Is Sci Fi Losing Its Sauce?m(Blog Post #2 Leo Morgan)

 Is Sci Fi Losing Its Sauce?

Blog post by Leo Morgan

WarHammer 40,000 is a dark sci-fi setting that originates from a British tabletop wargame that came out in 1987. It was originally created as a continuation of WarHammer Fantasy, which was another wargame that instead was more of a standard high-fantasy setting. Although these things have existed for longer than I have, I became deeply interested in 40k (I will use this to refer to Warhammer 40,000 without having to type the whole thing) a few years ago, and more recently started diving into the older elements of the art, miniatures, and even community. After managing to find a decades old rulebook for the tabletop game at a discount book store, I flipped through it and found pages on pages of older artwork for 40k that had a much more distinctly stylized look, which sent me down a rabbit hole of looking at old 40k artwork, my two favorite artists from that time being Dave Ghallagher, and John Blanche. Over the years the overall direction of art for 40k has changed massively, and I wanted to talk about two similar artworks that were produced almost 20 years apart from each other to highlight this, and some of my personal thoughts on the implications of such shifts.

The first artwork I wanted to highlight is “The Last Stand Of The Crimson Fists” by Dave Gallagher, released as the cover image for the third edition rulebook of the tabletop game, all the way back in 1998. In this painting we see a sort of triangular formation of space marines (genetically augmented super soldiers that are seven feet tall and weigh about one ton in armor) making a final stand on a small rocky outcrop. We do not see what they are shooting at, but judging by the little silhouette in the background to the left, I would guess they are battling with ork war machines. The marines all have their armor painted in a dark cool-blue color, with their gauntlets painted a warm-red, hence the name “Crimson fists”. All of them have helmets on, except the three at the top of their formation, and in the center of the composition. The marines with their faces showing all have grizzled expressions, the leftmost one raising their banner over his head, the one to the right fires his weapon with his left hand, and rests his chain-sword over his shoulder in his right hand. The marine in the center of the three appears to be letting out some kind of battle cry, and raising his power fist into the air, adding to the “Desperate final stand” vibe that comes from this piece. Right behind the marine raising his fist, is a large orange explosion, which contrasts with the blue marines, and also helps define the powerful silhouette of the shouting marine’s pose. The sky background is a cool-purple hue that assists to keep the vivid colors of the piece, while not drawing attention away from the focal point. 

The second piece I will introduce is a redux of the same painting, by Igor Sid, that was made to celebrate the 30th anniversary of WarHammer 40,000 in 2016. 

Immediately we can see the way the general art style of 40k has shifted. This work still has a similar overall triangular central composition, but now is far more zoomed out, now we are able to see much more of the environment around the crimson fists, as well as multiple ork war engines approaching from the right and left sides. Another immediately noticeable difference is the more less saturated color scheme, the artsyle obviously seeking a more “realistic” look with the proportions of the marines, and the use of color. The explosion behind the marines at the top of the pile is still there, but takes up much less space above them, with the brightest part of it being much closer to the tops of the marines’ heads, but the overall color of the space above them is still a brighter tone. The crimson fists have their armor painted in the same cool-blue color with the red hands, and the background now uses primarily warm tones of brown, yellow, and orange, as opposed to Dave Gallagher’s use of purple, yellow, and small amounts of blue. The marines certainly contrast well to the rest of the scene, but overall it is much darker than the first image. The main difference I notice is that the leading marine is no longer raising a power fist into the air, now he holds the head of an ork, by the spike of its helmet. I feel like this is an odd choice for the composition since they are called the crimson fists and having the focal point being one marine defiantly raising his crimson fist into the air is much more fitting for the piece as opposed to the head of an ork. There is also only one marine without a helmet now, the rest wearing helmets, which have also had a design change, removing the sort of Darth-Vader looking frowning mouth grille and downturned angry eye lenses, to a more neutral-looking eye lens expression with a flat plate over the mouth part of the face.

Why does any of this matter though? Well, I think it is important to highlight these changes to show how I feel like certain factors that make the art for 40k so interesting are being watered down or even lost. Even though I appreciate the space marines being more proportionate and less cartoony looking, I think in doing so it makes the piece lose a little bit of the magic of the original image. The design of the older helmets, for example- paints a visibly angry looking visage on the face of every marine, it personifies the ferocity of the space marines, makes them look intimidating, and cool hell too. The modern helmet still has a lot of that cool factor but it loses that ferociousness that makes the old helmets so striking to me. The focus of the first image being entirely on the marines, their expressions, and their desperation (in my opinion) makes for a more interesting and cohesive image. Another important factor that I feel is hard to put into words is the “metal-ness” of the images. Although the second piece has a more realistic style, I feel like it misses the original tone of the first, and also the older versions of 40k as a whole. The setting has always been somewhat absurd in its absolutely massive scale, endless war on a galactic scale, with demons, space soldiers, aliens, giant robots the size of Mt.Everest, and spacecraft that can fire rockets the size of city buses. This is obviously a very far cry from real life, and the somewhat silly look of the older artwork (In my opinion) makes this universe more distinct and immediately recognizable as different from our own. Maybe hyperrealism isn’t entirely necessary for something so intentionally different from reality. I feel like many sci fi works have been watering down what makes them unique in recent years, even if it is a somewhat small difference in 40k’s case. 

A more obvious example I can think of for this is Star-Wars. In the most recent show they have revealed, there was a shot of a modern sub-urb.

If I showed this screenshot to you and said it was Star-Wars, would you believe me? I don’t want to speak for the reader, but I feel like your answer would be a no. What happened to the uniqueness of the setting? I feel like this image especially highlights an issue I have begun to notice in modern sci-fi, it’s not alien enough! I would imagine one of the most important aspects of science fiction and its associated art is how alien it is compared to real life. These settings exist in completely different universes with completely different histories, and most importantly, massively different technology and cultures. What is the point of a sci fi if it’s still gonna have an urban hell sprawl of copy-paste houses? I think many unique sci fi works are losing the magic that makes them so unique because the companies behind them are making greater efforts to make their styles more appealing to less niche audiences, thus boosting sales. The constant pursuit of greater profits is clearly affecting the creativity of the art behind these works of media. Obviously this is much more glaring with Star-Wars since it is owned by Disney, but it sets a dangerous precedent when the most well known work of sci-fi is clearly losing its soul. Sci fi has always been about creating something vastly different from the world we live in (at least aesthetically) and in a world where things like AI are constantly making things more and more derivative, it makes me worry about the future of not only the genre, but also fiction itself. If sci-fi loses those striking details that make you immediately recognize what it is upon first glance to be more broadly appealing for boring people (sorry I had to say it) , what will come next? In recent years I have noticed how the constant need for profits that comes from the capitalist system and the necessity for brands to make money to stay afloat, has forced many unique works of media to take steps to water themselves down to bring in more cash. Capitalism is a system that demands standardization, and if something that stems from human creativity becomes standardized to what is the most profitable, it will eventually lose what makes it special in the first place. Even if companies aren’t comfortable with more alien concepts and imagery, it is imperative that our artists continue to create things that are distinct, and not let their works lose the special sauce for a few bucks.