Lluis Abadias, a Spanish illustrator, is working on designs for original Monster Hunter creatures inspired by different factions from the Warhammer 40,000 universe. He’s created four new beasts so far, with two more in the works – we caught up with him to learn more.
Despite being a game franchise themed around hunting colossal dragons, carving them up, and turning them into armor and weapons to go and hunt even bigger monsters, Monster Hunter is surprisingly wholesome: it’s a world with great food and sentient cat chefs. It’s about as far away as you can get from Warhammer 40k’s dystopian far future, cosmic evil, and unending war.
Abadias says he’s “pretty deep into the Monster Hunter fandom”, and is “getting reacquainted with 40k” after a ten year hiatus. Playing the ace Warhammer 40k game Darktide “brought the lore itch back”, and the Warhammer 40k books “Brutal Kunnin’ and the Infinite and the Divine pulled me right in deep”.
The idea for mashing up the two franchises “was fated to happen”, Abadias says. “Monster Hunter has some of the most solid bases in creature design an artist can dream of”, while 40k has “solid imagery and lore”. He posted the first of the creations to his Twitter (which occasionally features NSFW content, so be warned) on October 18.
Monster Hunter assigns each of its big brutes to a monster species: Abadias explains “it’s basically an overall body type or skeleton in game”. These types make “a perfect frame to design on top of”. He’s trying to “be very respectful to the 40k aesthetic while keeping the monster designation from MH as pure as possible”.
His hope is that MH players can “imagine how the fight would play out just by looking at the monster”, while 40k players “can enjoy some new designs that fit in the setting and maybe inspire some more kitbashing”.
So far he’s created four monsters that match up to a variety of Warhammer 40k factions: the Great Squigosaur for the Orks, a Salamander of Nocturne (the creature that the Salamanders Space Marine Chapter takes its name from), a Tyranid Reptifex, and Cryptofax, a Necron Elder Dragon that looks like it must be powered by a C’tan Shard.
He’s particularly proud of the Great Squigosaur. “It ended up looking so derpy in a really dangerous way”, he says, and “there’s people trying to make their own figures of it already”. He recently ran a poll on X about what he should design next, and a ‘Savage Direwolf of Fenris’ came out on top. He’s working on that, and an Adeptus Mechanicus beast to follow.
We love a good 40k fandom mashup: if you haven’t seen the Ronald McDonald Aeldari space clown we reported on last week, you really should! We’d also love a 40k game with some sort of Monster Hunter elements – though not before we get a Warhammer 40k Soulslike first.
Source: Wargamer
