Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Slaves of the Oba - Process

Back in August I shared with a recent Dungeons & Dragon piece that I appeared in Dragon magazine #414, Slaves of the Oba. Today, I have for you a look at the process that went into the giant wolf creature who is about to rip apart a poor farmer. Let's start off with having a look at the finished piece before jumping into the process...

Slaves of the Oba
© 2012 Wizards of the Coast

Since this piece centered around a new monster that I needed to design before I illustrated it I started off with some rough creature concepts. The creature was described as being a large wolf like creature that had skin and fur only covering some of the glowing elemental / spectral / spirit monster below. This got me thinking about how much should be covered and what parts should be exposed. I created three roughs of the creature from more wolf to wolf man. I was really leaning towards option "B" and it turns out that so was production...

Slaves of the Oba - Concept Roughs
© 2012 Wizards of the Coast

Thumbnails followed the concepts. I did these all at the same time and before sending anything to my AD... but since I was already leaning toward concept "B" I used that is all my thumbnails. The piece was described as having the creature just about to attack a village farmer at the edge of a forest. I instantly saw it being the creature looming over figure just moments before the poor villager was ripped limb from limb. I worked up three compositions, at the time I was really wanting to do option "B", but production picked "A". Production always has final say and I also defer to their wishes and as always it was the better choice...

Slaves of the Oba - Thumbnails
© 2012 Wizards of the Coast

With monster concept and thumbnail approved I moved with the more finished drawing, not much more to say about that...

Slaves of the Oba - Drawing
© 2012 Wizards of the Coast

Time to jump back just a little bit... Before I started the concepts or thumbnails I shot some reference photos of my friend Nicholas Rich in a bunch of poses of him reacting to a large unseen monster. I have mentioned MANY times here on the blog the importance of reference and I am going to do it again... REFERENCE REFERENCE REFERENCE!!! Nike was dropping off after we had attended a life drawing session. The whole time I was life drawing I was thinking about monster composition and working out in my head some options and angels. In the spur of the moment I asked Nick if he wanted to be about to die horribly in a painting and he was game. The street light was the perfect analog for a large glowing monster - even though it was the the wrong color light - and it all came together quickly and easily. If not for Nick I am confident this piece would not have turned out as well as it did. I would not have gotten as good or interesting of reference if I had to recreate what was naturally happening at that moment. All the visual information I needed to make the image and the figure more believable and interesting was all right there. Thanks, Nick!

Reference! Thanks, Nick!

Concepts, thumbnails, drawing, and reference all taken care of, time for the painting. Last week I talked at length about my new technique for building up my under painting. I used the same method on this piece as well. Since I had worked everything out very well in preproduction and since I had such helpful reference, this piece really came together quickly and easily. No horror stories or wrong turns (those stories are for another day). Here is an over view of the painting coming together from drawing to final...

Slaves of the Oba  - Process
© 2012 Wizards of the Coast

Everything finished up I sent the piece off to my AD and it was approved without any changes, which is always the best news I can ever hear on anything I create. Being able to hit the mark on the first pass is a very real goal for me on each and every painting I create and thankfully I am still achieving this goal many more times then I am not. Here is the final piece one more time...

Slaves of the Oba
© 2012 Wizards of the Coast

That is all for another exciting Wednesday on the blog, see you back here on Friday! Until then...

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

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