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| This beakie looks outclassed... |
In my mind, the orcs/orks/orruks really came into perfect form when Brian Nelson started to sculpt them, starting with a few Warhammer Fantasy models, then moving to Gorkamorka (Mad Max-style gang warfare game), before finally sculpting the majority of the 3rd edition Warhammer 40,000 range. He was able to take the somewhat comical humanoid designs of Rogue Trader and 2nd edition Warhammer 40k and completely revitalize them. He turned the orcs/orks into more simian-like creatures with long arms corded with muscle and hunched postures. Beyond the orcs’ frame, Nelson gave them a very distinctive facial structure, with a flattened nose, small beady eyes and a pronounced lower jaw. A lot of these features were already part of the orc aesthetic, but Nelson was able to combine those elements into something very distinctive and unique for Games Workshop. Brian Nelson made me love the orcs. A number of other sculptors have handled orcs for Games Workshop since Nelson’s reimaging, but none ever fully captured their essence like he did. The last few Warhammer 40,000 orc releases seem more like imitations of Nelson’s greatness, never quite reaching the same heights (despite being very good). I had long hoped for the day that Nelson would return to sculpting orcs, and when I saw images of the new Orruk models for Age of Sigmar, my heart lept. After seeing the expressive faces on the models, and the careful attention to scale, I knew that Brian Nelson must have had a serious role in their creation. As it turns out, Nelson’s first sculpt for the Orruk range was the imposing Orruk Megaboss. Such was my excitement about the model that I was at my local hobby shop to get it the day it was released.
