Lost in the Warp

Tabletop Roleplaying Game Fanart as Culture Creation through Complex Collaboration and Intervention

Herring, Phoebe and Wilbraham, Che ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-6626-0672 (2026) Lost in the Warp. In: British Popular Culture(s) Conference 2026, 09 - 11 July 2026, Falmouth.

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Abstract / Summary

Fanart can be considered a form of culture creation (Manifold 2009), with pieces described as homage, collaboration, or intervention (Seymour 2018), depending on their relationship to the canon of the original work.
We may consider the collaborative co-created story of a tabletop roleplaying game (RPG) as a form of fanart, when based upon an established intellectual property (IP), and especially when a gamemaster uses published adventures to guide their players through authored narrative elements. These co-created stories may be considered collaboration or intervention, depending on whether the participants alter canon.
The authors began playing an RPG in the venerable and distinctly British Warhammer 40,000 science fiction setting in March 2020, in a player group of academics and games industry professionals. One author was the gamemaster of the campaign, while the other created digital paintings portraying its events. When shared online, these generated their own significant following and fandom, especially among the audience of new or lapsed fans of the IP who reengaged during the pandemic.
A fresh cultural artefact emerged from the relationship between the licensed adventure, the players' very varied relationships to the famously ‘grimdark’ original IP, the aesthetic of the paintings themselves – more influenced by cinematic concept art techniques than by the established visual culture surrounding Warhammer 40,000 - and interaction from an audience invested in the glimpses of narrative implied by the fanart.
Through a complex chain of collaboration and intervention, from IP canon, through authors of published adventures, through styles and preferences of gamemasters, through interpretations and actions of players, into creative works inspired by these stories, and beyond, cultural artefacts are created and transformed. This presentation will examine this process to uncover a fresh take on understanding culture creation through fanart - a chaotic, multistage, multiauthor process.

Item Type:	Conference Item (Paper)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Fanart, roleplaying games, Warhammer 40,000, co-creation, digital art
Subjects:	Creative Art & Design > Illustration & Drawing
Department:	Games Academy
Depositing User:	Che Wilbraham
Date Deposited:	17 Sep 2026 10:31
Last Modified:	17 Sep 2026 10:31
URI:	https://repository.falmouth.ac.uk/id/eprint/6574

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