A word from Victor Hardy
- Thread starter shinjikun1
- Start date
Braveheart712
New member
In the words of Chris Rock...
GW is \"like the uncle that molested you then paid your way to college\". GW deserves almost all they get, they deserve the constant backlash for half baked corporate commitment that seems to focus on ripping as much money out of the consumers wallet as possible while leaving us less than satisfied through their \"speak to the hand\" policy regarding feedback. The one thing they don\'t deserve is the support of their consumers but until they really piss us off I think that will continue for the time being.
Yes I play their games because I like their games, but I hate their policies. I hate the lack of support. I hate the ambiguity. If they actually cared they could attempt to write rules governing their painting competitions to explain these situations BEFORE they occur rather than their canned answer of \"We did it cause we did it.\" Will I personally stop playing their games, probably not in the near future because I enjoythem, I enjoy unwinding with my friend on the weekends and pushing metal minis around a table. Will I stop bitching, definitely not, that is unless GW makes an honest attempt to listen to its consumers and supporter, but that will never happen right? (Well maybe if oil continues its upward climb and GW prices a box of space marines at $100...oops, isn\'t that next years \"price adjustment\"???)
Back to painting my minis in that God aweful cartoony American style....
GW is \"like the uncle that molested you then paid your way to college\". GW deserves almost all they get, they deserve the constant backlash for half baked corporate commitment that seems to focus on ripping as much money out of the consumers wallet as possible while leaving us less than satisfied through their \"speak to the hand\" policy regarding feedback. The one thing they don\'t deserve is the support of their consumers but until they really piss us off I think that will continue for the time being.
Yes I play their games because I like their games, but I hate their policies. I hate the lack of support. I hate the ambiguity. If they actually cared they could attempt to write rules governing their painting competitions to explain these situations BEFORE they occur rather than their canned answer of \"We did it cause we did it.\" Will I personally stop playing their games, probably not in the near future because I enjoythem, I enjoy unwinding with my friend on the weekends and pushing metal minis around a table. Will I stop bitching, definitely not, that is unless GW makes an honest attempt to listen to its consumers and supporter, but that will never happen right? (Well maybe if oil continues its upward climb and GW prices a box of space marines at $100...oops, isn\'t that next years \"price adjustment\"???)
Back to painting my minis in that God aweful cartoony American style....
P
provoke_me
Guest
oh markus... you sig said jesus loves naked women.
anywho...grrr GW!
anywho...grrr GW!
shinjikun1
New member
wow chris rock said all that about GW? I knew Will smith, and Robin Williams were into the Hobby, but I had no ideas about Chris Rock.???
Sithtainius
New member
I don\'t know if I could imagine \'Big Will\' gettin\' jiggy wit his bad ass pro painted space marines.....
who does he play?
Jay-Z?
lollol
who does he play?
Jay-Z?
lollol
IF you\'re going to bash like that on GW. Why not do it on all companies\' who\'s only goal is to maximise profit. ??? Actually chances are you work for a company that is just like that 
Never understood that hating GW for doing what they\'re suposed to do. And I don\'t think their policy is going down badly with that many people, because last time I checked they were doing pretty well, and the GD were full. Maybe it\'s just the painter\'s side of the hobby who likes to b*tch about GW, and since we\'re probablly no more then 5% of their customers they don\'t give a shit, wich seems pretty normal to me.
Never understood that hating GW for doing what they\'re suposed to do. And I don\'t think their policy is going down badly with that many people, because last time I checked they were doing pretty well, and the GD were full. Maybe it\'s just the painter\'s side of the hobby who likes to b*tch about GW, and since we\'re probablly no more then 5% of their customers they don\'t give a shit, wich seems pretty normal to me.kittykat23uk
New member
Victor Hardy\'s rant aside (and I was involved in the original discussions on this last year and saw the mini in question), I got the feeling last year that GW didn\'t appreciate the amount of work people really put in to their entries. For God\'s sake they screwed up the Open by only having one award, instead of the usual three, and not only that but they didn\'t even take photos of any of the finalists, especially in the open category, where there was some really fantastic work. Considering they have a monthy magazine, that usually has some showcased miniatures, I think they are really missing a trick by not providing better coverage of the event over the following 12 months. E.g. they could have done a nice two-page spread in White Dwarf just on the clockwork Kroot diorama, but we didn\'t even see photos of it on their website (other than the crappy video capture). :flame:
D
Durham_red
Guest
I don\'t know how much he is planning on changing it (if at all) But I recall reading somewhere that he wanted to enter it in this years Gen Con. He politle asked all the websites that had pics of it if they would mind removing them so that when he entered it it would still retain some of the impact of seeing it for the first time in the judging.
