WFRP Gamekeeper Art

This post might sound a bit like I'm bragging, so forgive me, but when one is an art geek, few things make him or her more excited that being able to connect two dots together: to fish into the ocean of details learned and committed to memory, and draw an imaginary line to link them, and tie them into something larger and closer to "the whole picture'.

This is what happened to me when I was able to get an original painting of the Gamekeeper WFRP career, by the legendary Tony Ackland, which now sits in my study, just under the Minstrel.

This picture is where everything started - in 1984-85 T. Ackland was commissioned a set of careers for the publishing of WFRP; he drew this among many, and it eventually made it to the final cut (some careers were expunged for space at the last moment).

In 1985 miniatures were also commissioned by GW to the Perry twins, to go with the forthcoming RPG; among them the C07 Ranger series.
 

In this range, the Gamekeeper appeared as per Ackland's illustration. And below is my copy, painted.

 

This is how the illustration appeared in the WFRP 1ed Core Rules, published in 1986.

This is hardly the only example: it was normal in GW, at the time, to have a direct cooperation between illustrators and sculptors, each influencing each other. Concept art was created all the time and then another artist would elaborate on that, and that is, in my opinion, what made the Golden Age GW so great. Each and every artist was good and had his/her own style, but all were working in harmony under the wise supervision of J. Blanche.

Do you know any other example of  this? Share it! It's awlays nice to dig into the creative process that led to some of the best gaming products ever, which today we simply classify as: Oldhammer.