Are you an amateur or even professional artist? Do you like to draw pictures, paint or draw 3D-images in your spare time? Or perhaps you like to sing, make melodies or recite texts? Or can you handle layout programs?

And do you like Chaos Dwarfs?

Then we have something which might interest you: The Chaos Dwarf culture project, one year old and already filling up the stories & background section at a pace not seen before on CDO.

What is this culture project?

It is a noncommercial community project for the fun of it, aiming to produce a swathe of background, stories and pieces of verbal culture for all things Chaos Dwarf. Here, anyone who likes to write can give us their view of some aspect of the Chaos Dwarf world, and conflicting visions are no problem at all given the nature of Chaos. We aim to stay true to the spirit of Chaos Dwarf background as developed by Games Workshop, Forgeworld, Black Library and the best of community fluff, with a firm anchorage in the wider Chaos and the Dawi Zharr's historical basis in ancient Mesopotamia.

We have already amassed a variety of songs, proverbs, quotes, fables myths, legends, descriptions and prophecies, and more is to come.

Scribe's Contest (on its fifth lap - check it out!) exists to aid this creative outpour and draw more people in with the lure of fun, medals and miniature prizes.

Sometime in the future (but not soon), we will compile all your creations into a polished document with neat layout, illustrations, table of content etc.

Compilation threads of texts can be found as links in my signature.

Your talents wanted!

Aside from writers, we're always grateful for any illustrations of stories etc. which enthusiast members can contribute with. At the moment of writing, the body of "produce" from the project consists of texts (plus MadHatter's Chaos Dwarf Song channel), which are all well and fine, but the end goal is to mix words with pictures.

Not only that, but we would also like to see as many recitations, audiobook-style readings of texts, songs and suitable melodies as possible included in the body of work.

Also, we'll sooner or later need people with good layout skills to take the texts, pictures and background images and polish them to a finished product. We'll start with stand-alone pieces, in effect stories who receives finished illustrations, and make a neat PDF-document of the illustrated story. Later on, we'll eventually move up and give the whole collection such a treatment.

We'll have no expectations on a contributing artist to adher slavishly to each and every text description or to ask the author how they'd like to see some particular character or place depicted. Artistic freedom is key here.

Interested?

Does this sound like something you'd like to take part in? If so, all contributions are warmly welcome! At the moment, layout-savvy volunteers are not "in hot demand" (but will be later - just tell if you'd like to give it a try in the future). Artists working with pictures or songs/melodies are particularly welcome to contribute, especially with illustrations. Likewise, volunteer audio presenters/readers of texts would be great to have in our fold.

Feel free to ask here or contact me (or any other active author of stories) if you have any questions or if you'd would like to share illustrations of their stories or other contributions.

Fire away!

This post was last modified: 10-03-2015 10:22 AM by Admiral.

I'm an art school graduate, specialising in illustration and printmaking. I'd be more than happy to get involved.

Excellent, Hunter! If you want to illustrate some story, take your pick. We've got a load.

Are there any certain scenes, characters, creatures or the like which you'd prefer to illustrate? (These could easily be both Chaos Dwarf related such as Sneaky Gitz, Bull Centaurs or manufactories, and non-Chaos Dwarf related such as lush landscapes, Cathayans or Dragon Ogres - we've got quite some foreign stuff baked into the stories.) If yes, I could perhaps help a bit by pointing to certain stories containing some of your preferences.

No problem at all. Chaos Dwarf-specific would be the most fun! I prefer figurative work to landscape and architectural, but I honestly don't mind drawing anything. Some nasty dawi zharr, hobbos or bull centaurs would be good. I'm a bit rusty when it comes to Fantasy art, so I could do with the practice!

Neat! Dînadan's Bread and Circuses part 1 & part 2 contains vast scales, large crowds and Chaos Dwarfs watching bloody gladiatorial combats and executions. The Cursed Ore of Grimdur Gutwrencher should be a pretty safe bet for action and Chaos Dwarf specific stuff. The Fate of Death Rocketeer Ukkad Firebrow contains high explosives and battles between Chaos Dwarfs and foreign enemies. The Shackled Consorts of the Bull God contains some Chaos Dwarf scenes, though not military, and some weirdo occult stuff. Miasma's Black Lammasu might be of some interest as well.