Einion
New member
WTF? IMO an ARE is great and it all started online anyway IIRC, although that\'s just my POV... IRL it can be a mite annoying though, although RTFM is very useful ROFLMAO lolOriginally posted by Drake Farstrider
Hey I guess that makes sense. I hate all that OTT, AFAIK crap.
Einion
Ebonbuddha
Active member
I think people are angry because GW raises it prices every year. And we get nothing for it. I remember back in the day (1985-92) wanting to buy GW stuff. IT was hella expensive. But I wanted them, the miniatures had character, so I bought them.
Now they are just riding the coat tails of their glorious past. They haven\'t really put out a \"wow\" miniature in a long time.
And why should they? Especially when they have people out there justifying the price gouging. \"$50.00 for five plastic space marines terinators? Here you go. Thanks for screwing me. Too bad you couldn\'t give me a reach around.\"
Its kind of like being in a bad relationship, but not wanting to leave because they make you feel special.
One other point.
If they really cared about their customers, maybe they would make their product cheaper. Why come out with a new boxset that is even more expensive than the last. They already know that the customers are complaining about paying too much for the hobby. They are such marketing geniuses, think of a way to do that.
Now they are just riding the coat tails of their glorious past. They haven\'t really put out a \"wow\" miniature in a long time.
And why should they? Especially when they have people out there justifying the price gouging. \"$50.00 for five plastic space marines terinators? Here you go. Thanks for screwing me. Too bad you couldn\'t give me a reach around.\"
Its kind of like being in a bad relationship, but not wanting to leave because they make you feel special.
One other point.
If they really cared about their customers, maybe they would make their product cheaper. Why come out with a new boxset that is even more expensive than the last. They already know that the customers are complaining about paying too much for the hobby. They are such marketing geniuses, think of a way to do that.
Originally posted by frenchkid
IF you\'re going to bash like that on GW. Why not do it on all companies\' who\'s only goal is to maximise profit. ??? Actually chances are you work for a company that is just like that
...
We went from discussing the merits, ideas, and philosophy of VIctor\'s piece, to the costs of GW stuff
I find the idea of what VIctor has done awesome. When reading the 40k manual and some of the codexes, it\'s obvious 40k = bible/other religious groups, events, etc).
Still can\'t wait to see pics, but he promised he would give the site some, after a contest? He posted 2 weeks ago at Dakka Dakka himself, with some more commentary to this:
----------------------------------------------------
Posted: Tuesday, August 02, 2005 11:42:45 PM
Hi guys, it been a while since I have last posted. I\'d thought I would make this contribution to the discussion. My miniature that was disqualified was quite a dissapointment for me--I spent two years and between 500-600 hours working on it--but I have no hard feelings towards GW and understand where they are coming from. The debate you guys are having was also had in October 2004 when I first entered the mini. I have a post on yahoo minipainter that can still be read on the site. The experience left me a little gun shy about re-entering it in a GW contest so I am waiting for another non-GW contest to come around.
I think that for the most part both sides of the debate have points. I can see that GW may draw the line in another place than I. They are a profit minded company after all and they can decide what they want to do in their contests. But I take my hobby to heart and I painted what I wanted to paint and what I was passionate about. It is no doubt my finest work and if GW does not want to print it, so be it. But I have no regrets.
Last year I was going to post the text below in response to a criticism on minipainter, but thought the best of it (and did not post it) because I did not want to feed the fire of a flame war. But the post describes (and defends) where my thinking was with respect to the imagery and may be interesting to you. The post that was never posted reads:
Aren\'t you being a little tough? Afterall we are talking about a miniature painting contest where we show off our little toy men. Every time someone gets disqualified, a person, who is not being paid, gets many hours of work done for the appreciation of others thrown out the window.
