AranaszarSzuur
Vassal


I’m currently reading Ian Watson’s Space Marine and I was trying to imagine the 2nd edition Marines if they were drawn by Wil Rees. Or maybe even 1st edition? Looking at how Titans in Space Marine had defence lasers, macro cannons, etc. instead of specific new titan weapons like in Space Marine 2nd ed, it must be a first edition novel O_o .
“He was not viewing his snout-visored companions with his actual eyes, though.”
Snout visor usually refers to visored bascinet helmets - it means that is Space Marine is about beakies!
There certainly is no mistake. Note how Ian Watson uses names of historical architecture:
rib vaulted, groin vaulted, fan vaulted, oriel windows, mullions, lancet windows, trefoils, barbican, etc.
So, apparently he simply saw the Corvus armour and immediately associated it with a visored bascinet helmet. Wow, such a discovery!
Anyway, besides that:
Ian Watson had a very baroque and grotesque vision of Imperial Fists:
“Such armour theirs was! Pus-hued, and azure-chevroned. Fanged skulls with potent crosses adorned the knee joints of these warriors’ armour. Yet aside from squad markings there were many individualistic touches too. Campaign badges and honour markings, yes, those of course, on the greaves protecting their right shanks – in many cases quartered and augmented with extra honours. Yes, those. But in some instances artificers of genius had left their mark upon the armour – ten years earlier, or a hundred, or a thousand. Repairs to the thigh-cuisses and groin-hauberks had been plated with damascened silver and gold engravings of the deeds of Rogal Dorn.”
One could only imagine how such visions would look on illustrations if done by dark geniuses like Wil Rees and Ian Miller, which were painfully absent in 2nd edition - the “Kitchhammer”.
One thing that is important is that there’s no reason why Space Marines shouldn’t be as grotesque as unmutated Chaos Space Marines. I remember some early Dark Angels miniatures in White Dwarf featuring spikes. So, I tried something more dark.