Warhammer 40k The Archon

Commissioned in 2005 for the Sabbat’s World Crusade book cover and full page. Dave Kendall finished the final picture with digital art based on this original artwork. Probably the scariest and most disturbing view of the 41th millenium.

Dave Kendall : « I was asked to produce art for a character originally called The Archon. I had a limited amount of time to produce the art and was hoping to complete the entire painting in acrylic. Unfortunately the nature of the deadline and complexity of the repeating background elements meant that after completing the main character in acrylic I then went to digital to complete the artwork on time and to standard. It’s a character I really enjoyed designing. Maybe one of my all time favourites of anything I’ve designed from scratch. It has that feeling of corrupt religion and the actual concept was a creature that hid behin a beautiful, angelic, porcelain face mask but behind he was a screaming proclaiming void. This image captures him unmasked. »