I do not think there can be much debate to the fact that GW has directly used the imagery of Christianity in its 40k story line. Nor is it just a superficial similarity. A short read through the Witch hunters codex will make this very clear. Consider this:
The history of the Ecclesiarchy of the Imperium is modeled in detail after the history of the Roman Catholic church (see 11 examples in my prior post), complete with historical references to major events of the Church: the inquisition, the Great Schism (radical v. Puritan), the burning of witches (hunting of rogue psykers), the Great Crusades (Wars of Faith in Witch hunters Codex) and the reformation of Martin Luther (the story of Sebastion Thor listed under the subheading \"Reformation\" in 2nd Ed. Sisters of Battle Codex, p. 16 and p. 4 of the Witch hunters codex).
1. The divine object of worship of the Ecclesiarchy is the Emperor who is essentially a God-Man. The divine object of worship of the Roman Catholic church is Jesus who essentially is God-Man (part of the doctrine of the Trinity is that Jesus is the embodiment of God as a man). Doesn\'t this alone suggest to you that GW is drawing a parallel between Jesus and the Emperor?
2. The parallel goes much further, indeed, it becomes almost explicit. GW repeatedly refers to the Emperor as the \"Saviour Emperor\" (4th Edition 40k Rule book, p. 96 and 2nd Ed. Sisters of Battle Codex, p. 5) and the \"the Emperor is our Father\" (Witch Hunters Codex, p. 11). GW calls non-believers in the Imperial Creed \"heretics\" and has a pyskic power called \"The Passion\" (as in Passion of the Christ which refers to the crucifixion of Christ) (Witch Hunter Codex, p. 28). The Witch Hunters Codex is replete with references to \"faith\" (p. 7, 28, 45) \"penitence/penitent (p. 16, 29, 37), confession/confessor (p. 27), \"absolution (p. 36, 42),\" \"forgiveness (p. 42)\" and \"redemption (p. 42).\" Who do you think is granting the forgiveness, absolution and redemption in the 40k Universe? Would it be fair to say that the God-Man of the Ecclesiarchy is doing it (or at least the clerics of his church doing it in his name). Aren\'t these the same things that Jesus does (or his priests). Indeed, the Ecclesiarchy prays to the Emperor, just like Christians pray to Jesus.
Furthermore, the central theme of Jesus is through self sacrifice and ultimate suffering he saved humanity. This is repeated in the story of the Emperor as told by the Ecclesiarchy. P. 38 of the 2nd. Ed. Fluff book, Codex Imperialis states \"the Emperor slew horus suffering a mortal wound in return and leading to his incarceration in the golden throne. The redemption of humanity by the self-sacrifice of the Emperor became the central theme of the Imperial Cult.\" The codex on p. 11 goes on to reinforce the theme of the Emperors self sacrifice and suffering in the Golden Throne that saves humanity (Just like Jesus suffered on the cross to save humanity): \"the Emperor gave his life battling to save the earth...though everyday the arcane machines [i.e. the Golden Throne] consume many thousand psykers, the ultimate suffering is that of the Emperor himself. For his agonies can never cease. He must endure an endless battle [in the Golden Throne] and can never be free of the burden that fate has placed upon his failing spirit. Without him there is nothing.\" These are more than superficial similiarities but rather direct attempts to incorporate major thematic elements of the story of Jesus into the story of the Emperor as told by his Ecclesiarchy. Although the Emperor is a warrior, rather than pacifist, the Ecclesiarchy focuses on his self sacrifice and the suffering in the golden throne for the greater of humanity in its central theme--Not how much of a bad A$$ the Emperor is. Maybe he did not volutarily laid down his life in his battle with Horus (though the text says he \"gave\" his life), but he voluntarily holds on the material world through his force of will, enduring centuries of agony in his state of near death in the Golden Throne to power the Astronimicom (which saves humanity) (p.11). Not perfect, but unmistakably analogous.
The references above touch on almost all of the core tenets of Christianity. This is more than superficial similarity, they are explicit historical references. Do you think that all of these references are there by accident... or is GW intentially drawing on the history of the Catholic Church and its imagery to create the imagery and story line of the 40k universe--just as it did with Roman (ultramarines), Egyptian (Thousand Sons, Horus), Buddist (Tau), Gaelic/Nordic (Space Wolves, dwarfs, bretonians), German/Russian (Commisars, Death Corp) Lores. Similarly, doesn\'t the above references suggest to you that GW is also specifically borrowing from the story of Jesus in creating the background of the Emperor--I mean they went as far as refering to the emperor as the \"saviour.\" Isn\'t it fair to draw the same historical references and analogy in my miniature as used by GW? Is that so inconsistent with the \"spirit\" (rather than strict confines of that imagery) of GW universe that it amounts to a clear breaking of the rules with no room for reasonable disagreement?
