The Download Munkey : Finder of Things …

John Gravato is one of the lesser known but equally impressive illustrators of Warhammer 40,000.

I first noticed his artwork when browsing the Dark Millenium card database (a Warhammer 40,000-themed CCG) and chanced upon his illustration of Maugan Ra, the Harvester of Souls and Phoenix Lord of the Eldar Dark Reaper Aspect.

Here’s a website which showcases some of his fantastic artwork for Sabertooth CCGs like Horus Heresy and War Cry as well as for magazine covers like Inferno!.

  
© John Gravato / Games Workshop

Clockwise from top:
Disciples of Kor Phaeron (Horus Heresy CCG), Techmarine Arius (Horus Heresy CCG) and a Callidus Assassin from an unknown magazine cover. View the larger versions at Cards gallery and the Magazine Covers gallery.

There’s more fantastic artwork at his official gallery at Concept Box Studios.

No titles were provided at the website so I’ve taken the titles from the Art of Warhammer 40,000 artbook in which one-third of the Eldar artwork in the book was supplied by John himself (BTW, the artbook is an extremely worthwhile purchase if you’re a fan of Warhammer 40,000 imagery, I got mine from Paradigm Infinitium in SG)

Currently still doing a bit of research on some lesser known Warhammer 40,000 illustrators, view my articles for some of my other favourites in the meantime:
(I) - Adrian Smith
(II) - Neil Roberts
(III) - Karl Kopinski
(IV) - Andrea Uderzo

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Warhammer 40,000 Dark Millenium Card Database
Warhammer 40,000 Horus Heresy Wallpapers
Warhammer 40,000 Horus Heresy : The Collected Visions Preview PDFs

Games Workshop posted the results and photos of the annual Games Workshop miniatures modelling and painting contest known as Golden Demon at Games Day Altanta in Apr 2007. Below are some of my favourites in random order.

Specially for those who missed out collecting the four volumes of the Horus Heresy art/background books by Black Library, here’s three preview PDFs courtesy of Black Library for the upcoming Horus Heresy: The Collected Visions, which will combine the original four volumes of the Horus Heresy books into a single 384 page book available this June.

It will comprise artwork from the Horus Heresy CCG (replaced by Dark Millenium) by Sabertooth Games as well as some background material on the Horus Heresy.

There’s some interesting for Warhammer 40,000 fans in PDF1 - a space marine silhouette is shown for Chapter XI and labelled Expunged (from Imperial Archives). The Primarch name is unknown - hmm, could Chapter XI be referring to the Blood Ravens featured in Dawn of War? It’s not likely to be a Traitor Legion because the rest of the known Traitor Legions are depicted in the same PDF.

© Black Library
Chapter XI : The Missing Legion

PDF 2 contains artwork for Horus Heresy era Space Marines and Imperial troops mainly by Sam Wood.

© Black Library
Hmm… Why does this page remind me of Page 64 and 65 of the Art of Warhammer 40,000 book ;p

PDF3 contains the concept sketches by Games Workshop’s art director John Blanche - mmm, not exactly my type of Warhammer 40,000 art but it’s still better than nothing - just hope that the book won’t be mainly filled with his sketches

John Blanche’s concept sketches - you either love them or hate them - the stuff shown above is pretty good though

It will cost 30 pounds and for SG buyers, it will roughly translate to close to SGD 100. Nevertheless, I still think I going to get my copy - I am so in love with Warhammer 40,000 imagery

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Warhammer 40,000 Horus Heresy Wallpapers
Warhammer 40,000 Dark Millenium Card Database
Warhammer 40,000 Articles @ the random Gnomes’ random Lair

© Games Workshop

A free special preview issue of Warhammer Monthly from Black Library to celebrate their 10th anniversary - let’s hope that their celebration doesn’t include a regular increase in prices lke their parent company Games Workshop ;).

This 15 page preview issue contains six pages of the Warhammer 40,000 comic The Bridge written by Dan Abnett and illustrated by Simon Coleby plus sneak previews to the other comics in the upcoming issues ($$$), namely Darkblade, a Warhammer comic on the quest of the Dark Elf Malus Darkblade (based on the Darkblade series by Dan Abnett), Bloodquest (written by Gordon Rennie and also probably based on the graphic novel of the same name) about the exiled Blood Angels Captain Leonatos, Shadowfast (Warhammer by Michael Browne), Predator & Prey (Warhammer 40,000 by Gordon Rennie), Titan (Epic 40,000 and written by Dan Abnett) and finally 3 preview pages for The Summoning (Warhammer, unknown writer).

There is a wide variety of illustration styles used in the various comics in Warhmmer Monthly 0 to cater to most tastes although I find the artwork for Darkblade, Bloodquest and The Summoning the most appealing - the artwork for The Bridge by Simon Coleby is simply too cluttered for my tastes

If you’re a Games Workshop enthusiast like me, you’ll probably download Warhammer Monthly 0 anyway so here’s the link to download it at the Black Library (15.6 MB PDF)

By the way, the last page of Warhammer Monthly 0 is an advertisement for Boom Studios’s Warhammer 40,000 Damnation Crusade graphic novel, which looks really good See www.ironorc.com for more details on Damnation Crusade.

Found out about this from an old thread on the dakkadakka forums.

Here’s your chance if you always wanted to take a peek into a Warhammer 40,000 Codex, with only one catch - you need to be able to read Japanese to use the armylist and read the fluff - although you can still enjoy the artwork, which is magnificent as always for Warhammer 40,000 Codexes IMO.

Games Workshop Japan offers selected Codexes (Chaos Space Marines, Dark Eldar, Witchhunters and Daemonhunters are unavailable) for download on their Resources page. Selected Warhammer Armybooks are also available for download on the same page.

Other than language, the artwork and layout should be almost the same as the equivalent Codex in other languages.

I found this picture of a Dark Angels Company Master (I assume he’s a Company Master from his Iron Halo - I haven’t got the Codex and I can’t read Japanese) on page 37 of Part 2 of the new Codex: Dark Angels. Artwork like this makes the download from the Games Workshop Japan server (slow at times for users outside Japan) well worth the time. Not sure about the illustrator though

© Games Workshop