John Blanche?

Brother Meredith said:
Are these artists he stated were an influence or are you speculating? I don’t really see the direct similarities aside from being generic gothic art style?
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Neither of the artists are named in White Dwarf issue 95's Illuminations article, issue 139's Illuminations article or in Ratspike. But again neither are his contemporaries Ray Rubin of Grenadier Miniatures and Philippe Druillet of France, who both were far more direct models for him. In Ratspike Blanche notes that his art has taken, since the 1970s at the late 1980s a turn towards moody art and that of "Victorian romanticists", which includes the artist Bresdin and his circle ("Bresdin was a French lithographer and draughtsman known for his fantastical, densely detailed prints that combined Romantic mysticism with grotesque, dreamlike imagery").

The similarities I see are both generic and art piece specific. The Bresdin has a peculiar combination of elements, yet we see the same whimsical horror (almost harlequin alike), near-toyish line art on characters, focus on realistic or chaotic trees, nature and whatnot in Blanche's and Miller's 1980s art (the 1990s onwards Blanche art is less of the same, sadly). Some of the closest similarities are in Fighting Fantasy artworks and not necessarily in Warhammer series of art pieces:

Bresdin fantasy cities and towns , boatman with graffiti - White Dwarf 42 cover; Marienburg (boatman with graffiti)

Bresdin whimsical characters, moody sitters with moon faces - Snattacats, Troubadours, Confrontation, 40K

Bresdin chaos trees (zoom-in to see at left), skeletons among chaos trees - Nuln, The Voodoo Forest

Bresdin monkey face (at bottom-right corner) - typical mid-1980s Blanche monster facial expressions.

For further example of Blanche loan I found out, please see here and what others have found out, please see here. In Ratspike Blanche writes on how he purposefully models his imaginery on those of others and sees a cultural-racial (he writes 'racial memory') pattern that is to him no mere plagiarism, but direct presentation akin to channeling eternal iconography inherent to Westerners. Quite a fascinating take.

Overall I would say mr. Blanche got quite an interesting career artwise. His 1970s art changed to 1980s art changed to 1990s to 2020s art, while he dual-talented as an artsy modelmaker like no other. Heck, he even has the DMT multicolor squares tower thingie going on in his Running Man art piece (in Ratspike), as also seen in original AD&D City of Brass back cover, in trippy acid music videos, in (my own) dreams... what if Blanche's take on the physical-chemical element in art was spot on, but before the sciences came to acknowledge such possibility in the 1990s and early 2000s via brain-chemical art style research..?
 
SP-Fin said:
Now that the master painter and modeller has gone to Valhalla, it ought to be put out that his work was always based on two earlier artists, Rodolphe Bresdin (d. 1885) and Dirk van Gelder (d. 1990). His companion artist in Ratspike book, Ian Miller, also seems to base his work on those artists.
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Ian has always been very friendly when I've spoken with him, so you could always drop him a line and ask him whilst he's around and about and can confirm or deny! I regret not asking John more about the piece of his I own, I didn't want to bother him too much given his ill health, but I still would have loved to have know if there was a particular reason for creating the piece, etc. So I suggest giving Ian a shout.
 
I was very sad to hear of his passing - it was a bit of a shock actually, I'd no idea. I'd only popped into the boards to have a nose around and see what you guys were up to. That's another of my childhood heroes gone - I've always remember his work from the 80's and 90's with a great fondness - I'll have to have a look through some of my old Rule books. I have to say though I've learnt a few things about him from reading through this thread that I hadn't previously known - you guys know your stuff.

RIP John.
 
meant to post this but kinda decided not to and now can't 100% remember why but.. I think it's fine.

JohnBlanche.jpg

Okay, what I did was just take the intro picture (most likely drawn by John himself) from his Citadel Journal 1 Article 'One Step Beyond: expert tips on painting and converting' (a painting and converting guide with no photos or colour. quite fun and interesting) and take the caption from the 'Who's who at citadel' from the same issue (on a side note, I'm driving myself crazying trying to ID the computer Rick Priestley is using).

I though the humour of matching the two was a good tribute. He had a habbit of 'interesting' self portiats.
 
Wasn't sure. I did wonder about micro/word processor due to the huge wedge on the keyboard, so something like the IMB displaywriter' but the two tone keyboard really confused me. (I have a habbit of enjoying watching old stuff and IDing the old computers. most aren't too hard but this is a really low grade small photo).
 
Too late, that was a late 80s machine ^_^.
lets think... I still got the family Spectrum (with the HP invoice), had some early PC which weren't really IBM-clone.. can't remember what model is was, which was given by a uncle who upgraded. I still got my Atari ST which was also second hand from a different uncle. before upgrading to an Olivetta PC around 1995. ^_^
 
ManicMan said:
Wasn't sure. I did wonder about micro/word processor due to the huge wedge on the keyboard, so something like the IMB displaywriter' but the two tone keyboard really confused me. (I have a habbit of enjoying watching old stuff and IDing the old computers. most aren't too hard but this is a really low grade small photo).
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Xerox 860...? :D
 
!?! I discounted them cause of the price, even by as late as 84 but.... that's .... pretty damn close... I wouldn't have thought GW was rich enough to have that model but... somewhere between that one and the Star... wonder what the UK version design was (often it might be a bit different if it was using a UK 'seller', like how the Spectrum in the USA was released with the Timex branding, or how Tandy/radio shack would rebrand stuff....

@dieselmonkey , 1984 before your time?
 
ManicMan said:
!?! I discounted them cause of the price, even by as late as 84 but.... that's .... pretty damn close... I wouldn't have thought GW was rich enough to have that model but... somewhere between that one and the Star... wonder what the UK version design was (often it might be a bit different if it was using a UK 'seller', like how the Spectrum in the USA was released with the Timex branding, or how Tandy/radio shack would rebrand stuff....

@dieselmonkey , 1984 before your time?
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I've no idea, but this from the man himself... Or an Amstrad apparently (ain't internet searches brilliant?!) https://usesthis.com/interviews/rick.priestley/
 
Didn't find that but.. yep.. that is it! a variation of the 860. As I said, a local seller. Rank Xerox was, if I remember right, A uk company created to sell Xerox stuff in the UK, by teaming up with the Rank Organisation (as in, the Film guys).

Ah, the days before everything was a IBM-clone.. both good and bad..
 
Ohhh.. the problems with Amstrads... the problem when you have a company founded by a con-man.... who well.. re: Mugs eyefull. Make it look good and the idiots who buy it won't care about the quality. very very nasty man and a bad businessman who almost killed a few industries in the UK (and in fact, DID put some companies out of business)
 
naw, I think some of that is mostly just angle and photo quality. Maybe a slight variation from the fancy photo one which might be taken from the original USA model more then the locally produced variation. (remember when local companies would product the local version under license to save money of shipping? like GW and some D&D books after getting the license. Like most fast food places etc)
 
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