My mini essentially draws on the same historical references that GW used in creating the story of the emperor and his Ecclesiarchy. I embarked on the task of depicting a Word Bearers demon prince--which out of all the traitor legions is the one that is most overtly religous. There is not alot of established imagery of the Word bearers so I had to improvise a bit on how I think they would be. They build \"cathedrals\" (not temples), have \"chaplans\" and \"dark apostles\" and \"faith.\" Lorgor, the Word Bearer\'s primarch is described as \"always one of the most scrupulous and dedicated followers of the Imperial cult\" before the heresy (p. 13 of 2nd Edition Chaos Codex). Most of all they \"exceptionally well-versed in the counter aguments of the imperial creed\" (the doctrine of the Ecclesiarchy). See Chaos codex p. 43. They are not frothing madmen like Worldeaters, but rather they seem to be essentially evil zealot demoguoge monks. I view them as sort of a mirror image of the Ecclesiarchy, but an anti-Ecclesiarchy. I imagined the \"counter oratory\" to be twisting subtly words of the emperor to pervert the Imperial Creed to support the worship of the chaos gods. So naturally I used the imagery of the Eccelsiarchy (which is essentially catholic imagery) and made perversions to it (as I imagined that a Word Bearer would do). As the older fluff books describe \"The redemption of humanity by the self-sacrifice of the Emperor became the central theme of the Imperial Cult.\" It seems to me that a counter orator of the imperial creed (i.e. the doctrine of the Imperial Cult) would naturally try to pervert the imperial creed\'s central theme--the self sacrifice of the emperor--and attempt to invoke his imagery to support the chaos gods. Maybe it didn\'t work for you. But it works for me, so I painted the miniature that way.
It also should be noted that the images on the mini, although adaptations of Christian Icons, are intended to depict the story of the Emperor and do not literally represent Jesus or Mary. There are scenes from every aspect of his life, from childhood to his death on the mini. The Woman and Child Banner resembling an Icon is meant to suggest that the Emperor was tainted by Chaos from his birth. I couldn\'t have just put a baby on the banner as it would be totally unrecognizeable what I was depicting (well maybe I could of found another way, but golden power armour just did not seem right on a baby). The Iconic imagery makes clear that the child is divine.
The Icon on the other side of the banner that looks like Jesus is meant to be the Emperor (though he was intentionally painted to resemble Jesus). You can tell this because the same face is used on the wing, except it shows the man wearing the golden power armor breastplate of Emperor, including the double headed eagle crest of the Emperor. The Golden Halo surrounding the Emperor\'s head is perverted to have the shape of a chaos star, again suggesting the emperor is tainted by Chaos. Furthermore, the depiction of the emperor head in the center of a chaos symbol is also meant to resemble the Word Bearers Chapter Symbol which has a demon head in the center of a chaos star. The juxtaposition of the Emperor\'s face for the demon\'s face is again supposed to reinforce the theme that the Emperor is tainted by Chaos. The image on the stone rubble is also an adapted Word Bearers Chapter Symbol with a demon\'s head in the center of a chaos star, except instead of the traditional demon head, it has the face of the mini. All these images make more sense when they are viewed together than when taken alone out of their context. However, unfortunately for me, they were still too subtle to understand in the three minutes the mini gets viewed while being judged.
Hopefully, the above references may not have been known by you and maybe you have changed your mind. I think I have done a decent job explaining the mini and that I was paying close attention to the details of the GW Universe and the subject matter I was depicting. The Jesus/Emperor comparison is not an identical story, but an analogy. There are some elements that will differ, as your post points out, but that does not make it an invalid analogy--all analogies are less than perfect comparisons or otherwise they would be indentical stories. The elements that are similiar are pretty explicit and rather detailed. You may not like the analogy, but I do not think its fair to say that I did not put alot of thought on the subject as you attack me for. Even if you beleive that my analogy fails as far as analogies go, haven\'t I provided enough support to paint some images on miniature for a contest--I mean its not like I making a case for rewriting the fluff in a rule book.
