After Roger Dean, the next big name in Fantasy Art in UK was without any doubt Rodney Matthews. Just one year younger than Dean, Matthews was born on 6th July 1945 in Paulton, North Somerset. Like many other authors, he attended an art school (West of England College of Art) and after it he proceeded to find a job in advertising.

It was in 1970 that he decided to leave his job to become a freelance and draw what he liked, but it took some time before he made a name of himself. Using acrylic on board, his primary inspiration at this time were Rackham and the other illustrators of his time, whose influence is clear in the sketchy characters, goblins and elves with slanted eyes and pointed hats, and in the gnarled and twisted shapes of trees. Matthews was, at this time, already a fan of fantasy fiction and Tolkien was his main literary inspiration, so that his first paintings are tributes to the Professor's works. The depth of Matthew's knowledge of Tolkien's books is noteworthy: while the Hobbit and the Lord of Rings were popular with artists, few even knew about the Silmarillion, published in 1977: that same year, our author was already drawing scenes from it.

1973 Gollum in the Dead Marshes

1977 The People of the Pines - a reference to the Elves of Dorthonion

1979 A view over Isengard

The Dwarves of Belegost

Soon, however, Matthews' style developed with two, even greater, influences. The first was the work of Roger Dean, which we already mentioned - one year older, Dean was already very famous and at some point Matthews started to draw heavily from his style, setting his scenes in surrealistic landscapes with atmospheric lights. This didn't suit well Dean, who considered Matthews a shameless plagiarist.

1981 Mirador

1987 Stronghold

1970s Inverted Landscapes

1970s Freyja's ca... no wait, this is "Tanelorn"

True or not (you decide), around this time Matthews started to get commissions for album covers, and soon made a name in the industry, at first working for prog bands (including Asia, Dean's best client) but later becoming iconic for heavy metal ones.

1978 No mean city - Nazareth

1981 Time tells no lies - Praying Mantis

1981 Time to turn - Eloy (UK issue)

1995 Arena - Asia

The other inspiration was a writer, Michael Moorcock, who was just at this time receiving his first recognitions. Matthews and Moorcock became friends and actively cooperated, with the first illustrating the second's stories, especially those about Elric of Melniboné.

Chequered Floor

Obsidian Castle

The Dragon Lord

1981 - Encore at the End of Time

From the 80s on, Rodney Matthews became a well established author doing a lot of works also based on other books, and his style became more stable. He did many book covers, calendars and more albums, plus in the 1990s he opened his own web store where he sells art prints, mugs and other merchandising.

1978 Estcarp Five - Matthews illustrated many covers from the Witch World cycle

The Duke to the Rescue - this is from F. Herbert's Dune

The sack of Zodanga - from E. Rice Burrough's Mars cycle

In 1998 Matthews worked with Gerry Anderson on the children animated series Lavender Castle.

In the same year he worked with Psygnosis supplying conceptual designs for the game Shadow Master and again in 2002 for Haven: Call of the King by Midway.

Still active at the time of this post, Rodney Matthews is a difficult artist to frame. On one side, he borrowed extensively (shamelessly, one would say) from other artists both visually and conceptually (but then, also Led Zeppelin did, didn't they?). On the other, he has created outstanding art whose influence on sci-fi, steampunk and fantasy can not be in any way downplayed.

Talking about influences, Matthews's style could be described as Proto-Hammer: all the early artists at Games Workshop were directly or indirectly referencing his works. You can glimpse it in John Blanche's reddish or yellowish landscapes and crooked tree-shapes, or in Tony Ackland's demons with long, flat, skullish heads and overlong claws; in Jes Goodwin's Elves with pointed hats, long, thin faces and slanted eyes, or again in Gary Chalk's exaggerated traits in Goblins and monsters. Perhaps Warhammer as we know it would not exist without Rodney Matthews.

Think of that! And while you do, take a look at a gallery of my favourites:

1978 - Drum Boogie

1979 - Dragon Colony (from Elric at the End of Time)

Ilian of Garathorm

1985 - The Heavy Metal Hero

1992 - Lament for the Weary

2008 - Immortal

Spiros Kanakis - Steve Barber Greek Irregular No. 1 (2014)

I am a man of many interests. Too many, some might say. I am a huge nerd for 10th century Europe. Then I also dig all things Middle-earth. Warhammer (Oldhammer), too. Recently I even started venturing into Warhammer 40K. All of these had (or will have) some degree of space on this blog. 

The thing you didn't know yet is that I'm also a fan of all things Oriental in the Colonial Age. That wonderful time when Europeans were discovering the world was a bigger place than they thought, and were creating a new one by meeting the great civilisations of the East.

 

I even play an RPG set in 1831 Orient. We started several years ago with the PCs (a young and unscrupulous English gambler, an aging and disenchented Scottish war doctor looking for retirement, an ambitious and manipulative Italian Jesuit priest and an ex Turkish Janissary in hiding) meeting in Istanbul. Through haphazard planning and conning whomever they could, they managed to flee the city for Greece, Rome and then Egypt, where they are currently trying to escape once more a long list of enemies they made along the way. Several of them have died gruesomely and have been replaced by new PCs.

One of these is Spiros Kanakis, Greek merchant, sea captain and adventurer, who met the group in the Hellenic capital of Nauplia and was hired to transport them around the Eastern Mediterranean.

