John Blanche
Encyclopedia
John Blanche is a British fantasy and science fiction illustrator and modeler known for his work for Games Workshop
's White Dwarf
magazine, Warhammer Fantasy Battle
, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
and Warhammer 40,000
games and his role as art director for the company, including his work in the field of fantasy miniature painting, and for illustrations for various game book and Fighting Fantasy
publications.
During the 1960s Blanche was exposed to art and art movements, eventually attending art college, where he entered a course on the strength of his drawings and paintings of battle scenes and prehistoric conflicts, and where he recounts that he was told he "had a romantic spirit, but it would never earn me a living, so there was no point in doing it".
After leaving college, Blanche spent time working as an assistant to a taxidermist in a Georgian manor-house, and worked on model building, drawing wildlife and painting fantastic scenes in his spare time.
. Dean provided him with the opportunity for freelance illustration work, and Blanche subsequently spent the late 70s and early 80s producing book covers and interior illustrations, including five illustrations for David Day
's compendium, A Tolkien Bestiary.
Also at around this time, during the late 1970s, Blanche became an avid collector of metal miniatures, and eventually of fantasy miniatures as these became available. In later years he would go on to contribute numerous articles to White Dwarf on the hobby, as well as contributing to and overseeing designs for miniatures, and receiving the Master Painter award for one of his own miniature pieces at the UK Games Day convention in 1987.
From 1977 Blanche became associated with Games Workshop, supplying the cover for issue 4 of their gaming publication White Dwarf, and producing the cover for the first British edition of Dungeons & Dragons
, for which the company possessed the UK licence, and in 1978 the magazine's first full-colour cover with issue 7. After 1979 he continued to produce work for the company, including further illustrations for the magazine and the box art for the first edition of Games Workshop's own Warhammer Fantasy Battle game in 1983.
After the company's move to Nottingham in 1986, Blanche was eventually made art director of Games Workshop through his acquaintance with new manager Bryan Ansell
, directing the in-house art department, commissioning work from outside illustrators, and producing designs for Citadel Miniatures
and artwork, and where he currently remains. He has overseen and contributed to regular art and miniature painting columns in White Dwarf for many years, as well as providing numerous illustrations for Games Workshop games, and, with other artists like Ian Miller
and Adrian Smith
, providing a formative contribution to the look of the companies core products.
In 1988 Blanche provided the cover for Notts thrash metal band Sabbat
's album History of a Time to Come
, which featured his piece Horned is the Hunter, with White Dwarf issue 95 including the band's Warhammer-inspired single Blood for the Blood God as a flexi-disc.
He is also known for his illustrations for fantasy gamebooks, including the Fighting Fantasy series, for which he produced cover and interior illustratons for Jackson's Sorcery!
quartet and accompanying spellbook.
Blanche has had a number of books dedicated to his work published, including The Prince and the Woodcutter, and Ratspike with fellow illustrator Ian Miller.
In recent years, following a period of poor health, he has focused more on working on sketchbooks relating to Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, describing himself as "living in the worlds he has helped to create".
Blanche himself views his work as drawing on an archetypal core of inherited imagery:
Early in his career Blanche was influenced by turn-of-the-century illustrators such as Arthur Rackham
and Kay Nielsen
, and his exposure to the fantasy genre through writers like J.R.R.Tolkien. Favourite artists have included Rembrandt, Bosch, Dürer, Grünewald
, Shishkin
, the Pre-Raphaelites, Friedrich
, Géricault and Gérôme, and the Victorian romanticists, as well as contemporary illustrators such as Jim Burns
and Patrick Woodroffe
, and he also cites everything from other media like film and comics, to everyday people and the natural world as sources of inspiration. Blanche has often incorporated images from other artists into his own work, with the Mona Lisa featuring in several pieces, an act he describes as "no mere plagiarism, but a deliberate policy. . . to place what is probably the worlds's best known painted image into a new reality." Others of his works have included elements of paintings by David and Géricault.
Interpretation, for Blanche, is literal, with an absence of intended messages or secret meanings; images are to be enjoyed for what they are, and he aims to draw the viewer to an appeciation of technique, colour, atmosphere, relationship of shapes, dynamics and characters, and the narrative quality of the image. One painting in particular, however, entitled Amazonia Gothique, was something he cites as an effort to produce a deliberate comment:
The painting was used as the cover for White Dwarf 79, and later as a poster, and even formed the basis for a metal miniature, and went on to be voted best cover of the year in a magazine poll.