A second issue is that maybe although there are Christian elements in the 40k storyline, I went too far with expanding on them because I may offend some religously devout people. Maybe that is true. I certainly have expanded on the Christian element beyond strictly what has been previously depicted in the GW imagery. I can understand that GW might draw the line differently than I. That is why I do not have any hard feelings towards GW. But let\'s not kid ourselves. The 40k storyline is not for the religous devout. The GW depiction of the Ecclesiarchy in the Witch Hunters and Chaos Codexes goes beyond just borrowing elements from Christianity. It heavily satirizes the history of the Church pointing out the foibles of many actual events of the Church such as the inquisition, burning of witches and the crusades and expands them to the point of parody. Billions are casually killed in the name of the emperor with no concern for their innocence. Populations are wiped out because of a single act of heresy. Genocide of alien races are in the name of the Emperor. The population is brainwashed with the imperial creed so much as to engage in the most horrific crimes without any thought of morality beyond the alleged will of the Emperor. The atrocities of the Imperium are a direct critique of the history of the Catholic Church during the middle ages. What is worse is that the Emperor doesn\'t actually speak and these atrocities allegedly done to carry out the Emperor\'s will were really just ways for the High Lords of Terra to get their evil bidding done. This has a bit of suggestion that Catholicism itself is just an institution to control the population. Do you think that any of this may offend some religous people? I do not think that anybody religous who really reads this stuff is going to say I am Okay with the biting satire of my church, the demon worship, praying to the God-Man in golden armor and the genocide--but that Icon-looking thing on the mini in a painting contest goes too far. But reasonable minds can disagree and draw line differently than me.
Anyways, I took the time to write this email because I do find the Christian elements in 40k interesting and wanted to explain it. I did spend two years painting a miniature to expand on this subject. I really do not want to get into a flame war with you (or anyone else), I just want people to understand what I was trying to do with my mini.
Best Regards,
Victor Hardy
---------------------------------
Reading all his writing about this piece, really does put some stuff in perspective...the idea that the Imperium is just our world\'s religions taken to the extreme....very interesting...never thought of it like that.
If anyone has pics, please email me?
sshanbhag@sympatico.ca
I just can\'t wait for Victor to post his pics up
Sanjay
We went from discussing the merits, ideas, and philosophy of VIctor\'s piece, to the costs of GW stuff
I find the idea of what VIctor has done awesome. When reading the 40k manual and some of the codexes, it\'s obvious 40k = bible/other religious groups, events, etc).
Still can\'t wait to see pics, but he promised he would give the site some, after a contest? He posted 2 weeks ago at Dakka Dakka himself, with some more commentary to this:
----------------------------------------------------
Posted: Tuesday, August 02, 2005 11:42:45 PM
Hi guys, it been a while since I have last posted. I\'d thought I would make this contribution to the discussion. My miniature that was disqualified was quite a dissapointment for me--I spent two years and between 500-600 hours working on it--but I have no hard feelings towards GW and understand where they are coming from. The debate you guys are having was also had in October 2004 when I first entered the mini. I have a post on yahoo minipainter that can still be read on the site. The experience left me a little gun shy about re-entering it in a GW contest so I am waiting for another non-GW contest to come around.
I think that for the most part both sides of the debate have points. I can see that GW may draw the line in another place than I. They are a profit minded company after all and they can decide what they want to do in their contests. But I take my hobby to heart and I painted what I wanted to paint and what I was passionate about. It is no doubt my finest work and if GW does not want to print it, so be it. But I have no regrets.
Last year I was going to post the text below in response to a criticism on minipainter, but thought the best of it (and did not post it) because I did not want to feed the fire of a flame war. But the post describes (and defends) where my thinking was with respect to the imagery and may be interesting to you. The post that was never posted reads:
Aren\'t you being a little tough? Afterall we are talking about a miniature painting contest where we show off our little toy men. Every time someone gets disqualified, a person, who is not being paid, gets many hours of work done for the appreciation of others thrown out the window.
