"Barbarians at the Gate" Part 2

 Thrilled this week to get in touch with Jesh of Jesh Art Designs, who designed one of the entries for the "Barbarians at the Gate" competition I mentioned in this post: https://panpacificalliance.blogspot.com/2025/03/barbarians-at-gate-art-designs.html

He replied to my inquiry this week with "I’m actually the artist behind that piece, and I truly love how it turned out. It’s still in my collection, and I’ve kept it all this time". 

Full size final artwork, by Jesh Art Studios

Jesh has very kindly provided me with all the versions he did, along with permission to post them here - thanks indeed Jesh!

Very interesting to see this version with the Tiger patterns on the Battlesuit and GEVs, which was for the other factions in the supplement. Pretty cool but I think I prefer the purple of the Vatican Guard above.

Thanks again for sharing these Jesh, and allowing me to post them here - fantastic work!

Please respect the author's IP and 

the spirit in which he has shared them

"Barbarians at the Gate" Art designs

"Barbarians at the Gate" by Elartwyne Estole

On rediscovering OGRE recently, I found out that there was (a decade ago) an artwork contest to design the cover of the independently published "Barbarians at the Gate" OGRE supplement by Drew Metzger. "99 designs" ran it and while IMHO they selected the best one, some of the others were quite good also but perhaps didn't get the circulation they deserve

The winning pic above, which many may be familiar with, was used in a wrap around book slip style so the front cover was the right hand side of the image, thus:

Clearly it had a few adjustments, like adding the GEV's missile rack and removing the aircraft. Evocative, dynamic, and contains everything from a GEV to Battlesuited infantry, and of course a hulking OGRE in the background. Cracking stuff by "El art"

But there were other entries of varying appeal. I'm trying to track down the original artists to get the original versions but given the elapsed time it's proving challenging. Here they are though:

by Andrew64

by *APRILILY*

by *APRILILY*

by Adrenaline Design

by delatorre.elisa

I don't have a "favourite" per se, but I like this one by Jesh Art Studio a lot...

Very interesting to see that GEVs feature in most entries and an OGRE in just one. Makes you wonder what the original design brief was.

No infringement intended, my purpose is to capture and promote some great OGRE inspired artwork I hadn't seen before and thought many other may have missed it also. The full details are available here:

https://99designs.com/book-cover-design/contests/create-cover-art-supplement-greatest-futuristic-tank-board-266502