More early naval infantry artwork
Really, these images are just narrative depictions of the Jez Goodwin sketches, and done around the same time. It shows that Jez's designs were far more closely adhered to by the Games Workshop design team than they are today. Or to be fair, it seems that Games Workshop and subsequent material produced under license, in video games etc, have varied slightly in the case of officers, whilst naval armsmen and voidsmen have simply vanished from Games Workshop material.
This early image shows the clear stripes on the officer's upper left arm which a discerning eye can make out on Jez's original designs. Otherwise this is pretty much the same uniform we see today on the Officer of the Fleet model and Jez's originals.
This amazing piece is one of John Blanche's colour sketches. Along with Jez, John Blanche is generally considered the heart of Games Workshop designs. I personally mourn the loss of these gothic grim dark images for the type of toyish looking designs we have now, such as Primaris Marines and the general bright colours of the models' box designs and photos. It is unclear if this figure is meant to represent an officer or a navigator, however, I assume it is an officer since John Blanche did paint a navigator and it looks nothing like this, whereas it does resemble a naval officer albeit with glorious embellishments. Note the high collar and vambrace. I certainly think it allows some variation on the theme of the early officer design, we get the sense that these are duellists- as Jez commented in his design notes.
Here are the gritty armsmen in action, I believe this was included in a White Dwarf issue from 2000 with the subtitle "Navy landing party" or similar. Again, John Blanche has clearly followed Jez's directions in the design work. Note the voidhelms and shotguns, as well as the head of Jez's "boarding gaff" in the background.
Tony Hough also contributed artwork to the subject, utilising Jez's work and adding his own flair such as the helmets with jowl cheek guards [which you will find on more recent Forge World models of Titan pilots, but more about that in another post]. It also gives us a great deal of insight into these characters in action, showing how they moved and fought.
Finally, this image from the late 90s, specifically from the January 2000 issue of White Dwarf. Here you can see the voidsmen fleshed out a little more with Jez's designs full on, including the boarding gaff again.
This early image shows the clear stripes on the officer's upper left arm which a discerning eye can make out on Jez's original designs. Otherwise this is pretty much the same uniform we see today on the Officer of the Fleet model and Jez's originals.
This amazing piece is one of John Blanche's colour sketches. Along with Jez, John Blanche is generally considered the heart of Games Workshop designs. I personally mourn the loss of these gothic grim dark images for the type of toyish looking designs we have now, such as Primaris Marines and the general bright colours of the models' box designs and photos. It is unclear if this figure is meant to represent an officer or a navigator, however, I assume it is an officer since John Blanche did paint a navigator and it looks nothing like this, whereas it does resemble a naval officer albeit with glorious embellishments. Note the high collar and vambrace. I certainly think it allows some variation on the theme of the early officer design, we get the sense that these are duellists- as Jez commented in his design notes.
Here are the gritty armsmen in action, I believe this was included in a White Dwarf issue from 2000 with the subtitle "Navy landing party" or similar. Again, John Blanche has clearly followed Jez's directions in the design work. Note the voidhelms and shotguns, as well as the head of Jez's "boarding gaff" in the background.
Tony Hough also contributed artwork to the subject, utilising Jez's work and adding his own flair such as the helmets with jowl cheek guards [which you will find on more recent Forge World models of Titan pilots, but more about that in another post]. It also gives us a great deal of insight into these characters in action, showing how they moved and fought.
Finally, this image from the late 90s, specifically from the January 2000 issue of White Dwarf. Here you can see the voidsmen fleshed out a little more with Jez's designs full on, including the boarding gaff again.
We all loved Jez's designs and incorporate them in our illos as much as possible when we worked on this project (Still under the working title Battlefleet Gothic back then). I used the infantry style helmet on the guy guiding the loading titan in the imperial architecture illo above. The smaller helmet with the jowl flaps was my own contribution, though inkeeping with Jez's Imperial Navy design ethos.
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