The above are longer stories. As for shorter ones, we've got these fables that might be of interest (lots more of everything in the signature links): The Bull Chariot and the Goblins in the Gorge, The Slave and the Blacksmith, The Goblin and the Lammasu, The Tightwad and the Temple Acolyte (for humour), The Daemonsmith Engineer and the Great Eagles.

We've got a Bull Centaur protagonist in The Twelve Trials of the Two Bull-Spawn, making a comeback in The Eight Trials of the Two Centaur-Spawn.

Also, the Obsidian Fort is based on one segment of tjub's eternal quest for K'daai, and Origins of the K'daai Oracle of Daemon's Stump is the closest I've ever got to write a Chaos Dwarf epic.

For songs, maybe Nest's Pest (CD incursion into Skavenblight) or Shush! Sneak! Vicious streak! for open-ended Hobgoblin mischief illustration.

I hope any of those suit your tastes and gives inspiration. Feel free to botanize in the signature links' collection threads for other stories.

This post was last modified: 10-04-2015 08:30 AM by Admiral.

Amazing! That's tons of stuff to inspire me! When I get the chance I"ll get sketching and see what I can come up with.

i can't draw, really.
But i'm a decent drummer, and a bad violin player/songwriter

@Hunter: Excellent, good luck! Looking forward to see what you come up with.

Haha, welcome aboard and give it a try if you like to!

In case you want to help out yet don't know where to start, don't hesitate to ask here for advice.

Besides, would you by any chance be interested to pen down an attempt at the Chaos Dwarf song, which sums up what they're all about to you? Or perhaps drum up some piece of Chaos Dwarfy background music to put the fear of Hashut in the listener? Just tossing random ideas at ya'.

This post was last modified: 10-04-2015 03:24 PM by Admiral.

I'll try to contribute with some illustrations from my limited skill repertoire. We need more skilled people, folks!

Just finished an illustration of Takurta the Concubine receiving Sorcerer-Prophet Karunezharr Steelbeard, from the Chaos Star Fort story.

And one slave march drawing for the Stormforged Axe story. Since I drew small figures on a small area of paper, and with not the best rubber gum or pencil, it turned out shoddy. My inexperience with landscape only adds to that.

You're too hard on yourself, Admiral. I can assure you, you're a better draughtsman than some of the people I went to art school with!

I'm afraid I've been extraordinarily busy this week due to work and family commitments, so I simply haven't had the time to do any drawing. Hopefully I can get some sketching done next week: I'm dying to get started!

Thanks!

No stress, man. I'm eagerly looking forward to what you'll come up with, in a patient way.

---

Next drawing up for the Stormforged Axe story.

This post was last modified: 10-12-2015 07:05 AM by Admiral.

A milestone has been reached, good folks. Forgefire is the first artist to complete an illustration for the story of another author, and it is magnificient. Check it out in the Sinful Stonecarver!

Jump on the bandwagon.

Hunter is the second artist to complete an illustration for the story of another author, and like Forgefire's painting, his drawing is exquisite. True 4th edition flair if one ever saw it. Check it out in Origins of the K'daai Oracle of Daemon's Stump!

Would you like to contribute? Be our guest!

This post was last modified: 11-10-2015 04:04 PM by Admiral.

Looks superb!

Yep!

Besides, are there any musicians around here? Once we've amassed more artwork, it might be worth a shot at uploading a "tribute to Chaos Dwarfs" or some such slick video on Youtube, featuring sliding drawings and paintings set to atmospheric dark music. It could be used as an advertisement for the CD culture project on other Warhammer sites.

MadHatter's audio Zharr-Naggrund could be used, or serve as an inspiration for budding volunteer musicians. If possible, it would be great to have a short but well-crafted melody that sticks with the listener, similar to Howard Shore's and Hans Zimmerman's pieces, although something more malevolent would be wanted for Dawi Zharr. No one would expect a symphonic orchestra to show up for it, naturally. Duration could be as short as 40 seconds. Anyone interested?

Forgefire strikes again with his neat interpretation of the five doomed brothers. Check it out in the Cursed Ore of Grimdur Gutwrencher!

And again with an illustration for Beloss' great story The Acolytes Progress, and the Four Slanders of Hashut.

Join the creativity fest.

New artwork, used to illustrate a piece of story, or song in this case, by our Forgefire. Check it out: O Hashut in Thy Power