Space Marines are today the most recognisable Warhammer 40K faction, and they were certainly popular back in the Rogue Trader era as well.
Games Workshop had been testing out the general appearance of what were to be Space Marines years prior to Rogue Trader’s release in 1987 – see the C100 Imperial Marines and LE2 Imperial Space Marine releases. That aesthetic morphed into the first official Warhammer 40K Space Marines releases.
A variety of sculptors worked on the range in this period, including Bob Naismith, Aly Morrison, Jes Goodwin and Mark Copplestone. Trish Carden also made a Space Marine sculpt in this period for the Talisman Timescape board game expansion.
All of the Marines in the September 1987 and Feb 1988 releases were sculpted by Bob Naismith, where the RT101 flyer had Marines sculpted by Aly Morrison and Mark Copplestone. Speaking of Mark Copplestone, he was busy in 1988 – that year he sculpted the Chaplains and Techmarines into being.
From ~1990 on it seems to be primarily Jes Goodwin working on the range.
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