The Warhammer Diorama

You’ll remember in my previous article harking back to the ‘glory days’ of Games Workshop (Just to clarify the definition of the glory days of Games Workshop for anyone is pretty much when you were a kid and everything was cool as hell) I mentioned that I once had grand plans to create my own Golden Demon dioramas. One of my ground breaking ideas was some Eldar Jetbikes just flying over some ground which I imagine would just be a Frosties packet covered in flocking. Probably not a winner (maybe 3rd or 4th place though). It wouldn’t have been able to compete against something like this…

rounders1

Incredible Crimson Fists diorama; although I would have preferred one based on the Rogue Trader artwork. This one will have to do I guess.

In this article (the first of a few I hope) I’m going to be showing some of my favourite dioramas – this won’t include all of them but will show quite a lot. As a warning this article will provide no real insight into anything at all really but will be another self serving trip down memory lane for me – enjoy!

I love dioramas because they incorporate the elements I love most about the hobby. Firstly the amount of skill it takes in terms of modelling is incredible – figures have to be chopped up, reshaped, repositioned and then made to look like GW had chosen to mould them that way in the first place. Secondly to make them interesting they have to be imaginative, it’s ok having some guy shooting another guy but quite often dioramas need more, which brings me on to the last element. A diorama always tells a story – sometimes it will be straight from a piece of Warhammer fluff and it will allow you to picture a scene the same way a John Blanche image would. Sometimes that story is left to the interpretation of the person looking at the diorama as it’s about some soldier that doesn’t mean anything rather than a defining moment in a universes cannon. Let’s get started…

eversor

A small diorama to get us started which I don’t really want to comment much on as the text accompanying the picture says it all really – a little detail like the Eversor’s last victims arm means you make up a whole story in your head about what’s going on. I tried to recreate large pipes like the one in the background using coke cans but I used cheap spray paint and you could still see the Sainsburys Classic Cola writing underneath. Seeing this again has inspired me to yet again try and create a diorama using the Eversor figure – one of my WD favourites.

quest1 quest2 quest3 quest4

The 40k universe did much more to capture my imagination when I was younger because the imagery associated to it was so bleak and gory – anything like that draws you to it in the same way as the horror section of my home town’s video rental store did. I’ve never been as into Warhammer Fantasy Battle, however there is no denying how awesome this Warhammer Quest diorama is – I talked about dioramas telling a story well in this one every room tells a different story.

My favourite room in this has to be the crazy wizard dude summoning a demon from his sick book and that Dwarf just flipping his shit over the entire situation, I’d be pissed off too. It looks like a scene described from a Venom song and seeing this diorama in the flesh at Warhammer World was a nice little moment for me. I’m not going to bore you anymore but leave you to pore through the little things on this one.

Horus 1 Horus 2

Even though I love this diorama I’m also in two minds about it as part of me thinks this is such an important moment in the fluff of 40k that maybe it should have been left alone completely. It’s a great scene, but has it really captured what an intense moment it was and is that actually possible for anyone pull it off well?

Horus’ throne is cool as hell, it’s got skulls inside it and a skull goblet which I imagine he drunk Irn Bru or Yazoo from. Horus himself looks hard and pretty fucked up, I have no clue how Mike McVey managed to get the face to look so close to the artwork by Adrian Smith on which it’s based on – green stuff skills that mere mortals can only imagine of I guess. The Emperor looks ok but not amazing, from the models I would have backed Horus as the victor. Don’t get me started on Sanguinius – is that what he wears all the time? I always thought Blood Angels were cool but I didn’t realise their primarch looked like Pat Sharpe wearing a health spa bath robe.

That’s all I’m going to cover now, I’ll be scouring my old White Dwarfs for more dioramas and will snap some pictures from Warhammer World on our next trip (for those overseas who may not have visited before). I’m also going to be looking through some of the Golden Demon winners, as let’s face it, the stuff that gets made outside GW is most often the coolest. But for now…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6eom0IwfaA&w=420&h=315]