I do not think there can be much debate to the fact that GW has directly used the imagery of Christianity in its 40k story line. Nor is it just a superficial similarity. A short read through the Witch hunters codex will make this very clear. Consider this:
The history of the Ecclesiarchy of the Imperium is modeled in detail after the history of the Roman Catholic church (see 11 examples in my prior post), complete with historical references to major events of the Church: the inquisition, the Great Schism (radical v. Puritan), the burning of witches (hunting of rogue psykers), the Great Crusades (Wars of Faith in Witch hunters Codex) and the reformation of Martin Luther (the story of Sebastion Thor listed under the subheading \"Reformation\" in 2nd Ed. Sisters of Battle Codex, p. 16 and p. 4 of the Witch hunters codex).
1. The divine object of worship of the Ecclesiarchy is the Emperor who is essentially a God-Man. The divine object of worship of the Roman Catholic church is Jesus who essentially is God-Man (part of the doctrine of the Trinity is that Jesus is the embodiment of God as a man). Doesn\'t this alone suggest to you that GW is drawing a parallel between Jesus and the Emperor?
2. The parallel goes much further, indeed, it becomes almost explicit. GW repeatedly refers to the Emperor as the \"Saviour Emperor\" (4th Edition 40k Rule book, p. 96 and 2nd Ed. Sisters of Battle Codex, p. 5) and the \"the Emperor is our Father\" (Witch Hunters Codex, p. 11). GW calls non-believers in the Imperial Creed \"heretics\" and has a pyskic power called \"The Passion\" (as in Passion of the Christ which refers to the crucifixion of Christ) (Witch Hunter Codex, p. 28). The Witch Hunters Codex is replete with references to \"faith\" (p. 7, 28, 45) \"penitence/penitent (p. 16, 29, 37), confession/confessor (p. 27), \"absolution (p. 36, 42),\" \"forgiveness (p. 42)\" and \"redemption (p. 42).\" Who do you think is granting the forgiveness, absolution and redemption in the 40k Universe? Would it be fair to say that the God-Man of the Ecclesiarchy is doing it (or at least the clerics of his church doing it in his name). Aren\'t these the same things that Jesus does (or his priests). Indeed, the Ecclesiarchy prays to the Emperor, just like Christians pray to Jesus.
Furthermore, the central theme of Jesus is through self sacrifice and ultimate suffering he saved humanity. This is repeated in the story of the Emperor as told by the Ecclesiarchy. P. 38 of the 2nd. Ed. Fluff book, Codex Imperialis states \"the Emperor slew horus suffering a mortal wound in return and leading to his incarceration in the golden throne. The redemption of humanity by the self-sacrifice of the Emperor became the central theme of the Imperial Cult.\" The codex on p. 11 goes on to reinforce the theme of the Emperors self sacrifice and suffering in the Golden Throne that saves humanity (Just like Jesus suffered on the cross to save humanity): \"the Emperor gave his life battling to save the earth...though everyday the arcane machines [i.e. the Golden Throne] consume many thousand psykers, the ultimate suffering is that of the Emperor himself. For his agonies can never cease. He must endure an endless battle [in the Golden Throne] and can never be free of the burden that fate has placed upon his failing spirit. Without him there is nothing.\" These are more than superficial similiarities but rather direct attempts to incorporate major thematic elements of the story of Jesus into the story of the Emperor as told by his Ecclesiarchy. Although the Emperor is a warrior, rather than pacifist, the Ecclesiarchy focuses on his self sacrifice and the suffering in the golden throne for the greater of humanity in its central theme--Not how much of a bad A$$ the Emperor is. Maybe he did not volutarily laid down his life in his battle with Horus (though the text says he \"gave\" his life), but he voluntarily holds on the material world through his force of will, enduring centuries of agony in his state of near death in the Golden Throne to power the Astronimicom (which saves humanity) (p.11). Not perfect, but unmistakably analogous.
The references above touch on almost all of the core tenets of Christianity. This is more than superficial similarity, they are explicit historical references. Do you think that all of these references are there by accident... or is GW intentially drawing on the history of the Catholic Church and its imagery to create the imagery and story line of the 40k universe--just as it did with Roman (ultramarines), Egyptian (Thousand Sons, Horus), Buddist (Tau), Gaelic/Nordic (Space Wolves, dwarfs, bretonians), German/Russian (Commisars, Death Corp) Lores. Similarly, doesn\'t the above references suggest to you that GW is also specifically borrowing from the story of Jesus in creating the background of the Emperor--I mean they went as far as refering to the emperor as the \"saviour.\" Isn\'t it fair to draw the same historical references and analogy in my miniature as used by GW? Is that so inconsistent with the \"spirit\" (rather than strict confines of that imagery) of GW universe that it amounts to a clear breaking of the rules with no room for reasonable disagreement?
