Blanche, John
Entry updated 12 January 2026. Tagged: Artist.
(1948- ) UK artist who began to publish work of genre interest with an illustration in The Flights of Icarus (graph 1977) edited by Martyn Dean and Roger Dean. He soon became strongly associated with Games Workshop enterprises, contributing to White Dwarf with a cover for the June/July 1978 issue (the magazine's first full-colour cover) and later creating cover and other artwork for the company's Dark Future, Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 franchises. Early work used technical drawing pens and watercolour washes; in the later 1980s he moved to inks and acrylics with airbrushed backgrounds and overlays; the distinctive effect is often described as Gothic with a flavour of punk. Games Workshop published a joint collection of Blanche's and Ian Miller's artwork as Ratspike (graph coll 1990). He has also created a small number of book covers for other publishers, including Penguin/Puffin Fighting Fantasy titles. Many of his Warhammer 40,000 illustrations have been collected in the two volumes Warhammer 40,000: The Emperor's Will: Agents of the Imperium (graph coll 2011) and Warhammer 40,000: The Emperor's Might: Warriors of the Imperium (graph coll 2012). [DRL]
John Blanche
born UK: 26 October 1948
works
series
Warhammer 40,000
- Warhammer 40,000: The Emperor's Will: Agents of the Imperium (Nottingham, Nottinghamshire: Black Library, 2011) [coll: graph: tie to Warhammer 40,000: Warhammer 40,000: hb/John Blanche]
- Warhammer 40,000: The Emperor's Might: Warriors of the Imperium (Nottingham, Nottinghamshire: Black Library, 2012) [coll: graph: tie to Warhammer 40,000: Warhammer 40,000: hb/John Blanche]
individual titles
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