Blanche's early work tended to be executed using technical drawing pens combined with washes of water-colour, a technique that remained until the early 1980s, after which he began to utilise inks and acylics instead, using what he describes as a 'fully-modeled painting technique' designed to mimic the oil painting methods of classical and romantic art. He has also, albeit very rarely, utilised oils. This glaze-based technique allows for undertones to shine through the overlayed colours giving the finished image an inner light effect, although this is predominantly lost in the reproduction process. Most of Blanche's paintings, with a few exceptions, are smaller than A4 in size. In executing work, he uses a variety of visual references ranging from friends posing for paintings, books, and collections of images from printed colour supplements. Each element of an image is constructed separately in a sketch pad, and planned on lay-out pads before being transferred to art board. This is then shaded in with a pencil and coloured using a limited selection of inks. Highlights and texture are added with white acrylic, and coloured washes and glazes are overlayed on top of this. Airbrushes are also used to fill in large areas like skies and to provide a smooth background for the image, and occasionally to add mists or atmosphere. Random elements are sometimes incorporated, the result of freely applied strokes, dripped pigment, and the use of the airbrush.
Games Workshop
Games Workshop Group plc is a British game production and retailing company. Games Workshop has published the tabletop wargames Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000...
's White Dwarf
White Dwarf (magazine)
White Dwarf is a magazine published by British games manufacturer Games Workshop. Initially covering a wide variety of fantasy and science-fiction role-playing and board games, particularly the role playing games Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest and Traveller...
magazine, Warhammer Fantasy Battle
Warhammer Fantasy Battle
Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles is a tabletop wargame created by Games Workshop. It is the origin of the Warhammer Fantasy setting....
, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is a role-playing game set in the Warhammer Fantasy setting. Over the years, it has been through a number of phases and different publishers, most of which were related in some way to Games Workshop...
and Warhammer 40,000
Warhammer 40,000
Warhammer 40,000 is a tabletop miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop, set in a dystopian science fantasy universe. Warhammer 40,000 was created by Rick Priestley in 1987 as the futuristic companion to Warhammer Fantasy Battle, sharing many game mechanics...
games and his role as art director for the company, including his work in the field of fantasy miniature painting, and for illustrations for various game book and Fighting Fantasy
Fighting Fantasy
Fighting Fantasy is a series of single-player fantasy roleplay gamebooks created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. The first volumes in the series were published by Puffin in 1982, with the rights to the franchise eventually being purchased by Wizard Books in 2002...
publications.
Early life
Blanche was born into a working class family in post-war England, and grew up on a Council estate during the 1950s, a period he describes as 'grey and flat', and lacking in the visual richness available to modern youth. Instead he took early inspiration from cinema, his collections of toy soldiers, and producing drawings of historic warriors on the backs of old rolls of wallpaper.During the 1960s Blanche was exposed to art and art movements, eventually attending art college, where he entered a course on the strength of his drawings and paintings of battle scenes and prehistoric conflicts, and where he recounts that he was told he "had a romantic spirit, but it would never earn me a living, so there was no point in doing it".
After leaving college, Blanche spent time working as an assistant to a taxidermist in a Georgian manor-house, and worked on model building, drawing wildlife and painting fantastic scenes in his spare time.
Career
After discovering published examples of fantasy art prevalent at the time, Blanche began preparing work for publication, eventually relocating to London and approaching artist and publisher Roger DeanRoger Dean
Roger Dean is an English artist, designer, architect, and publisher. He is best known for his work on posters and album covers for musicians, which he began painting in the late 1960s. The covers often feature exotic, fantasy landscapes...
. Dean provided him with the opportunity for freelance illustration work, and Blanche subsequently spent the late 70s and early 80s producing book covers and interior illustrations, including five illustrations for David Day
David Day (Canadian writer)
David Day is a Canadian author most notably known for his biographies about J. R. R. Tolkien and his works.-Biography:...
's compendium, A Tolkien Bestiary.
Also at around this time, during the late 1970s, Blanche became an avid collector of metal miniatures, and eventually of fantasy miniatures as these became available. In later years he would go on to contribute numerous articles to White Dwarf on the hobby, as well as contributing to and overseeing designs for miniatures, and receiving the Master Painter award for one of his own miniature pieces at the UK Games Day convention in 1987.
