To celebrate Warhammer 40,000's 25th year, and my own 25 years of doing illustration I decided to take one of my first ever published illos from the very first WH40K rulebook and do a complete paintover into a proper full colour image.This was a lot of fun! It shows a desperate rear guard action from a unit of Eldar in some kind of giant hangar.
This original ink drawing (shown below.for comparison) was done in the very early stages in the formation of the 40K universe and those of us doing the drawings had very little reference to go on....a smidgeon of prototype models, rough design drawings and a scant few rather excellent atmospheric illos by Will Rees, plus a bunch of written descriptions to set the overall tone - the rest we had to get from our own imaginations - hence to 40K purists some of the details may seem a little...odd! Over the 25 years following, the world of 40K continued to grow and evolve into its familiar form and I have made no attempt to update the picture to fit the modern established canon. Instead, I've tried to faithfully recreate the intent of the original, improving the drawing, refining forms etc without substantial alteration to composition or content.
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