Bretonnian Infantry Command, painted as Standard Bearer of Dralas

I got this nice little miniature on eBay. Could not recognize the code, and didn't record the year before basing it. I just know it's Bretonnian and it comes from a command group. It could easily be Perry-sculpted, as far as I know.

I bought him together with a bunch of other Bretonnian infantrymen, with the idea of creating a group of guards to use in WFRP games. I toyed with the project of painting them all with the colours of Dralas, the homebrew city in the Border Princes where most of my scenarios start. After a long time, only this guy has been painted, and the other will most likely follow in another livery, that of Artesia, the bordering princedoms that usually poses as the villain of the campaign.

Dralas is a port city and its colours are white and blue, like the sea and the foam over the waves. The city sits at the mouth of the river Zaffirio, so sapphire is the stone associated with the city heraldry. The other association is the Sea Serpent: according to legend, Dralas was originally founded by Elves and abandoned in the distant past, then a Sea Serpent set its abode under the murky waters of the ruined elven harbour, until the hero Dalphis slew the reptile and reclaimed the ruins, becoming the founder of the city.

Dalphis lived some 15 centuries ago and since then Dralas has seen many events: the city was a capital and then a subject, it had kings, princes and councils of citizens. Until recently it was ruled by a prince, until he was forced by an elven adventurer and pirate to surrender power and the hand of his sister. Nowadays it is the Regent Gelmir Lindarian who controls the government. This, however, does hardly mean that he holds power: Dralas is a famously seedy port where a lot of deals are made under locked doors, and the real power rarely resides where it appears to be.

The Regent directly controls the Black Guard, a group 30 of mercenaries who helped him conquer the city, commanded by general Achille. The Palace Guard's loyalty is divided between the Regent and the Prince: they are about 30 well trained warriors. The City Guard (90 members) follows the orders of the Regent as long as it gets paid regularly. The City Militia, being the largest force in town (450 members), obeys its Captains, who in turn are nominated among nobles, and so they follow their own interests and are generally raised only in case of foreign invasions.

This guy probably belongs to the City Guard and is therefore the most flexible. He could be used to police the streets, guard locations or escort important people in town. He wears a padded leather jacket and a helm, and is armed with a sword (so he is probably an official) and carries a standard with the city device.

Fantasy Visuals: John Blanche - Part II (the '90s)

Continues from Part I.

In 1991 Bryan Ansell sold his shares in Games Workshop and left the company, and Tom Kirby took over the top management. More interested in the business side than in art and games, Kirby delegated the supervision of these activities to other managers. John Blanche was already Art Director but he was mostly involved in the Warhammer 40K setting, launched in 1987 and quickly gathering fans; but for Warhammer Fantasy, at that time the core business of the company, work had been directed by Ansell with the assistance of many designers and artists. With Ansell missing, Blanche was able to give a stronger personal touch to Fantasy art.

Unfortunately, in the following years many of the earlier artists that had helped define Warhammer left the company: first Paul Bonner and Adrian Smith started to work on other projects, including comics magazine Toxic! managed by Pat Mills; Russ Nicholson and Ian Miller didn't like the way things were managed and soon left as well, and Tony Ackland also reduced his contributions. eventually John Blanche, Dave Gallagher and Wayne England were the only artists left from the '80s team, and England left not long after. The only new addition to the team was Mark Gibbons.

At this time, Games Workshop was starting to become massively popular, and instead of adapting its products to existing settings - like the world of Tolkien, Moorcock, Lovecraft and Judge Dredd - the company found itself as the plagiarized one. In order to defend its business, GW embarked on a policy that changed its history forever: drop all references from other settings and develop their own lore and style, setting it apart from everyone else to better defend it from copycats. It was the birth of the Warhammer IP.

Cover for WH40K 2nd edition (1993)

While in the '80s Warhammer had thrived on the variety of styles on many artists, now the management wanted to have a single, clear style, which John Blanche was tasked to develop. He had to define, in his words, "the visual language of Warhammer". And the grammar of that language was made of skulls, scrolls, giant banners, bulky armours, fancy helms, oversized weapons, mohawks, masks, tattooed latin mottoes, grotesque shapes, mixing of organic and mechanical, leather, bolts and spikes. 
 

Empire Army (1992)

High Elf Hero (1993)

High Elves (1993)

Undead Army (1994)

Bretonnia (1996)

Night Goblins (1996)

Chaos Thugs (1998)

In Warhammer Fantasy, Blanche's touch was, in a way, more limited but also created a more marked break with the past. The realistic and somehow creepy or melancholic touch of previous authors was lost in favour of pure fury and rage: most of Blanche's art on this setting consists of massive battle scenes, where heroic characters fight in messy melees. It emphasizes combat over subtlety, and epicness over horror. Honestly I don't know if this was intentional or simply a reflection of Blanche's more superficial interest in Fantasy: but the departure from the 80s was significant, and it influenced the whole studio.

Skaven Shaman (1992)

Orc (1995)

To be fair, Blanche also worked on some single character studies, but again they were mostly focused on combat, with monsters wielding weapons and keeping aggressive stances. The new mood was set, and Warhammer Fantasy art would never again be the same.

In Warhammer 40K, Blanche's passion was more evident: he produced marvellous concept art that defined the setting forever. Its sheer breadth and variety is unbelievable, and possibly Blanche reached the zenith of his creativity in this period. Compared to the 80s, his style developed into more sketchy and focusing on surrealistic elements, that distort proportions and convey a feeling of grotesqueness and madeness that eventually became a trademark of 40K.

And they shall know no fear (1993(

Golden Throne (1993)

Squats (1993)

Cupids from Necromunda (1995)

 

Ratskin Ganger from Necromunda (1995)

Adepta Sororitas (1997)

Ecclesiarchy (1997)

Cover for WH40K 3rd edition (1998)

Battlefleet Gothic (1999)

By the end of the '90s, both Warhammer Fantasy and 40K bore the mark of John Blanche. One, in my opinion, more successfully than the other. The following decades would see each develop according to the groudnwork done in the '90s.

And for what concerns John Blanche, everything is detailed in Part III.