From 1977 Blanche became associated with Games Workshop, supplying the cover for issue 4 of their gaming publication White Dwarf, and producing the cover for the first British edition of Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...
, for which the company possessed the UK licence, and in 1978 the magazine's first full-colour cover with issue 7. After 1979 he continued to produce work for the company, including further illustrations for the magazine and the box art for the first edition of Games Workshop's own Warhammer Fantasy Battle game in 1983.
After the company's move to Nottingham in 1986, Blanche was eventually made art director of Games Workshop through his acquaintance with new manager Bryan Ansell
Bryan Ansell
Bryan Ansell is a British role-playing and war game designer. He founded Asgard Miniatures before creating Citadel Miniatures in the late 1970s...
, directing the in-house art department, commissioning work from outside illustrators, and producing designs for Citadel Miniatures
Citadel Miniatures
Citadel Miniatures Limited is a company which produces metal, resin and plastic miniature figures for tabletop wargames such as Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000....
and artwork, and where he currently remains. He has overseen and contributed to regular art and miniature painting columns in White Dwarf for many years, as well as providing numerous illustrations for Games Workshop games, and, with other artists like Ian Miller
Ian Miller (illustrator)
Ian Miller is a British fantasy illustrator and writer best known for his quirkily etched gothic style and macabre sensibility, and noted for his book and magazine cover and interior illustrations, including covers for books by H.P...
and Adrian Smith
Adrian Smith (illustrator)
Adrian Smith is a British illustrator, best known for his numerous illustrations for Games Workshop's games. Adrian and Ian Miller are especially well known for their work in the early days of Warhammer and 40k in creating a dark serious atmospheric setting....
, providing a formative contribution to the look of the companies core products.
In 1988 Blanche provided the cover for Notts thrash metal band Sabbat
Sabbat (band)
Sabbat are a thrash metal band from Nottingham, England, currently consisting of Martin Walkyier , Andy Sneap , Simon Jones , Gizz Butt and Simon Negus . Over the years Sabbat have released three studio albums, four demos, two split singles/compilation albums, two singles and a live VHS...
's album History of a Time to Come
History of a Time to Come
History of a Time to Come is the debut full-length album by the British thrash metal band Sabbat.-Background:In May 1986, Sabbat recorded a 4 track demonstration tape entitled “Fragments of a Faith Forgotten”, recorded at a cost of £10 in a converted farmhouse near Ripley, Derbyshire.During the...
, which featured his piece Horned is the Hunter, with White Dwarf issue 95 including the band's Warhammer-inspired single Blood for the Blood God as a flexi-disc.
He is also known for his illustrations for fantasy gamebooks, including the Fighting Fantasy series, for which he produced cover and interior illustratons for Jackson's Sorcery!
Sorcery!
Sorcery! is a single-player four-part adventure gamebook series written by Steve Jackson and illustrated by John Blanche. Originally published by Puffin Books from 1983 to 1985, the titles form part of the Fighting Fantasy series, despite not being part of the formal chronology...
quartet and accompanying spellbook.
Blanche has had a number of books dedicated to his work published, including The Prince and the Woodcutter, and Ratspike with fellow illustrator Ian Miller.
In recent years, following a period of poor health, he has focused more on working on sketchbooks relating to Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, describing himself as "living in the worlds he has helped to create".
Style and technique
Blanche is known for the dark, gothic, occasionally bizarre, punkish quality of his artwork, and this is something that has carried across onto the Games Workshop game worlds he has helped to shape. His images are, in the words of Patrick Woodroffe, of a style which "has as yet no name, no easy access, no fixed criteria. [...] Is it packaging? Is it comic-book art? Where does it fit? Roleplaying games, and all the paraphernalia that go with them, must still be unfamiliar to the average citizen of this land."Blanche himself views his work as drawing on an archetypal core of inherited imagery:
Early in his career Blanche was influenced by turn-of-the-century illustrators such as Arthur Rackham
Arthur Rackham
Arthur Rackham was an English book illustrator.-Biography:Rackham was born in London as one of 12 children. At the age of 18, he worked as a clerk at the Westminster Fire Office and began studying part-time at the Lambeth School of Art.In 1892 he left his job and started working for The...
and Kay Nielsen
Kay Nielsen
Kay Rasmus Nielsen was a Danish illustrator who was popular in the early 20th century, the "golden age of illustration" which lasted from when Daniel Vierge and other pioneers developed printing technology to the point that drawings and paintings could be reproduced with reasonable facility...
