If there is one thing that I have heard the most about Age of Sigmar it's how great the art is. These new books are packed full of it too, and I have to whole heartedly agree with its quality. I have found a lot of it around the web, but never collected in one place, until now.
I have gone around and picked a few of my favorite pieces of art from the Age of Sigmar. It's a nice mix of the Fantasy and 40k style and definitely seems like a higher quality then some of the more recent stuff we had seen. Although I'm pretty sure that's because they were devoting a lot of their resource towards AoS.
One thing I have found that's pretty interesting to me is they seem to have given several different artists the same art brief. The most obvious one to me is the cover from the box set. There are so many pieces of art that are similar to that one that it has me convinced they took in a large swathe of potential covers and then chose their favorite for the box. Luckily for us they decided to still use the rest of them. I don't know if I agree with the one they chose, but none of them are horrible.
This one is what I would have picked for the box cover art. It has a more traditional style which I like opposed to the one they used which looks a lot more computerized. It feels very renaissance to me in style.
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| By Won Chun Choi - Deviant Art Account |
I really like this one too. To me this looks like it was another candidate for cover of the first big AoS book.
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| By Mac Smith - Deviant Art Account |
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| By Diego Gisbert - Deviant Art Account |
The following two pieces are another great example of a similar creative brief being given to two different artists.
I read on one artists description of thier work that part of the brief told them to give it a semi-religous quality. That definitely comes across in a lot in the Stormcast artwork, which is part of what gives it that 40k feel. Fantasy never had a huge importance placed on their religions, unlike with the Emperor in 40k. Part of giving it that essence makes it a little more gothic then we have seen in the past. I still think it's different enough from 40k in tone though that it can live on it's own.
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| By Mac Smith - Deviant Art Account |
Nagash and the forces of Nurgle get a lot of love too. I'm definitely excited to see the Realm of Death explored more and to see what they do to bring the Tomb Kings and Vampire Counts forces into a more cohesive whole.
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| By Helge Belzar - Deviant Art Account |
I have no clue what that creature is that Sigmar is fighting, but it's certainly epic. I have no doubt that as the story continues we will get more artwork from the Age of Myth like this one.
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| By Leos Ng - Deviant Art Account |
The one critique I have about the Bloodbound artwork is that too much of it seems to center around Korghos Khul. It would be nice to see more variety in the forces of Khorne.
I think this is my favorite of the Stormcast Eternal artworks, although I did have to laugh a bit when someone asked if that Retributor was standing on top of a Liberator.
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| By Ev Shipard - Deviant Art Account |
I was very excited to find this one posted on Deviant Art by the artist. It's the artwork for the backdrop piece used at the GW stores for their demo games. I will definitely find a use for this picture in the future.
Finally how could I leave this last one off. The Stormcast Eternal statue out front of the GW headquarters really shows you how committed they are to this new game.
There is more of this art available online then ever before, and not just in second hand scans and bad photos of book taken by someone during an earthquake. A lot of it was put up there by GW themselves, while another good portion of it has been put up by the artists themselves on their own websites or Deviant Art. This has to do with the majority of the art being made on a computer nowadays as opposed to traditionally painted. A good chunk of it has also been outsourced to independent artists, where as in the past a lot of it was done in house by GW's art team.
I have to say that despite the majority of it being online now I highly, highly encourage you to still buy the good old fashioned paper versions in books. There is nothing on a computer that can beat seeing it as a high quality print on a piece of paper.
I know this article was kind of light on content compared to my usual fare, but I hope it has helped inspire you with AoS. There is still plenty more artwork out there amongst the different books and in the various corners of the internet. If nothing else maybe you at least found a new wallpaper for your phone.
What has been your favorite piece of Age of Sigmar art?
UPDATE: I have updated the article with the names of the artists I could track down and links to their art accounts. Unfortunately a lot of them still remain unknown. If you know any of the artists for the work above that I have missed please let me know in the comments below and I will update it.
Thank you!
Until next time,
Tyler M.
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