Mist, Steam, and Water Mephits - Prcoess

Back in March I shared with you the nine Mephits that I designed and illustrated for Dragon magazine issue #421. Since there are nine of them I am going to slit them up and share the process that went into making them through out this week. Today I have for you the last three Mephits, the Mist, Steam, and Water Mephits. As a reminder, here is how the final illustrations turned out...

Mist, Steam, and Water Mephits

© 2013 Wizards of the Coast

As before, we start things out with some good ole thumbnails to see where the monsters take me. I worked on all of these in the order I have been posting them... basically alphabetically. By the time I got to these last Mephits I was beginning to suffer a little Mephit madness. They were all beginning to blend together and I was worried that they were beginning to be in the same poses and were not unique enough from each other. In the end I think I had just been staring at them all too long. Here is how the thumbnails turned out for the last three Mephits...

Mist Mephit - Thumbnails

© 2013 Wizards of the Coast

  Steam Mephit - Thumbnails

© 2013 Wizards of the Coast

Water Mephit - Thumbnails

© 2013 Wizards of the Coast

The thumbnail that got away was option "B" of the Steam Mephit. I know it is not very different from "A", but it had a flow and movement I really liked. In the end the winners wereMist "B", Steam "A", and Water "B". With that all settled I moved onto the final drawings...

  Mist Mephit - Drawing

© 2013 Wizards of the Coast

  Steam Mephit - Drawing

© 2013 Wizards of the Coast

Water Mephit - Drawing

© 2013 Wizards of the Coast

As with the rest of the drawings these were all approved without issues and I moved onto the final illustrations. This week the Mist Mephit won this week's process progression place...

Mist Mephit - Process progression

© 2013 Wizards of the Coast

The finals were all approved save for a couple little tweaks. Two of the tweaks were that the Mist and Steam Mephits were too dark. As you can see above the last step shows how much I lightened the piece to meet approval. The original Steam Mephit was about a dark as the final Mist was and to be lighten a lot as well. This was easy enough to handle since I was working digitally... I shudder to think if I was working traditionally...

That's all for another exciting week on the blog, see you back here on Monday! Until then...

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