Illustration © Games Workshop / BHVR

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This guy was quite a doozy to put together, but I think well worth it in the end. Hope all you Orky fans out there are proud to have this guy as your warboss on Arkhona! Ivan and his initial team of writer-collaborators came up with the brief for an in-house creation, and although the brief evolved quite a bit, a few attributes were set pretty firmly at the beginning for me to design around:



- Has an extreme hate for Space Wolves...



- ...which is represented by a number of Space Wolf trophies, most notably the salvaged Dreadnought Claw and a Cyber-wolf leg-turned melee weapon.



- One particular brief item that I thought was especially cool, was either Graham McNeill/Ivan Mulkeen wanted the wolf trophies to not be represented as celebrated items of pride but rather worn "desecrated" to bring across the spite Skarblitz harbours for the Space Wolves.



- This, alongside with their Bad Moonz affiliation inspired me to apply what I see as "desecrative" war paint, to hopefully drive across the point. Also to aesthetically find various excuses to balance out his busy getup.



- It was also decided later on that he be absolutely blinged up, which then spawned the numerous artefacts and trinkets looted over centuries of battle, one of my favourite is what I think of as a "chaos mandala" that was stamped right into the wolf-helmet's snout, and a bit farther up on the wolf forehead, a jewel mount, sans jewel as an excuse for what I thought was an interesting fixture at the time.



- Enhanced Kustom Shoota, gold plated and Kustom bling ring with his initials engraved into it...



*nod to Aaron Dembski-Bowden*



PPS: Ivan probably still doesn't like that the background to this pinup deviates from his original idea of an entire combat force standing behind the warboss but at the time I thought that presenting the backdrop as the most unconventional of all the lineup spoke to the true nature of the Waaagh, even in the eventual context of Eternal Crusade's gameplay. I figure that even if there are the jackasses (the Gretchin at bottom left), the Brown-nosers, politikers and/or team players (middle), and the lone wolves (right), they still leave a blazing trail of absolute destruction in their wake, which to me, still speaks to a unconventional kind of teamwork and organised-chaos coordination that is representative of the Ork uh...doctrine PS: That chunky bangle on his upper arm... is a Celestial Lion belt... wonder how that got there*nod to Aaron Dembski-Bowden*PPS: Ivan probably still doesn't like that the background to this pinup deviates from his original idea of an entire combat force standing behind the warboss but at the time I thought that presenting the backdrop as the most unconventional of all the lineup spoke to the true nature of the Waaagh, even in the eventual context of Eternal Crusade's gameplay. I figure that even if there are the jackasses (the Gretchin at bottom left), the Brown-nosers, politikers and/or team players (middle), and the lone wolves (right), they still leave a blazing trail of absolute destruction in their wake, which to me, still speaks to a unconventional kind of teamwork and organised-chaos coordination that is representative of the Ork uh...doctrine

See that crashing Ork Landa?



I'm just going to put this out there too... I feel the F2P idea for the Ork faction is just GENIUS on so many levels, and that in no small way inspired how I saw the background design for this image.





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Its certainly been a while since I did 'advertising-grade' work whose amount of brief changes rivals that of theme parks and events... This series (which you will come to see over the following months as part of a ongoing reveal), took a few months to put together. And for me that is one hell of a long time to be 'attached' on a project, one where I play a larger role of illustrator than designer. In my book that is the equivalent of a personal hell, but one that I look back at with pride when I see how far we came from the original brief or the balancing of "IP lore-hound" requirements which I think I needn't have to explain...



In no small way this was thanks to the support and prowess of art director Ghislain Barbe, who pretty much guided me and afforded a wide enough creative berth through it all, at times more of a collaborator than an art director (in the conventional sense). I'll say that I have never been more certain of not wanting his job , and that he has my deepest respect given the creative challenges we had to go through.



The main point I am trying to make, as a kind of "outsider" contractor to this production, is that to all the 40K fans out there, know that you have a team there that is truly committed to delivering what you have loved and will continue to love for a long time to come.



See you on the battlefields Ave Dominus Nox!







Its certainly been a while since I did 'advertising-grade' work whose amount of brief changes rivals that of theme parks and events...This series (which you will come to see over the following months as part of a ongoing reveal), took a few months to put together. And for me that is one hell of a long time to be 'attached' on a project, one where I play a larger role of illustrator than designer. In my book that is the equivalent of a personal hell, but one that I look back at with pride when I see how far we came from the original brief or the balancing of "IP lore-hound" requirements which I think I needn't have to explain...In no small way this was thanks to the support and prowess of art director Ghislain Barbe, who pretty much guided me and afforded a wide enough creative berth through it all, at times more of a collaborator than an art director (in the conventional sense). I'll say that I have never been more certain of not wanting his job, and that he has my deepest respect given the creative challenges we had to go through.The main point I am trying to make, as a kind of "outsider" contractor to this production, is that to all the 40K fans out there, know that you have a team there that is truly committed to delivering what you have loved and will continue to love for a long time to come.See you on the battlefieldsAve Dominus Nox!

Special thanks to Creative Director David Ghosland, Art Director Ghislain Barbe and Producer Mathieu Fecteau and Narrative Designer Ivan Mulkeen