Slann Renegade with looted weapons (1984)

This mini comes from the Magnificent Sven scenario, published in 1984, and it is classified as "Slann warrior". The sculpt is from the Perry Twins. What I love about this Slann are the details that make it special: the crest over the head, making it look special and "punk"; the interesting mix of traditional Slann and metal weapons, which gives it the look of a deserter with looted equipment. The slightly crouched, defensive position, as if about to ambush an enemy.

Besides Imperial Slann and Savage Slann, an interesting and often overlooked faction of Lustria are the Renegade Slann. Those born within the Empire who, for practical or ideological reasons, forsake it and live as outlaws. They may be deserters from the Imperial Army, religious or political dissidents, escaped criminals. Sometimes simply followers of the Forbidden Gods.

They survive on the outskirts of the Slann Empire as bandits, smugglers or mercenaries. They are generally nomadic, always on the run from their foes, but sometimes they may form permanent communities. Unlike Imperial Slann, they have no qualms about adopting foreign customs - they are fond of iron and steel weaponry and they are ready to learn the lore of the ghanazil (non-Lustrians) - if those serve their purpose.

 

Sea Elf Bolt-thrower - converted from a Dark Elf one (1991)

I've been looking hard to find a Sea Elf (slash High Elf) Bolt-thrower from WFB 3rd editions, and I was lucky. More than lucky, in fact, as fellow
Oldhammer Elf fan Tim Welch was so gallant to let me have some bits in need of love - a Dark Elf Bolt-thrower missing its original wheels and its crew. They had earlier been painted up but probably disassembled at some point. I stripped them and set myself to sculpt some new wheels with copper wire and greenstuff, which turned out okay-ish. Well, here they are.

They don't look too abysmal, I hope, as members of the Lustrian Sea Elf clan of the Silverpearl, inhabiting the Elf island off the coast of the Imperial Slann city of Osshual. Known for their craftiness in trade and diplomacy, the Silverpearls have a long history in Lustria, which they credit to their habit of not entering melee. They let other, smaller, younger and less important clans join the fray for them. The Silverpearls man the bolt-throwers.

 

The original crew sculpts looks like a proper militia, none of them having similar armour or equipment. I painted them accordingly, tying them together by the use of similar colours: a garish cyan, off-white and black. They all have a similar, pale shell on the base.

Skaven Clanrats from Warhammer Island of Blood Box (2010)

 I'll keep it extra-short this time. I've been having fun painting a bunch of Skaven pawns. Originally they're from WFB 8th edition box Island of Blood (dated  2010), the one with the High Elves too, but these are great for any game from WFRP to HeroQuest. Enjoy.

Drachenfels - The Great Enchanter, Westfalia Miniatures (2019)

I bought this miniature during a Kickstarter from Westfalia in 2019 or so. The moment I saw it I knew I had to have it - it was, after all, modelled blatantly on Martin McKenna's excellent illustration from the WFRP Drachenfels sourcebook.

 

When finally I got it I got quite intimidated by it and it sat in a box for a while. That is until February 2021, when fellow Oldhammerist @paula_she_creature launched a competition on undead. Martin McKenna had recently passed away at 51, and his death still made me uneasy. Martin was one of the essential Oldhammer artists to me. His work in the Enemy Within campaign defined it, and any new edition without his art is watered down to me. So to remember him I decided to give a go to this miniature.

The curse of Drachenfels still hung on anything connected to him: the miniature fell from the table (I almost never drop my miniatures, and this dropped twice), breaking index and middle finger and the horns of the helm. I was able to fix the latter, but the beautiful hand is forever gone.

Other than this, the miniature was easy and fun to paint. Here it is, in all its darkness. Drachenfels, the Great Enchanter, Warhammer's first and most insane supervillain.

Godspeed wherever you are Martin. We already miss your art.

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.