Spiros was naive enough to introduce the other PCs to his friends dealing in politics, high ranking members of the English Party. Soon enough their empty promises and clumsy manipulation forced them to leave and Spiros with them - partly because he does not dare to go back to Nauplia, and partly because he is decided to make as much profit as he can from the other PCs. He is a professional looking for profit but most of the time his efforts are directed at staying alive and not being arrested by the local authorities.

Spiros is currently in Alexandria, trying to book a passage for India, and at the same time trying to rescue the Scottish doctor whom, dressed as a Greek and posing as a Frenchman, was captured by the secret police of the khedivé and accused (quite rightly, I might say) to be a spy.

As far as I know, there is only one company manufacturing models of Greeks during the War of Independence period, and this is Steve Barber Models. They were commissioned to do this range by a generous patron in 2014 and they have, in my opinion, done an excellent job. This figure depicts a Greek or Albanian Irregular, with the traditional clothes of these people during the early 19th century. He is armed with a muzzle-loading rifle, a long straight knife and a curved sabre.

The level of detail is good, and painting it was easy and fun. I look forward to do justice to the rest of the range in the months to come!

Citadel Slann and their successors

 

When you reach the venerable age of 38 and you're still into miniatures, most people will tend to consider you a child who never grew up, but that's not entirely true. Children are children, all right, they are in love with the hobby, but something inside of you is different, and that's the part that proves that you are not child, but in fact an old man. A grumbly old man.

All of us, even those who have the bravery to admit that AoS is actually cool, have succumbed at least once (or more) to the urge to grumble. Italians have a nice word for it: brontolone. Bronto- come from the Greek and means "thunder" (as in brontosaurus, yes) and fittingly calls to mind the image of a distant storm on the horizon, lightning flashing, thunder quietly rolling - all of the evening. There might be even some raindrops on your car, just to make it dirty, but no big actual storm. Just this constant and useless rolling thunder. The French have another word: grognard. That's the word I'm gonna use to tag all posts whose content could be summarized into "back in my time, things were different". Young people rant, we do not: we grumble. Face it, it's in our nature.

This was a very long preamble to introduce the subject of Slann miniatures. We all know who the Slann are (or were, back in my time before the retcon). But where do their concept come from, originally?

I believe the first sketch ever of the Slann might be this piece by John Blanche, titled "Troglodytes", which I found on Ratspike. In spite of the name, these are clearly Slann: the shape of the head, the armour, even the pyramid in the background.

A more mature sketch is the following, also by Blanche. Here the Slann have already developed their name and are drawn in more confident strokes.

After this, GW's staff set themselves to work. Tony Ackland drew Slann for the 2nd Edition of WFB (1983), and also in the later articles Kremlo the Slann (1983) and the Magnificent Sven (1984):

Moreover at the same time, in 1983-1984 - difficult to tell if illustrators influenced sculptors, or it was the other way around - the Perry twins sculpted the first, glorious C32 figures.

These were quite succesful and, in 1986, Citadel issued a new series of Slann, sculpted by Trish Morrison. And these were beautiful, too: it was difficult to spot the difference with the Perry pieces.

Then, for no apparent reason, something terrible happened. The 1987 new Slann relase, designed together by Trish and Aly Morrison, came out, and they looked nothing like the originals:

The new Slann looked more like clumsy toads trying to stand on two feet (with little success). Heads became wide and flat, eyes bulged out and torsos almost disappeared. This was the end of classic Slann: the whole "amphibian master-race from Space" concept was forgotten and, in 1997 they were retconned in favour of the Old Ones and the Lizardmen.

What was left to us, with the name Slann, was this. A bloated, big-headed toad:

And that's the end, as far as GW is concerned. But a lot of people still loved the Slann and independent manufacturers tried to support them with new figures. For some reason, though, most of them were more frogmen than actual Slann as we knew them.

I believe Mirliton's Kermitians were the first. I have a lot of respect for Mirliton, and that's why I will not comment on these figures.

Then it was probably Ral Partha who issued their Bullfrogs. They had way more character than Mirliton's Kermitians, but still looked like anthropomorphic frogs.

Reaper Frogmen are suspiciously similar to the previous, with a bit detail, but with the same inherent flaws.

Otherworld Boglings are less frogs, and more TMNT from the movie (the ugly ones).

Mantic's Frogmen are just more of the same. Good figures, mind me, but nowhere close to the original Slann. These are frogmen, period.

Katsina were the first to give up the "frog on two legs" idea and get closer to the original, with exotic weapons and feathered helms. These are nice, but still only a first step towards the original Perry. To put it clearly: put them on a table next to each other, and you will spot the difference from three metres distance.

And just when everything seemed lost, lo! Tim Prow comes out with the Eru-Kin. And let me say: these are the nicest Slann-like miniatures made after 1986.

Diehard brings out all the old colour (light armour of plates + leather strips, round shields, feathered helms, weird weapons and a meso-American feel) and adds some more in the same tune: this is how you do good Oldhammer in the 2010s. Sure, you say, there is significant difference in the heads:

On one side, a big, tall, bloated head. On the other a more lizard-like, long and flat one. Sure, copyright is still a thing and GW isn't kind to those challenging them. You can't call them Slann. You can't do them exactly the same as John Blanche first drew them. Still, these to me look more "right" than the 1987 Citadel toad-people.

In a perfect world, we would have a second set of heads to replace the lizard-like ones, but in the meantime I must say I am very happy about these. Will probably try to fix them with some greenstuff: I'll let you know how it goes. But even without any fix, this is a huge step in bringing Oldhammer back. Well done, Tim Prow!