My mini essentially draws on the same historical references that GW used in creating the story of the emperor and his Ecclesiarchy. I embarked on the task of depicting a Word Bearers demon prince--which out of all the traitor legions is the one that is most overtly religous. There is not alot of established imagery of the Word bearers so I had to improvise a bit on how I think they would be. They build \"cathedrals\" (not temples), have \"chaplans\" and \"dark apostles\" and \"faith.\" Lorgor, the Word Bearer\'s primarch is described as \"always one of the most scrupulous and dedicated followers of the Imperial cult\" before the heresy (p. 13 of 2nd Edition Chaos Codex). Most of all they \"exceptionally well-versed in the counter aguments of the imperial creed\" (the doctrine of the Ecclesiarchy). See Chaos codex p. 43. They are not frothing madmen like Worldeaters, but rather they seem to be essentially evil zealot demoguoge monks. I view them as sort of a mirror image of the Ecclesiarchy, but an anti-Ecclesiarchy. I imagined the \"counter oratory\" to be twisting subtly words of the emperor to pervert the Imperial Creed to support the worship of the chaos gods. So naturally I used the imagery of the Eccelsiarchy (which is essentially catholic imagery) and made perversions to it (as I imagined that a Word Bearer would do). As the older fluff books describe \"The redemption of humanity by the self-sacrifice of the Emperor became the central theme of the Imperial Cult.\" It seems to me that a counter orator of the imperial creed (i.e. the doctrine of the Imperial Cult) would naturally try to pervert the imperial creed\'s central theme--the self sacrifice of the emperor--and attempt to invoke his imagery to support the chaos gods. Maybe it didn\'t work for you. But it works for me, so I painted the miniature that way.
It also should be noted that the images on the mini, although adaptations of Christian Icons, are intended to depict the story of the Emperor and do not literally represent Jesus or Mary. There are scenes from every aspect of his life, from childhood to his death on the mini. The Woman and Child Banner resembling an Icon is meant to suggest that the Emperor was tainted by Chaos from his birth. I couldn\'t have just put a baby on the banner as it would be totally unrecognizeable what I was depicting (well maybe I could of found another way, but golden power armour just did not seem right on a baby). The Iconic imagery makes clear that the child is divine.
The Icon on the other side of the banner that looks like Jesus is meant to be the Emperor (though he was intentionally painted to resemble Jesus). You can tell this because the same face is used on the wing, except it shows the man wearing the golden power armor breastplate of Emperor, including the double headed eagle crest of the Emperor. The Golden Halo surrounding the Emperor\'s head is perverted to have the shape of a chaos star, again suggesting the emperor is tainted by Chaos. Furthermore, the depiction of the emperor head in the center of a chaos symbol is also meant to resemble the Word Bearers Chapter Symbol which has a demon head in the center of a chaos star. The juxtaposition of the Emperor\'s face for the demon\'s face is again supposed to reinforce the theme that the Emperor is tainted by Chaos. The image on the stone rubble is also an adapted Word Bearers Chapter Symbol with a demon\'s head in the center of a chaos star, except instead of the traditional demon head, it has the face of the mini. All these images make more sense when they are viewed together than when taken alone out of their context. However, unfortunately for me, they were still too subtle to understand in the three minutes the mini gets viewed while being judged.
Hopefully, the above references may not have been known by you and maybe you have changed your mind. I think I have done a decent job explaining the mini and that I was paying close attention to the details of the GW Universe and the subject matter I was depicting. The Jesus/Emperor comparison is not an identical story, but an analogy. There are some elements that will differ, as your post points out, but that does not make it an invalid analogy--all analogies are less than perfect comparisons or otherwise they would be indentical stories. The elements that are similiar are pretty explicit and rather detailed. You may not like the analogy, but I do not think its fair to say that I did not put alot of thought on the subject as you attack me for. Even if you beleive that my analogy fails as far as analogies go, haven\'t I provided enough support to paint some images on miniature for a contest--I mean its not like I making a case for rewriting the fluff in a rule book.
