The Art of Tom Box

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.

Though I'll be showing off some Tyranid sketches by Tom Box (aka: Bocks on the Warpshadow boards), I feel a bit wrong calling this lone, meagre post "The Art of Tom Box." You see, I actually know Tom marginally better than some of the other members on the forums, and, were it not for an unexpected attack of MySpineIsTryingToMurderMe-itis (it's a technical term: look it up), I actually would have met the guy back at Games Day Toronto 2009, when Moloch and Hydra came out for the event/the Tryan board. And, from what I've come to know about Tom, I can tell you that if we were to try and encapsulate his Art into one post, we would be needing a far bigger...well--for lack of a less corny word--box.

Spinal - A Grotesque Update--NOW in 3-D!

Okay, so maybe that 3D bit's a lie, but it is the case that I felt bad for not updating the Grotesque project on Friday, as I had been doing for the last two weeks, so I decided to use a new toy that just came in the mail to create a time-lapse-style video of me at work. It's the first time I've ever done anything like this, and the angle is a bit pants, but I thought folks might find it fun.
Featuring the sounds of fine, fine Canadian group MSTRKRFT. If you like the music, look them up. You won't regret it. Back to the video, though: I think that, should I do this again, I'll probably learn a lot from this initial outing.

So anyway, yeah: I got some more work done on the Grotesques this week, but not as much as I was hoping. Lesson? Don't predict that a week is going to be great for working until after it already has been!

Here are some pictures of the team in their current state:

The Art of Jutami: Continued

This guy just doesn't let up. In the last week Jutami has returned with a whole pile of Tyranid sketches. As I'd featured his work just last week, I thought I should just continue on with a good thing.

If you're interested, Jutami has started a concept/art thread on Warpshadow, which he may start updating regularly. Here are a selection of my favourites from his thread. As I amended to last week's post, the best way to get in contact with Jutami is through his Deviant Art account.

Grotesques from Bioterrors: Progress Report

This past week has been a pretty busy one (weekends included), so I've made only modest progress on roughing out the poses and starting the most rudimentary of repositionings on the first unit of Dark Eldar Grotesques from the Paulson Bio Terror models. Though they're not much more to look at, the work has given me a really strong idea for the role of each member of the unit.

Though there hasn't been that much progress, I think that repositioning the various Grotesques is essential as the fact that they all came from the same model will really start to show if I left the Bio Terrors as is.

The Art of Jutami

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.

The next installment in the Concept Series comes from another fairly recent addition to the Warpshadow forums: Jutami. He gained people's attention with his big beastie conversions--particularly his very heavily armoured Swarmlord. He also caused a fair few eyes to bug out when he revealed his clean, masterfully-applied, nearly luminous paint scheme. And, most recently, he rose to the task when forum admin Hive Node asked for artist on the board to contribute their pen-and-pencil renderings of Tyranids for the inspiration of other bugs on the board.

Paulson Bio Terror Review and Grotesques

Something exciting arrived in the mail on Thursday:

...apparently shipped at the SPEED OF LIGHT from the 'States as it made it here to Japan in just under a week. It's my first order from Paulson Games, and with service like that, I'm sure to be a repeat customer!

Here are the contents, still all mysteriously and protectively packaged:


And here's what they yielded:

That's right, baby! Time to unleash some Paulson Games' brand Bio Terror on the world. I've thought that this model would make THE PERFECT basis for Dark Eldar Grotesques since the instant I laid eyes on it. As the Finecast release approached, I awaited pictures of the GW Grotesques with equal parts excitement and trepidation: excitement because they're concept art was so fantastic, and trepidation because I really wanted an excuse to mess around with some Bio Terrors, and if GW put out nice Grotesques, I'd have little reason to (aside from price, that is--YIKES!).

Then this was released...

The Art of Callum MacDougall (Iron Nid)

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.

Callum MacDougall's (Iron Nid) concept for a Swarmlord. Sure, it's just a head, but I think it does a great job of marrying the current Tyrant design with the Aliens-rip-off-Queen head of the 3rd Edition Tyrant model.

I think that the aspect I love most about the Tyranid community that has sprung up around Warpshadow.com over the years is the artistic bent of the majority of our members. Sure, there are Tyranid tactical geniuses around, but I focus the majority of my attention on the Modeling and Painting section of the forums. That focus has meant that I've stumbled across some pretty awesome, innovative Tyranid designs over the years. And, now that we've got the "big guns" like Goodwin and Cirillo and Vermis out of the way, I figured it was about time for the Concept Series to focus on some up-and-coming artists.

Iron Nid's Doom of Malantai concept sketch. An important aspect of it was his idea that the Doom would move by slithering through the air, held aloft by its massive psyker abilities.

This week, I'm posting up a few sketches by Callum MacDougall, who goes by the handle "Iron Nid" on the Warpshadow forums.

The Art of Robert Cirillo

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.

For this week's installment of the Concept Series, we go with an obvious choice: Roberto Cirillo. This talented artist was contracted by Games Workshop to churn out a pile of concept sketches for the 4th Edition Tyranid release, and in an unprecedented move, the company posted a gallery of what must have been every sketch Cirillo did. In the interest of making sure that Gallery of Tyranid Win isn't lost to Tyranid Hobbyists, I'm reposting it here.

The Art of Warren Beattie

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.

This is the second installment in the Concept Series: a recurring feature here meant to showcase the concept sketches of both professional and amateur Tyranid artists. When it comes to converting and creating new Tyranid organisms, I have yet to find a better source of inspiration than the concept sketch. The goal of this series is to make sure this work is visible, allowing converters and kitbashers to get new ideas for diversifying their swarms.

We started the series off with an artist as professional as they come: Mr. Jes Goodwin--a man who has been defining the Tyranid aesthetic since Andy Chambers was called The Great Devourer. This week, we switch tracks to an amateur artist (in that he is not employed by GW), and as the series progresses, it will feature many more amateur artists. However, the decision to start with Warren Beattie was a conscious one as he was the first to ever pop up on my radar, and he may be one of the finest amateur, 40k-related artists I have ever run into.

"Warren Beattie" is probably a name you've never heard, and it's only marginally more likely that you've heard the forum handle "Vermis." It's more likely that you may have run across this sketch somewhere along the way:

Or, perhaps, this version that he coloured up for Hive Fleet Moloch:

The Screamer Killer rides again

To build up some content on the site, I'm going to be posting a few of my past projects that were kind of like milestones in my development as a sculptor. I'll call them "Old Strains," and you can feel free to check them out if you're curious.



The classic Jes Goodwin pewter Carnifex/Screamer Killer has always inspired me. When they look at it these days, most people see an oddly constipated-looking beast intent on giving someone a big hug with those curvy arms of his. However, when I look at the thing, I see the model that first got me into Tyranids specifically, and Warhammer 40K in general, back in the mists of second edition. It also reminds me of the black-and-white sketch that greeted me when I first opened the Tyranid codex all those years ago:

From Plastic Screamer Killer

Though I love the pewter Screamer-Killer, and I still field them to this day (well, on the few occasions when I actually play), I’ve always felt that there was so much more potential in that sketch than the rudimentary casting processes GW used to use could ever truly capture.