In the Warhammer universe, everything is supersized, immense, titanic, overblown. The aesthetic is the dream of young men everywhere who secretly see themselves as muscled megaheroes rather than pallid basement gamers. The armor is multiplied to such an extent that the structure of the original figure is hidden in tank-like shielding layers. You can barely tell where the arms, legs, or feet of a Warhammer Space Marine are. In the same way, scenery, buildings, structures, spaceships are all impossibly grandiose. Fortresses are carved out of entire mountains, whether on the surface or in vast caverns underground so large they have their own weather systems. This is a study for one of these forts, carved out of an underground mountainside. Of course, this structure, like every other Warhammer structure, is eventually destroyed in a titanic battle. In Warhammer stories, everything that is built, no matter how strong or beautiful or heroic, is brought down and crushed. If you think about it from a worldbuilding perspective rather than a gaming perspective, this civilization is madly self-destructive, wasting its resources in endless war. Ultimately there would be nothing left to sustain life. And indeed that is what is happening in the current storylines of the Warhammer game; the human empire is quickly succumbing to the invasions of various alien races or "space locusts" who take advantage of the exhaustion of the old Empire's resources. Yes, just like real Earth history.
Markers on sketchbook page, 4 1/2" x 5", January 10-11, 2013.
No comments:
Post a Comment