The Art of Mark Wood

The concept series is my schizophrenic attempt to shine light on the art that inspires me. I always do some of my best work when working from concept sketches. I find the hard lines and white space conducive to creation as they give you just enough definition to get you going, while still leaving space to do your own thing. Here's hoping you find these sketches as helpful and inspiring as I do.

It's been a FREAKING long time since I posted any concept sketches, so I thought I'd return to my "Art of" idea with a Warpshadow artist who I missed in my initial run. This week we'll be looking at the art of Mark Wood.

Mark is a prodigiously productive artist. It often seems that any time someone has a unique idea on the board, Mark, or "Wormwood" as he goes by online, is ready to take a run at drawing it. Thus, thought I've collected only a few of my favourite Wormwood sketches below, you can find far more in Mark's Warpshadow gallery.

The Tyranid Archive - Armorcast Tyranids and Other Big Dreams

In honour of 40k's 25th Birthday this year, I'm working at an ongoing series called "The Tyranid Archive," which is meant to be a historical look back on where Tyranids came from and how far they've come. Here's our next, rather large installment. Note: this post has been edited thanks to some feedback from Tim DuPertuis himself. Thanks Tim!

Back in Second Edition 40K days, a couple of companies started dreaming big dreams out in the western United States. They took the designs of the miniaturized super heavy tanks and titans of Epic and made the creative leap of introducing these massive weapons to games of Warhammer 40K...at a scale that was more or less accurate. Their creations dwarfed the models that 28mm wargammers had become accustomed to, and the company that seemed to be selling the majority of these huge engines of destruction was called Armorcast.

Armorcast started in June of 1995 as the brainchild of Tim DuPertuis and Dave Garton.