Warhammer Art

I am resolving to draw more and learn about digital art, to make that something I can pursue as a career and not just as a hobby.

To that end as I draw things, even partial illustrations like this - I will be adding them to my blog as I attempt to break out of the trappings of the amateur.


When Dark Angels were redesigned for 40k, relics were a recurring theme. They appear on the Landspeeder Vengeance, on the Nephilim fighter, on the Ravenwing Command Squad... But there is no reliquary retinue, as you sometimes see in Space Marine official art.

In the 2009 and 2014 Space Hulk re-issues, one of the Blood Angel objectives is a beautiful model of a dead marine in Terminator armour on a throne. I always thought that would be a wonderful base for a conversion of a beatified Space Marine, mummified in his armour, surrounded by chapter serfs and thralls, swinging incense and lighting black candles, providing a morale boost or a force field save to nearby rank-and-file troops.

I liked the image of a Space Marine with candles burning across the back of his armour so I quickly sketched it:

Chaos Space Marines have an aesthetic that is mutable as Tzeentch, and I think the best examples of it are found in the Forge World conversion sets and the "Dark Vengeance" Chosen models.  It's something I never quite get right but occasionally I do an ink sketch I really like:

An older Vampire Counts sketch - I had a strong mental image of a very dark, skeletal Dire Wolf,  and half decayed steeds for Black Knights:

Illustration for a BBC Radio 4 adaption of Neil Gaiman's excellent "The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains".  They hosted the pictures on their websie for a while.  Some were very simple, by school children doing a class project, others were by very talented illustrators: