Where are they now? Slaves to Darkness original cover painting found in Canada!

About a year ago, I posed a question. I asked 'where are all of the original pieces of art for the classic 1980s GW releases'? For example, on whose wall did the cover painting from the Warhammer Fantasy Battle Third Edition rulebook hang? And what about the cover painting of Warhammer Armies? Or Warhammer Siege? 

Did they even still exist? After the tales we learnt together of dumped material in rain sodden skips? If you need a refresher, or were not part of our community this time last year, have a quick look at my original article here.

We have had some success. Tim Pollard's collection was a revelation, with some very famous White Dwarf and other minor supplement covers in his collection. Some of Tony Hough's Eldar turned up too. The Ansell family owned the original Warhamer Fantasy Battle painting from 1983, as those of us at the last Oldhammer Weekend would have seen. But it wasn't until Pat Robinson contacted me to share the fact that he owned the original cover painting for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay did we start hitting on the big league.

Well, Pat has got back in contact with me and is keen to talk to you dear readers about his latest purchase, the original painting from the Slaves to Darkness cover!

I'll hand over to Pat and he will fill you in on all the juicy details. I will just add a big thank you to him once again for remembering the Oldhammer Community and sharing his discovery with us all here.

Over to you Pat...

For all the worshipers of Khorne and the Slaanesh – and who isn’t? – here are a few pictures of the original painting of Slaves to Darkness, by John Sibbick. 

    

When I acquired this, I believe that was one of the last of John’s Warhammer pieces, and my framer framed it as a set with the original WFRP cover from John that was discussed on this blog in October of last year. 

Pat's evocative frame for Slaves to Darkness

Slaves to Darkness is a fun painting, with that smiling hound of Khorne in the bottom right, and the bright colours and contrasts of the various horrors.  

It is exactly what the World of Warhammer is supposed to feel like.  So, we framed this one with a little more fun in mind, in contrast to the somewhat more grim WFRP cover.  The dark maroon suede matting really emphasizes the crazy World of Warhammer, in my opinion. It would be perfect to use as a background on a blog, or something!  

As we framed these together, we chose the identical lizard-scaled frame, but in jet-black this time.   I think they look pretty good together, and they are always fun to review, as there is just so much going on – you will always notice some small new detail.   They are always a conversation piece, to be sure.  Although sometimes the conversation is from my wife, Irina, asking why we have so many monster paintings hanging in the house!

As with all his paintings that I have seen, John kept this one in perfect shape.    I wish I had a time machine to go back and get some more from John, as his paintings really stand out as something special from the 1980s.

The original preliminary artwork for Slaves to Darkness. I am not sure if this has ever been published before! I am certain that I have never seen this.

John emailed me a picture of the preliminary, which I confess I do not own, and he thinks was sold.  There are some interesting points in this very detailed prelim.  Most noticeably, there was at one point to be an orc-type beast on the spine, behind the large axe, but presumably he was cut because John remembered his sacrificial alter did not make it on the WFRP book, due to Games Workshop not having art on the spine, typically.

A close up of the previously unknown (to me anyway) Khornate orc from Slaves to Darkness. In fact, looking at it again poss the question, is it supposed to be an orc? Lizardman? Beastman?

John obviously nailed the colours, as they are exactly as described in the preliminary - it is almost like two paintings.  The prelim details were so precise, there were not many other significant changes in the final painting, other than filling in the details and adding some background villains to give a greater sense of depth.  Also, one of the shields has “Khorne” written on it, if you look closely.

He even planned out some more heads on spikes.  I look forward to a discussion as to who's heads these are?  Sibbick?  Gallagher?  Some luckless GW intern? 

Pat's art collection hanging on his walls. 

As I said, these are great conversation pieces for my gaming friends, and I am honoured to be able to display them.  Sometimes I am asked about this painting’s cousin, the Lost and the Damned cover – “Nurgle” by Les Edwards… While I have a few Fighting Fantasy game book covers from Les, sadly, he sold Nurgle long, long ago (and not to me, I swear!)…  So, there remains a mystery out there as to who can track down what has been lost… and what is lost and damned!!

Cheers from Calgary,

Pat

Once again I have to thank Pat for sharing his collection with us. But he poses us an interesting question, doesn't he? Where is the original Lost and the Damned artwork?

If you know, or know of the location of any other artworks, please get in contact with us here at realmofchaos80s@yahoo.co.uk.

Orlygg

Where are they now? Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Cover Painting Discovered in Canada!

Pat has framed the piece beautifully. Imagine having this hanging on one of your walls?

A glorious sight is it not? Beautifully, and dare I say tastefully, framed and presented yet safe in the collection of a enthusiast. No tragic skipping for John Sibbick's seminal Warhammer artwork, as we have learnt to our great misfortune, happened with much of Gary Chalk's GW art. You may remember some months back I set out on a quest to track down the whereabouts of key pieces of art from GW dim and distant past. If your memory needs a jog, or you never read the original post, it can be found here. The search has proved successful so far, with Realm of Chaos 80s uncovering Tony Hough's Eldar and Tim Pollard's Collection and all the old school goodness that follows in their wake. 

As I said, this post is dedicated to the cover of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, published in 1986, and is, for me anyway, the defining resource for what the Warhammer World should actually look like. The forests, towns, mountain ranges, people and creatures that dwell amongst it all. Sibbick's front cover is perhaps the most iconic of them all when it come to the 80's Warhammer Mythos. The crumbling underground tomb, the band of heroes (including the troll slayer, who I always assumed to be Gotrek), the Ogre Face banner with squiggles radiating out of it, the mohican with black and white chequers, the green, bandy goblins and the deep sense of inevitable doom for all of the characters involved.

Just looking an the picture above sends me back to the glory days of Warhammer gaming. I can smell the Christmas pine needles, hear the wrapping being torn from gifts and feel the rough sensation of the Rudolph jumper I was wearing when I first laid eyes on the WFRP book during a long ago '80s Christmas Day. I can recall the wild adventures I made up for my friends, The Oldenhallen Contract, The Enemy Within and all the rest. I hope it triggers similar memories for you too. 

But how did the famous painting come to be framed and enjoyed in distant Canada? Well, I was contacted yesterday by one Pat Robinson, a collector of fantasy art who resides somewhere nearby Naggaroth. let's ask him...

RoC80s: How did you come to own this incredible piece of 1980s Warhammer artwork?

PR: I bought this directly from John a while back, and it took a great deal of convincing, as I think it was his last Warhammer piece, and he really wanted it... But, eventually I won him over.   This book was special to me, as I received it for Christmas in 1986 and it took over my life for a number of years.  To this day, I will still open it and flip through to look at the amazing art within when I walk by it on my shelf.  I have about 60 Warhammer RPG books, but this was always my favourite.  

I framed it with a dark green suede matting as I like the organic moss look that I think works well with the scene.  It is stunning in real life, and John kept it in immaculate shape.  The gold trim is a scale pattern which I think plays with the orc skin pretty well. 

RoC80s: You also own a preliminary sketch by Sibbick, which to my knowledge has never before been published, does the early drawing contain anything different to the finished piece?

The original concept sketch. I believe that this is the first time this has been published. So enjoy it!

PR: On the right of the sketch, there is a different character than in the final, and John has a note "Should there be a magician in the here somewhere?"   Ultimately, there was, and the outlaw (who an be identified as such from the career sketch of the outlaw at pg. 32 of the WFRP book, despite John calling him a "thief") was replaced forever.  I guess that outlaw should have saved one more fate point! 

What I found interesting is there are 3 bats in different spots in the painting, (can you spot them all?)  which surprised me, as there was only one on the book... Or so I thought, from many years of use and long car rides.  It turns out, by coincidence, 2 of the bats were under the text of the book, so could not be seen.  A nice little surprise. 

A close up on the right hand side. The large square is a text box, indicating where the blurb would go. 

PR: Also, the sacrificial altar, which looks great in the painting is not on the spine of the book (which did not have art) so that was another nice reveal in the final painting.  

John had written at the top of the preliminary sketch "Temple to the Worship of Khorne - God of Chaos", so now we know where this band of adventurers was heading. On  the bottom, John identifies that the first sketch of this was accepted by Games Workshop - with good reason, I should think.

Can you spot the difference? Hint! Have a look to the right of the ogre.

PR: Anyhow, this piece now hangs in one of my art rooms, along with my other game book covers.  There are 2 Endless Quest book covers and 4 Fighting Fantasy covers, so it is with some good 1980s friends.  

I would probably collected more game book covers if I had not read a book called Game of Thrones in 1996 and started buying all of its bookcovers, and a bunch of other book covers from some guy named George R.R. Martin... 

Speaking of magicians... 

Keep up the great work on the blog.

Cheers, 

Pat from Calgary

The image was used elsewhere too. Here, after a flip, it forms the cover for Magia i Miecz, the Polish language edition of Talisman City. Isn't strange to see such a similar image the other way around?

As always, a huge thank you needs to go out to Pat for contributing to this blog. I am sure that many of you will want to do the same below in the comments section. What is your opinion about this picture? Does it summon similar memories for you as it does for Pat and myself? Or do you dislike the image, and if you do, why?

Additionally, if YOU own any old school GW artwork? If the answer is yes, please, please share it with us here. You will find a very captive audience just waiting to froth over your artwork!

Orlygg

Where Are They Now? Elder Artworks by Tony Hough and Fangorn

Some months ago I put the word out that I was interested in tracking down the whereabouts of key pieces of '80s GW artwork. I came up trumps with the collection of Tim Pollard, who lived with John Blanche and Wayne England during our period of interest and collected many works during that time. 

I am happy to state, that I was contacted by Jon Boyce a couple of weeks ago with details about his collection of artworks and he was keen to share them with us here at Realm of Chaos 80s. So without any further ado, I'll hand over to him as he takes you through his small collection of pieces. Of course, if you own any classic old school artworks and wish to share them with the wider collecting world please contact me here, at realmofchaos80s@yahoo.co.uk.

Eldar Broadside in print in White Dwarf.

Eldar Broadside by Tony Hough

I remember this image very fondly from WD127 (the Craftworld Eldar army list issue). All the background, illustrations and models sparked my continuing love for Eldar. Back in late 2007 there was the unsavoury incident where a Tony Hough illustration was temporarily stolen from an exhibition in Warhammer World. I had seen the exhibition and it prompted me to see whether Tony had an online presence, and specifically whether he had the WD127 image available for sale. A simple exchange of emails later, and in the New Year of 2008 I was the proud owner of in my view an iconic piece of GW artwork. Tony also kindly sent me a letter giving the background to the image; one of a set of 30 he did originally intended to form part of a Space Fleet rulebook (which never got off the ground).

 

Eldar Bridge & Eldar Weapons Fire by Tony Hough

I acquired both of these much more recently, as a direct result of the great interview with Tony Hough on your blog. I took to perusing Tony's gallery after reading the article, and happened to see a couple of additional Eldar images I hadn't seen before. I got back in touch with Tony and he confirmed they were from the same sequence of Space Fleet images as my first piece - he was happy to let me have them both to make a stunning triptych!

 

Eldar Legion / Ork Horde by Chris Baker aka Fangorn

I happened on this piece on ebay - simply labelled "Eldar Artwork". When I saw the auction, there were very few details in the listing, only a couple of days left and no bids. The starting bid was £120, but I recognised the image from the Epic Eldar Legion and Ork Hordes box sets. Either through lack of interest or simply going under the radar, mine was the only bid. I was delighted when I received the painting (which looks suspiciously like it has been painted using Citadel paints) - it's pretty big (67x28cm) and has a wealth of little details which you can't make out in the cropped and resized box artwork. I spoke with the seller and asked for a few details - it turns out he was Chris Baker's son and was selling the artwork to help fund a gap year. One my mates who has a fine art degree says this painting goes against all the rules of composition - the focal point (in the middle of the painting), actually has no detail or points of interest. This makes me wonder whether the painting was originally conceived as two separate pieces for use as the box art. 

What do you think?

Eldar Broadside and its accompanying letter from The Patriarch himself, Tony Hough.

Of course, Tony Hough is a friend of Realm of Chaos 80s, having been interviewed here alongside a gallery of his pieces and he occasionally contributes his valuable knowledge to discussions in the comments section. He also has a website and contacted me recently to explain that he hopes to attend Oldhammer Day at the Foundry in August, and Tony intends to bring his remaining artworks along for viewing and (hopefully) sale. 

Fancy owning one yourself? Just contact Tony and make an offer!

tonyhough2000@yahoo.co.uk

Don't forget to tell us all about though!

Orlygg.

Where are they now? The Art Collection of Tim Pollard

Some weeks ago I posed a question. You can read all about it here. Namely, what happened to the original paintings produced from classic 'Golden Age' books and box sets. Did they still exist? And if so, where are they now? 

We knew through research that many lesser pieces were returned to the original artists; both Tony Hough and Tony Ackland were kind enough to share some of these surviving pieces with us, and even let us look at a few unpublished works of art.

Today's post goes a little bit further. I am happy to say that a great many fantastic pieces of old school fantasy and science fiction art produced by GW is still safely stored in Nottingham. But not quite where you would expect. You see (as many of you will have learnt through reading yesterday's interview with Tim) that Blanche, and others, often paid for things (like rent) with their works. Tim Pollard was lucky enough to receive a great many of the pieces and has framed and preserved them to this day.

We should thank him for it. 

So join me as I guide you through SOME of Tim's art collection. So sit back, relax and let that retro feeling wash over you as we explore what he has hanging on his walls. 

Space Marines by Wayne England. This painting, in crayon and ink if memory serves, graced the front cover of White Dwarf 110 and introduced Wayne's work to GW fandom. I can remember studying this cover with great interest upon that issue's release and this particular painting has remained one of my favourites ever since. The painting harkens back to the day when there was a little more artistic license to interpreting the Astartes. 

Next up, the Legion of the Damned by John Blanche. This, of course, graced the packaging of the Skeleton Horde, the WHFRP supplement, The Restless Dead, as well as being used as an internal illustration. A wonderful piece that oozes character and takes us back to a simpler time when a skeleton was just that, and needed no rusty armour or shredded cloth to impress. A scary tree lurks behind. Fantastic!

Ahh, the Imperial Army, also by Blanche, which was used as an internal illustration in White Dwarf and as the box art for the first set of plastic Imperial Guard. Apparently, Tim's face was going to appear on the head of the slain alien lying on the floor in the foreground, but this did not happen due to time restraints. Classic. 

A Necromunda battle scene, also by Blanche. This was a painting I don't think I have seen before. Was it ever published? I wonder if it was commissioned for the original version of Confrontation (which of course, started out life as the 40k RPG, before morphing into a WD published skirmish game and then being published (in a very different form) as Necromunda ) but I cannot be sure. Tim pointed out that his, Sean Masterson's (former WD scribe, Editor and contributor to Dark Future) and Sid's (ex 'Eavy Metal) faces appear on this somewhere. Can you see them? Andy Craig can also recall being given this painting by John Blanche when he was painting Necromunda miniatures.  

The original Terminator box set artwork. John Blanche. I need say nothing more about this one. OUTSTANDING!

A second piece, again involving Space Marines with additional help from some early ork boyz, by Wayne England. I am not sure if I have seen this one before. Was it ever published? Beautiful isn't it? It always seemed to me that these pieces were part of some far larger work of art. 

More classic Blanche. This one was used on the front cover of White Dwarf 108 and for Adeptus Titanicus main rule book. 

Skaven by David Gallagher. Rather Warhammer Armies is it not? Again, I am not sure if I have seen this one elsewhere. Was it published, if so, where?

An evocative piece by Ian McCraig (who also painted the FF book, the Forest of Doom) the artist who designed the Games Workshop logo - a fact that is not very well known.

An un-used John Blanche cover for Sabbat's second album, Dreamweaver, featuring the faces of Tony Ackland and Bob Naismith apparently. 

Gloria in Excelsis by John Blance. Not a Warhammer piece but utterly breathtaking. Imagine having this hanging on YOUR wall? You'd put bars on your windows, wouldn't you?

Well, here's hoping you have enjoyed this little artistic stroll through some of Tim's collection. Do you know anything more about any of these pieces of art that you can share with us? Which ones are your favourites and why? Are there any that you despise? And, perhaps most importantly, do you know the whereabouts of any other classic paintings for British fantasy's yesteryears?

If you do, post us a link below or get in contact with me at realmofchaos80s@yahoo.co.uk.

Cheers,

Orlygg.

Where are they now? Old School Cover Paintings

I found myself re-reading the Wargames Illustrated interview with Bryan Ansell recently, and dwelling on Steve Casey's photographs of the great man's miniature collection. The general consensus online is pleasant relief that so many of the 80s models that we know and love still exist. And that many of us are very excited about actually seeing them at some point in the future.

In doing so, I was reminded that the cover of the first edition of Warhammer, the actual painting that is, resides in a toilet in Stoke Hall - Bryan's home. This got me wondering about the cover paintings from other notable publications of the 80s and early 90s. Where are they now?

There are some obvious answers to some of these questions. I can infer that the covers to the two Realm of Chaos books are still at GW Lenton, as the art is still used on their products, the cover to The Lost and the Damned being used for The Palace of the Plague Lord for example.

But what of others?

Where is the cover to WFB3 itself?

Or Warhammer Armies for that matter?

Or Ian Miller's cover to Warhammer Siege?

Unlike the covers to the Chaos books, I have not seen these covers used for anything else.  So where are they? Destroyed? Back with the artists? Sold to collectors? And what of other covers? Heroquest? Bloodbowl? Skeleton Army?

Now I know that this blog has a large lurking readership. Nearly 80,000 page views in the last few months is a lot of mouseclicks, or tablet taps... I also know that many Veterans of Citadel/GW also mooch around here. Some of you must know something about the locations, or indeed fates, of famous cover paintings from this era.

So come on, spill the beans..!

Orlygg.