The Enduring Legacy of the Realms of Chaos

Remember those amazing illustrations from the original Realms of Chaos books, by artists such as Adrian Smith, Paul Campbell etal, the ones that provoked so many ideas and fleshed out some of the possibilities and potential within 3rd Edition Realms of Chaos? I still love looking at them today and often feel inspired to try and convert my own miniatures based on the characters depicted within them. But I don't have to so much anymore because the Games Workshop of today (which has more recently seemed like quite a different beast as to what I grew up with) has released some models that are so obviously steeped in and inspired by some of those very illustrations I alluded to earlier.

I rarely venture onto the GW website, so I am somewhat behind the times, but I saw someone else had painted this model (Sloppity Bilepiper) and assumed it was a conversion, but no, this is a bonefide GW release that is clearly based upon some illustrations from GW of the 80's, specifically the Realms of Chaos. I just had to buy it (and make a bit of an adjustment to make it fit a bit better with those illustrations and lose the, quite frankly, ridiculous staff);

The musical element, the dynamic, dancing poses (especially the Nurgling) are just so evocative of those early illustrations, especially the Dance of Death. The older Nurgling I added to Sloppity's hand is a reference to that era.

I had forgotten about my scenic photography backdrop, so I dusted it off (I actually had to and was surprised by the versatility of static grass) and used it again here:

 Before converting and painting this modern model, I just had to reach for my Lost and Damned book and look for the specific illustrations that I saw the link to in these sculpts. The two images were by Adrian Smith and Paul Campbell from the Nurgle pages in the Lost and Damned Realm of Chaos Tome, specifically the Dance of Death and Nurgle Calvalcade pages. Have a look:

So, as I was researching some of this post, I discovered that GW is releasing a game called the Realm of Chaos. It's not aimed for me, but it is nicely reassuring that my favourite era and output of model miniatures is seeing something of a revival for a new generation of gamers/painters. I'm looking forward to some new plastic models to paint and then sit alongside my original lead ones and hope they all are happy lined up alongside each other.