Tony Ackland is responsible for producing some of the finest fantasy and science fiction imagery of the 1980’s and 1990’s. Along with artists such as Ian Miller, Colin Dixon, Paul Bonner, John Sibbick, Jes Goodwin and John Blanche, Tony’s artwork gave life to the worlds of Games Workshop’s Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 games. In addition to his work on paper, over the years Tony has produced a number of fine fantastical wargaming miniatures too, his sculpting skills being applied to the model ranges of Fine Art Castings, Asgard, Citadel, Harlequin and Black Tree. Honoured to be spared some of his time, this is part 2 of my talk with the legend that is Tony Ackland.
The Master Of Chaos! A Talk With Tony Ackland… Part 2 (continuing from Part 1).
Produced by the Games Workshop Design Studio, written by Bryan Ansell, Mike Brunton and Simon Forrest (with additional content form Matt Connell, Graeme Davis and Rick Priestley) ‘Realm Of Chaos: Slaves To Darkness’ was released in 1988. A number of wonderful illustrators provided the sublime artwork for the tome, including Ian Miller, John Blanche, Martin McKenna and Tony Ackland. In 1990, the sister book to ‘Realm Of Chaos: Slaves To Darkness’ was unleashed, ‘Realm Of Chaos: Lost And The Damned’.
Tony: ‘Realm of Chaos’ was one of those projects that took a long time to come into fruition. Bryan (Ansell) was a big fan of Michael Moorcock’s ‘Eternal Champion’ books, which were the main inspiration for the Chaos gods. The original size planned for the ‘RoC’ was a 64-page single volume. Saying that it grew beyond expectations is something of an understatement. It had been initially planned that all the artwork would be done by Ian Miller and myself, but the size it grew to meant that freelance artists had to be co-opted in.
During a prolifically creative period in the mid to late-1980’s, the four main Chaos gods were established for Games Workshop’s Warhammer world, these being Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh and Tzeentch. However, during the initial design phases other Chaos gods had been put forward, one of these was Malal. It had been through comic strip writers John Wagner and Alan Grant that Malal first crept into existence, Malal’s champion was Kaleb Daark.
Tony: The main chaos god that was omitted was Malal. He had appeared in a comic strip written by (John) Wagner and (Alan) Grant did for GW. Somebody failed to note that they had secured the copyright for that particular entity. So GW dropped him even though I had done artwork for him… Working was pretty straight forward. A drawing board on a desktop with good lighting. Back then copious amounts of nicotine and caffeine were consumed.
Warhammer Battle was a bit of a fantasy catch-all. Its purpose was to promote the sale of miniatures. So any figure in the Citadel range could take its place in a Warhammer army. It did help that I did produce a lot of concepts for the miniatures. John Blanche joined Rick and myself when we started the 2nd edition of Warhammer Battle. Those early days were when there was a great family feeling at the Citadel ‘Studio’. We worked and socialised together. Ideas were always being bounced around.
Warhammer Fantasy Role Play was a different animal. The fact that over 95% percent of the illustrations would be mine with no editorial control meant I could give the world a distinctive look. I had a thing about the Renaissance and decided the early part of that period would provide the setting for the Empire. A handful of thumbnails of the greater and lesser demons produced by John Blanche in consultation with Bryan Ansell were given to me to develop. There was ample room to develop my own ideas in the work I did for Realm of Chaos.
While more noted for his work in creating the fantasy world of Warhammer, Tony also had a hand in developing the Warhammer 40,000 universe too. I’ve included some of my favourite Tony Ackland Warhammer 40,000 pieces of artwork below.
Tony: I actually didn’t do that much on 40K after the initial stages. I think the first thing Rick and I did was the bestiary. That featured a lot of reworked D&D monsters. They were distant enough to avoid copyright issues but close enough that the punters recognized them. There was also one that I stole from a comic by Michael Wm. Kaluta. There were lots of oddments but I suspect I may have been involved in other projects. The coming of Realm of Chaos meant that a lot of the crossover stuff was mine. After doing the bestiary for Call of Cthulhu, I got caught up in a lot of the Chaosium/ GW collaborations. Interestingly I decided to go with a Dark Ages look for Runequest.
Initially a subsidiary of Games Workshop, Flame Publications ran for a short time in the early 1990’s, producing titles including ‘Blood In Darkness’, ‘Death Rock’ and ‘Dwarf Wars’. Along with the likes of Paul Bonner, Paul Campbell, and Adrian Smith, Tony worked on the artwork for some of these books. I asked Tony to tell me more about this time.
Tony: Flame Publications was officially formed to produce scenarios and source material for Warhammer Fantasy Role Play and to try out desk top publishing. This was when the studio was being run by Tom Kirby. Flame consisted of Mike Brunton, Graeme Davies, and myself. Mike was the one who was pushing for DTP. There were several scenarios we had in hand WFRP that needed editing. We also produced original material for White Dwarf. The most regular thing being the Marienburg pieces. We produced one book every six weeks and one article each month in WD. Mike was the leader and editor of the group. Graeme produced additional material and I did most of the artwork and operated the repro camera. The Flame days were good as Mike, Graeme, and myself were a close group with a degree of independence. There was some good stuff in the ‘Drachenfels’ WFRP supplement.
Graeme left to work for another company. Mike and myself carried on for a while, and then he left to work for a computer games company. They were eventually replaced by Carl Sargent and Robin Dews. The difference was that the independence we had disappeared with Mike’s departure. So it wasn’t long before we went back to the main studio.
The only work Paul Bonner did for Flame was for some elves when I broke my wrist. Adrian was too busy at the studio to do any work for Flame. There were a few freelancers who provided art for Flame. The illustrator who produced the most material for Flame after myself was Martin McKenna.
Before joining Mike Brunton and Graeme Davies at Flame publications, the last major project I had a big part in was the Confrontations role-playing game. A lot of work went into it, but apart from a few pieces in White Dwarf (produced by Flame publications) it was never published. It did give rise to Necromunda a few years later. The original was a much darker work.
Music can often inspire creative individuals. I was interested to know if Tony was a keen music fan or musician and whether he found listening to music conducive to working.
Tony: My musical tastes are somewhat eclectic. Like Jim Steinman I grew up with a mixture of Rock and Roll and Classical music. I find music that I like distracting when working. Although a bit of Mussorgsky or Borodin can set the mood. The same can be said of the use of Ligeti’s themes in ‘2001 A Space Odyssey’.
To be continued… Part 3 HERE.
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