Vox Cast: The Repository Thread

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

That was a most excellent podcast .

[Hungry Nostraman Lizard]

I loved that Abnett was and still is, very passionate. I suppose you must be, to write so many things in one particular setting. I'd love to see what his list was when he approached (???) of things he could or couldn't do.

 

[Gederas]

New VoxCast episode is with Phil Moss:

 

I find it funny how he snarks about pretty, good-looking heroes.

[alfred_the_great]

Who is he?

[Halandaar]

Who is he?

 

"Warhammer 40,000 Studio Illustrator" 

[Gederas]

Who is he?

"Warhammer 40,000 Studio Illustrator"

And according to the video he did the cover art for (recently): Death Masque, Tooth & Claw and Shadowspear

[alfred_the_great]

Having listened to all of these, it strikes me how positive a team they feel. And you can tell that by their genuine desire to pass on their knowledge.

 

I think that's a really positive, and quite uplifting.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I would like to hear from a game developer .

[Slips]

This weeks episode is with Forgeworld Mark Bedford.

 

[No Foes Remain]

Episode 13 is up with the Legend that is John Blanche who is drawing as well as talking.

 

 

Edited May 27, 2019 by No Foes Remain

[Kenzaburo]

The last time they haf Blanche on, don't remember if it was Vox- or Stormcast, he was drawing as well. I tried to listen to it on my way back home from work. It was actually quite confusing, without the visual element of him drawing - I had to stop listening to it. Since he's drawing here again, I'd guess the episode might be best consumed in video format. 

[Brother Casman]

Yes, this is definitely an episode to watch rather than just listen to. Pretty cool to watch John at work, though!

[Kenzaburo]

That's true. I'm also fascinated at how fast he works. I hold Blanche in high regard, so don't get me wrong there. It's just that his way of conversing with Wade doesn't lend itself to a mere audio format.

[Sandlemad]

That's true. I'm also fascinated at how fast he works. I hold Blanche in high regard, so don't get me wrong there. It's just that his way of conversing with Wade doesn't lend itself to a mere audio format.

 

I agree, he wasn't the chattiest or most engaged interview subject even in a video format - which must have been tricky for Wade, frankly - but seeing him work away while making the odd quiet component like that was cool.

 

I enjoyed how open he was about deliberately flicking paint splatter on the end being an important part of his signature style. Gotta have that splatter.

[killersquid]

I remember listening to the episode on stormcast with him in my car ha ha. It was amazing to watch though! Gonna need to do the same this time around.

[Burni]

As an audio only listener... yeah, that Stormcast episode... I’ll likely skip this one, but glad it’s there for those that enjoy the video stuff.

[Kenzaburo]

Something I've noticed more and more, listening to Voxcast and Stormcast: A lot of the prominent names in GW HQ nowadays started in retail. It's kinda fascinating that the company enables that much vertical and horizontal movement in its departments.

 

A lot of former retailers are now product managers, background writers, 'Eavy Metal painters, mini designers and whatnot. I've never heard of this happening much anywhere else. Have you?

[Panzer]

It happens more or less often in small companies and GW started out really small. The question is whether something like this still happens today at GW.

[Kenzaburo]

That's what I'm wondering about. They mentioned at some point, that at least in HQ you still get a lot of that horizontal flexibility. But even at the time when many of them started, the early 2000s, I'd bet that GW was no longer a small company. At least not, if you count the vast number of retail staff they should have had.

[Sandlemad]

Another excellent Jes Goodwin interview, this time about titans and knights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwS0bQoZT1w

Jes is as refreshingly candid as ever. Fun to hear a GW person say that the thing with Forge World's titans is that they're, and I quote, "incredibly expensive" and something most people will only get when they retire.

[Rik Lightstar]

That's what I'm wondering about. They mentioned at some point, that at least in HQ you still get a lot of that horizontal flexibility. But even at the time when many of them started, the early 2000s, I'd bet that GW was no longer a small company. At least not, if you count the vast number of retail staff they should have had.

That was certainly true back then, it wasn't really a small company, well not by 2001, it was a medium sized business already and then LOTR hit and it went bonkers.

 

There have definitely been people movi g out of the retail chain and into HQ recently, for example I was on the GW Store Manager Training course back in 2006 or 2007 with Chris Peach from the Community Painting videos. I'm pretty sure Wade was working in the retail side of things then too.

 

Rik

[Sandlemad]

Gonna throw up my notes from the Jes Goodwin interview because I have the time and it's so good to hear about his creative prospect.

 

The original knight kit:

"This is probably a one-shot deal [..] the one chance to get this model made" - It and the wraithknight were the two giant robots he wanted to do, if he could only do two - Wanted to cram everything big and stompy and imperial into one model.

Purpose was to make an affordable titan ("a pocket titan, if you like"), he thought there was a market there for "a model that everybody could own" as opposed to forge world stuff - only had three frames to do it in. Do this right and it's good for the creative process, as is thinking you only have one shot; if you can only make three faceplates, make them the best. He sets this against the impulse to leave room to grow and expand.

