The robed acolytes who tend to all matters literary have scoured the shelves for the best cover art they can find, collecting it in Black Library: The Art of Warhammer 40,000 and releasing it in time for this year’s Black Library Celebration.
This hardback A4 coffee table book has over 100 pieces of art taken from the covers and internals of various Black Library books across the years. To whet our appetites, the Warhammer Community team have put on our best art critic impressions – nodding and talking about “intent” and “composition” and so on – and picked out our favourite pieces.
Luke: I am always drawn to Warhammer art that reminds me of the vast scale of the Imperium and the setting as a whole, and I think the Dawn of Fire series artwork by Johan Grenier is especially evocative in this regard. Covers for The Iron Kingdom, The Martyr’s Tomb, and Sea of Souls in particular remind me of old movie posters, with snapshots of disparate characters, armies, fleets, and planets all brought together in artwork that captures the scope of the series.
That scale is balanced out by the weird and wonderful characters often forgotten about during these epic tales, such as the motley cast of Void King and Rites of Passage by Jodie Muir and Maria Zolotukhina. Rogue Traders and Navigators don’t turn up on the tabletop all that often, so it’s a good reminder that the heaving carcass we all know as the Imperium of Man is a byzantine behemoth whose billions blot out the stars. No matter your colour, creed or class, all are welcome grist for its ever-grinding gears – but that doesn’t mean you can’t dress incredibly well.
Rob: Ok, I promised myself I wouldn’t just choose every piece of Salamanders art by Cheoljoo Lee in this book and Luke’s already covered the pure cinema that is the Dawn of Fire covers, so instead I’ve picked something that I’d never actually seen before. Discovering that this kooky guy dressing up as a Harlequin is the infamous Inquisitor Czevak* as portrayed by Stefan Kopinski has made me want to read Atlas Infernal immediately, and I’m sure plenty of the other covers in this book will do the same.
I look at the cover of Clonelord and think: “Now this is a guy who loves his job”. I think Necrons make great subjects for cover art because their glowing green aesthetic is an awesome backdrop for colourful characters, and the raw manic glee on Fabius’ face, by Lie Setiawan, is a rare contrast to the usual smug smirks of his Chaos contemporaries. He looks genuinely ecstatic to have found a new Necron head to poke, and I’m happy for him.
Joel: I’ve been a die-hard Aeldari fan for more than two thirds of my life, so I generally read every book that’s related to the myriad of pointy-eared factions. The Ynnari characters illustrated by Anna Lakisova for the cover of Ghost Warrior remind me of a new dynamic to the Aeldari race, one with hope and determination to make the changes they want to see for their people. For the dark kin, I think the portrait of Lelith Hesperax by Jan Drenovec is stunning, as it’s rare to see close-up shots in Warhammer art and I believe it shows her disdain perfectly in her expression.
A wild card for me is the Assassinorum: Kingmaker art by Darren Tan. I’ve always found the lore behind Imperial assassins to be extremely interesting, and I think this artwork gives the feeling of a quiet scene with the Vindicare and Callidus assassins moving elegantly through it, which is how I’ve always pictured them when reading.
Jon: Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt and his eponymous ‘Ghosts’ of the Tanith First and Only have come a long way from the founding fields of their lost homeworld across the Sabbat World Crusade, just as the series has itself – growing from a group of short stories in the original Inferno! Magazine to 15 novels. The series was my first foray in Warhammer fiction many moons ago, and hooked me in with its more individual, character based window into the 41st Millennium.
The Warmaster sees the series return after a lengthy absence, as Gaunt and the Ghosts (having been waylaid by warp travel shenanigans for a decade) once again head to a crucial battle, and this cover art by Aaron Griffon highlights the character driven stories of the series.
We’ve not even scratched the surface of what’s on offer in Black Library: The Art of Warhammer 40,000, which also features some gorgeous double-page spreads of certain pieces of art, and is available to pre-order alongside a whole heap of Black Library books on Saturday.
* Most notable for having visited the Black Library twice.