, and his exposure to the fantasy genre through writers like J.R.R.Tolkien. Favourite artists have included Rembrandt, Bosch, Dürer, Grünewald
Matthias Grünewald
Matthias Grünewald or "Mathis" , "Gothart" or "Neithardt" , , was a German Renaissance painter of religious works, who ignored Renaissance classicism to continue the expressive and intense style of late medieval Central European art into the 16th century.Only ten paintings—several consisting...
, Shishkin
Ivan Shishkin
Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin was a Russian landscape painter closely associated with the Peredvizhniki movement.Shishkin was born in Yelabuga of Vyatka Governorate , and graduated from the Kazan gymnasium...
, the Pre-Raphaelites, Friedrich
Caspar David Friedrich
Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning...
, Géricault and Gérôme, and the Victorian romanticists, as well as contemporary illustrators such as Jim Burns
Jim Burns
Jim Burns is a Welsh artist born in Cardiff, Wales.In 1966 he joined the Royal Air Force, but soon thereafter he left and signed up at the Newport School of Art for a year's foundation course....
and Patrick Woodroffe
Patrick Woodroffe
Patrick James Woodroffe is an English artist, etcher and drawer, who specialises in fantasy science-fiction artwork, with images that border on the surreal...
, and he also cites everything from other media like film and comics, to everyday people and the natural world as sources of inspiration. Blanche has often incorporated images from other artists into his own work, with the Mona Lisa featuring in several pieces, an act he describes as "no mere plagiarism, but a deliberate policy. . . to place what is probably the worlds's best known painted image into a new reality." Others of his works have included elements of paintings by David and Géricault.
Interpretation, for Blanche, is literal, with an absence of intended messages or secret meanings; images are to be enjoyed for what they are, and he aims to draw the viewer to an appeciation of technique, colour, atmosphere, relationship of shapes, dynamics and characters, and the narrative quality of the image. One painting in particular, however, entitled Amazonia Gothique, was something he cites as an effort to produce a deliberate comment:
The painting was used as the cover for White Dwarf 79, and later as a poster, and even formed the basis for a metal miniature, and went on to be voted best cover of the year in a magazine poll.
Blanche's early work tended to be executed using technical drawing pens combined with washes of water-colour, a technique that remained until the early 1980s, after which he began to utilise inks and acylics instead, using what he describes as a 'fully-modeled painting technique' designed to mimic the oil painting methods of classical and romantic art. He has also, albeit very rarely, utilised oils. This glaze-based technique allows for undertones to shine through the overlayed colours giving the finished image an inner light effect, although this is predominantly lost in the reproduction process. Most of Blanche's paintings, with a few exceptions, are smaller than A4 in size. In executing work, he uses a variety of visual references ranging from friends posing for paintings, books, and collections of images from printed colour supplements. Each element of an image is constructed separately in a sketch pad, and planned on lay-out pads before being transferred to art board. This is then shaded in with a pencil and coloured using a limited selection of inks. Highlights and texture are added with white acrylic, and coloured washes and glazes are overlayed on top of this. Airbrushes are also used to fill in large areas like skies and to provide a smooth background for the image, and occasionally to add mists or atmosphere. Random elements are sometimes incorporated, the result of freely applied strokes, dripped pigment, and the use of the airbrush.
External links
- gothic punk The largest online collection of Blanche's work (fan-created)
- Abandon Art - A short description of Blanche
- Titannica Gaming Wiki - An article on Blanche's gamebook contributions
- The Black Library interview - An interview with John Blanche from The Black Library
- John Blanche artwork on a gaming and art blog
- John Blanche artwork on a gaming blog
- Blanche art on a blog
- John Blanche original artwork for sale on a book and art sales site
- A page on Fighting Fantasy gamebook Sorcery!, part of a series on gamebooks.org
- A short interview with Blanche on a French Warhammer site
- A partial list of Blanche's gaming credits on an RPG gaming site
- Information on Blanche's work on Warhammer 40k