A second issue is that maybe although there are Christian elements in the 40k storyline, I went too far with expanding on them because I may offend some religously devout people. Maybe that is true. I certainly have expanded on the Christian element beyond strictly what has been previously depicted in the GW imagery. I can understand that GW might draw the line differently than I. That is why I do not have any hard feelings towards GW. But let\'s not kid ourselves. The 40k storyline is not for the religous devout. The GW depiction of the Ecclesiarchy in the Witch Hunters and Chaos Codexes goes beyond just borrowing elements from Christianity. It heavily satirizes the history of the Church pointing out the foibles of many actual events of the Church such as the inquisition, burning of witches and the crusades and expands them to the point of parody. Billions are casually killed in the name of the emperor with no concern for their innocence. Populations are wiped out because of a single act of heresy. Genocide of alien races are in the name of the Emperor. The population is brainwashed with the imperial creed so much as to engage in the most horrific crimes without any thought of morality beyond the alleged will of the Emperor. The atrocities of the Imperium are a direct critique of the history of the Catholic Church during the middle ages. What is worse is that the Emperor doesn\'t actually speak and these atrocities allegedly done to carry out the Emperor\'s will were really just ways for the High Lords of Terra to get their evil bidding done. This has a bit of suggestion that Catholicism itself is just an institution to control the population. Do you think that any of this may offend some religous people? I do not think that anybody religous who really reads this stuff is going to say I am Okay with the biting satire of my church, the demon worship, praying to the God-Man in golden armor and the genocide--but that Icon-looking thing on the mini in a painting contest goes too far. But reasonable minds can disagree and draw line differently than me.
Anyways, I took the time to write this email because I do find the Christian elements in 40k interesting and wanted to explain it. I did spend two years painting a miniature to expand on this subject. I really do not want to get into a flame war with you (or anyone else), I just want people to understand what I was trying to do with my mini.
Best Regards,
Victor Hardy
---------------------------------
Reading all his writing about this piece, really does put some stuff in perspective...the idea that the Imperium is just our world\'s religions taken to the extreme....very interesting...never thought of it like that.
If anyone has pics, please email me?
sshanbhag@sympatico.ca
I just can\'t wait for Victor to post his pics up
Sanjay
Infidel Castro
New member
And me! E-mail is in my profile
Legacy Account
Active member
Really? Have you checked their latest annual report and share price?
Thought not
this GW bashing gets frickin tiresome, does anyone truely believe rackham,privateer press, reaper etc,etc, would be any different if they reached the size of GW. Any company that wishes to be succesfuls number 1 priority has surely got to be its finances, and until recently GW seemed to be getting that right,( in so far as shareholders are concerned)
and i believe anyone who thinks that the death of GW could be anything but a cataclysmic disaster to the hobby is deluding themselves, all i can ever see this leading is a massive decline in popularity and new blood entering the hobby.
i dont really see a vast gulf in price difference between GW and the other leading manufacturers. i still believe GW are producing some of the best sculpts out there. shaggoth, belakor, the beastmen chars( not including khazrak) the new wood elf stuff ,etc, etc.
at the end of the day GW is no longer the small band of enthusiasts from the late 70s through the 80\'s that pretty much made the hobby what it is today, they evolved and were shaped into the vast company it is today and i dont believe any of the other companies about today would be much different.
so for the love of god why this continuing torrent of abuse on the forums to GW.
and i believe anyone who thinks that the death of GW could be anything but a cataclysmic disaster to the hobby is deluding themselves, all i can ever see this leading is a massive decline in popularity and new blood entering the hobby.
i dont really see a vast gulf in price difference between GW and the other leading manufacturers. i still believe GW are producing some of the best sculpts out there. shaggoth, belakor, the beastmen chars( not including khazrak) the new wood elf stuff ,etc, etc.
at the end of the day GW is no longer the small band of enthusiasts from the late 70s through the 80\'s that pretty much made the hobby what it is today, they evolved and were shaped into the vast company it is today and i dont believe any of the other companies about today would be much different.
so for the love of god why this continuing torrent of abuse on the forums to GW.
