Friday, August 7, 2009

Unreleased Dreamblade - Knights, Flags and Gears

Here are three previously unseen and unreleased Dreamblade miniature designs created for set 6, Serrated Dawn. Since the miniatures often had name changes during production I did my best to figure out if these in fact were slated for release. I am fairly confident that I matched up my designs with the final production names for the first two, Clarion Knight and Flagbearer which left the Gearman either pumped to set 7 or dropped all together. I really was hoping to get a Gearman. I worked with Art Director Peter Whitly on this set and he passed along some of the plans for Gearman's paint work. It was simple, but sounded really cool. All three were aspect Valor.

Unreleased Clarion Knight © 2006 Wizards of the Coast LLC

Unreleased Flagbearer © 2006 Wizards of the Coast LLC

Unreleased Gearman © 2006 Wizards of the Coast LLC

Unreleased work shown with the permission of Wizards of the Coast

For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com

7 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for posting these! Looking at the first two with my sculptor's eye, they look much easier to realize as a mini than Dragon Ambassador (still in progress, thanks). What colors did you envision for Flagbearer? Also, I love the details of Gearman (e.g., the grates with latches); might this art have been intended for the Iron Bruiser of Serrated Dawn?

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  2. Hey there Byleui. All three were slated to be commons so hopefully they will be easier to realize as sculptures. Looking forward to seeing how your dragon turns out!

    For color on the Flagbearer, I would either see it as a blue or deep red. There was a lot of mention of blue being a prominent color choice for the Valor pieces in this set. Beyond that it is up to you really. It was a common, so it would have been 2-3 colors tops, a base, a wash and them maybe a spot color or two. Maybe less.

    In all the pieces I designed for Dreamblade, only once did a piece change aspect from design phase to final production. So that leads me to think that the Gearman was dropped or pushed. It was described as being able to do a lot of damage with it's fist so giving it two fumble blades does not seem fitting with the intentions of the design. Also, the over all design (in my opinion) is not right for madness... but I could be wrong. From my experience I am fairly confident that the Gearman is not the Bruiser... but there is no reason it can't be used as a proxy. ...until the artist that worked on the Bruiser comes forward with their art.

    Hope this helps! Glad you are enjoying the posts!

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  3. That makes a lot of sense. I've used the D&D Blood Golem of Hextor as a proxy for Iron Golem. It seems to match the Dreamblade figure well, since it has sets of flails which seem a clumsy weapon, befitting the Fumble ability.

    Just out of curiosity, would WOTC ever take the artwork from one game and use it to develop pieces for another game? In other words, is there any chance that the designs for Serrated Dawn figures might be used to create figures for another game, such as D&D minis?

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  4. I really wouldn't know but once they buy the art they can do with it what ever they feel. I think most of the Dreamblade stuff is so unique that is may not be usable for many other games. But I am sure it is a possibility.

    Even if I did know though, I would not be in a position to say much ;)

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  5. OK, some six weeks later, I think I've managed to do justice to your artwork for Flagbearer. It was actually a lot of fun to construct, especially the weaving of the body from 1/8th-inch ribbon (stiffened with Superglue). You can view the final product here:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/22655208@N04/3937596270/in/set-72157603677463786/

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  6. DUDE! That is AWESOME! WOW! I hope you won't mind if I post those pics here on the my blog in the coming week. Everyone should get a good look at your great work. I am REALLY impressed with how that turned out. There is no way the real thing would have been 1/10th as cool!

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  7. Thanks! Feel free to post it; if you have any trouble copying the pics from Flickr, let me know, and I can send you the JPEGs. Glad you like it... Truly could not have done it without you. I'm just the craftsman; you're the artist. I'll be working on some of the other designs, and will keep you posted whenever I finish the next one.

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