Wanted multiple weapons, wanted multiple faceplates. Also wanted to see if he could make have a few poses but not completely articulated. Didn't want to make it compeltely articulated (as they've done occasionally) because it raises the base difficulty. Hence the tabs on the sockets, to accommodate both groups, which is more difficult but ultimately more satisfying and the right way to go, doesn't want to make a kit that is frustrating to make. Had to be enough you could do with the kit so that folks could buy two and not get bored, which also accounted for the focus on new heraldry. Didn't expect people to buy four or five.

Only a matter of weeks after it was released that they realised it was a bestseller and that it was worthwhile to get all the bits they had cut (the fits, the avenger, etc) and hurriedly get them ready, still with a long lead-in time.

Don't just make them medieval, look also at Victorian reinterpretation of medieval imagery, how do these things evolve and get reused?

Wished he'd seen more houses drawing from other RL medieval cultures to emphasis the deep time and variety of the original knight world settlers, e.g. they originally had an idea for a heraldic scheme featuring a wheel and an elephant to feel like something from the Indian subcontinent, ended up not going with it because it didn't filter through the 10k years well. Also says there's always the risk of it winding up as "culturally appropriative or just a bit naff" if done poorly. Notes that one knight mentioned in the codex is called Kobayashi, meant to be some reminder of the broadness of the inspiration available.

 

Jes also had a wonderful minor grumble about knights painted up as part of marine chapters on the basis that they're supposed to be their own thing and "marines have enough!"

He was less involed with the Dominus knight but did spend more time doing concept work to figure out where plates should go and how the movement could work "with the proviso that it wouldn't work and isn't real and physics", just has to be plausible enough for people to suspend their disbelief. Also thought about narrative elements, e.g. where handholds go, how the pilot climbs up it.

Chaos knights:
Didn't dwell much on them during Epic, apart from the god-specific one (noted the sheer amount of cows that would have been needed for the leather coating on the slaanesh ones), as the focus was on models being viable for traitors or loyalist.

How many ways can you have a chaos knight? Traitor from the heresy, traitor who fell with a titan legion, traitor who is god-aligned, but also the differences between a freeblade that turns renegade, a member of a house that turns renegade (dark scrawlings over their old heraldry) or an entire house that turns renegade. Had to go more than 'one step in' with the stuff mentioned in the codex, because that's one step is just a conversion.

The core visual changes to make the chaos knight kit were:

• Distort the frame and anatomy, make it even more hunched, change the legs to be more bestial. Idea was that these were the things that would be harder to convert, so this was where the new kit was distinctive
• More asymmetry. Can be a simple or overused solution but works here make it look jury-rigged, old, fits with the narrative.
• Corruption on armour plates, meant to look like skin disease but still wanted blank plates for heraldry, didn't want to cut out one of the pleasures of modelling/painting a knight and making it unique.
• Daemonic element. Make the structure look slightly organic, wanted it semi-hidden and peering out from faceplate, meant to be creepy and unsettling. Not quite daemon engine but some similar visual cues.
• Trophy racks, has to look suitably barbaric and, best of all, "there wasn't room for a topknot"
   

Edited July 12, 2019 by Sandlemad

[Marshal Rohr]

The interview was great, and Jes really understands the concepts that make 40k. You can definitely see the design philosophy’s at GW glaring failures here. They don’t release rules that encourage expanding on the wider breadth of vehicles and armies in the universe unless there’s a model for it, and those rules are confined to what comes with the model. Really illustrates how a concept that is so wide and so universally loved becomes so small and siloed as to be unusable for anything outside of the exact lore in the codexes.

[Sandlemad]

Yeah and even at the design stage where you have folks like Jes going out of his way to ensure than a kit like the knight or chaos knight has enough... let's say 'breadth' to fit multiple concepts in the background for modellers to work with, to avoid that siloed effect, it doesn't come through in the stuff that gets published.

 

Like those 6-7 broad origins for a chaos knight are far closer in their variability and subtle differences to the kind of background you see in the FW black books. They all have their own modelling or painting implications, let alone rules. This is the level of thought and effort that goes into the design stage, including Jes's restraint and awareness of potential pitfalls in narrow or siloed background and kit design. But from what I've seen of the chaos knight codex so far, this only really gets a passing nod. They were broadened out and made less weird and contextual. Which, in fairness, will inevitably happen with almost any concept --> final product situation but it's pretty glum to hear.

 

There was also some tactful skipping over Alan Merrett's apparent antipathy to the knight kit being developed and released, supposedly he thought it would never sell. A nicely done thing.

[Marshal Rohr]

Honestly, them talking about what knights were developed and used for in pre-history makes me want to convert up a knight that looks like the original purpose. A hallowed and revered relic (if somewhat useless) probably adorning a shrine somewhere. Covered in sensors and painted in hazard stripes and warning colors like a big, bipedal forklift.