Hezrou Demon - Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual - Redesign
© 2014 Wizards of the Coast
The Hezrou Demon has been around since the very first D&D Monster Manual and I was thrilled to get a chance to give it my personal spin. After all, it is a giant fat frog demon and I am all about drawing gaint fat frog demons. Got things rolling with some thumbnails...
Hezrou Demon - Thumbnails
© 2014 Wizards of the Coast
I really love these... but I can see now why they don't work for this particular monster. Man, oh man... I would have loved to flesh out option 'A' though. 'B' is also a favorite of mine. Alas, they are all too big and fat I guess and I was asked to work up some new options. Here is how my second wave of thumbnails turned out...
Hezrou Demon - Second Wave of Thumbnails
© 2014 Wizards of the Coast
Option 'C' was the winner, but he was not over the finish line just yet. I was asked to take that design and stand the monster up a bit. Here is how that updated thumbnail turned out...
Hezrou Demon - Revised Thumbnail
© 2014 Wizards of the Coast
Third times the charm and I had an approved thumbnail for the Hezrou Demon. It was now time for some drawing and to flesh out what I was beginning in the thumbnail. Here is how the final drawing of the Hezrou Demon turned out...
Hezrou Demon - Drawing
9 x 12
Pencil on Paper
© 2014 Wizards of the Coast
Original - SOLD
The drawing was approved with out comment and it was time to get started on the final color comp. Here is how the color version turned out...
Hezrou Demon - Final Redsign
© 2014 Wizards of the Coast
The color comp was approved and another monster was completed. There was some concern going into this that the Slaad are also big fat frog monsters and that the Hezrou would end up too similar. In the end all parties were confident that the two monsters looked sufficiently different and unique.
A few months back I mentioned that the Hezrou had surfaced in the mobile game, Arena of War. That game has come and gone, but the screenshots survive on the internet. Here are some of my screenshots that I had originally shared so you can see how it translated to the mobile game. All in all, I think it is a fairly good adaptation. Too bad the game didn't stick around longer...
Hezrou Demon from Dungeons & Dragons Arena of War
A HUGE THANKS to Jon Schindehette for all the monsters and direction during the design phase of 5th Edition!
That is all for another exciting Wednesday on the blog, see you back here on Friday for another new monster! Until then...
For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com
Guessing you don't know who did the Monster Manual Picture.
ReplyDeleteSorry, no. There are a number of pieces that I know who the artist was, but this is not one of them.
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