The DOODLES, DESIGNS, and aRT of CHRISTOPHER BURDETT: Yoda

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Yoda - Process

Waited a long time I have, to share this post. One of my big pieces of 2014 was the Yoda card that I produced for the Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars card game. I have posted this piece everywhere and it has already been accepted as part of Infected By Art 3. This is one of those pieces you wait and wait for and when it arrives you just knock it out of the park... or fail miserably. Luckily for me, this time I had both hands on the bat. I always assume I will never get a major character or hero piece for a project since I specialize in monsters... then Yoda comes along. Just so we are all on the same page, here is my final Yoda piece...

Yoda

Star Wars: The Card Game National Championship Prize

12.4 x 8.9 - Digital

This piece called for something very specific, Yoda on Dagobah in a "bad ass" pose with his lightsaber. The rest was up to me. I got to work on some thumbnails and one of the first ideas I came up with was Yoda levitating rocks to use as target practice. Would anyone else get it? I certainly didn't know at the time. Though I was really excited about the sliced up rock idea I came up with some other version of Yoda being cool and sent them all off...

Yoda - Thumbnails

Turns out that my idea with Yoda slicing up rocks was the winner. Before I get too far I better mention good old reference. I took a ton of reference to work out these poses and to get my head around the pint sized Jedi Master. The only thing was I don't have any good lightsaber reference. My wife stepped in and made an an executive decision and got me a lightsaber for use in this piece. The lightsaber has actually come in really handy for a number of other reference needs, like as a laser blast. Here is a peek at some of the reference that was taken for this piece...

Reference I am. Pose I will.

With an approved thumbnail it was time to move onto the drawing. For this piece I cut out my usual white paper sketch step. I knew I was going to work up a toned paper drawing for this piece and cut out the middle man and went right on the toned paper from with the approved thumbnail. Here is the line are stage of the final drawing...

Yoda - Drawing (Line art stage)

I still needed to get the drawing step approved so I scanned the line art on the toned paper and made it black and white for the approval process...

Yoda - Drawing (Line art stage)

Black and white version that was submitted for review

The drawing was approved with out comment so I was now cleared to finish my toned drawing and get started with the painting. Here is how the final toned paper drawing turned out...

Yoda

Star Wars: The Card Game National Championship Prize

11 x 14

Colored pencil on paper

Original - SOLD

Time to get started with the painting! This one came together as many of my other pieces do, I work back to front and try to touch everything as I build up the piece. There was just a little adjusting while I was working on it, but for the most part it just came together with all the pieces falling into place. Here is the piece coming together in 18 easy steps...

Yoda - Process steps

Once production reviewed the final piece they believed that Yoda's legs were too long. My reference and familiarity with the character told me that my piece was accurate, but production wanted the change, so I made the change. That is how that works. I worked up two ways of addressing the leg issue, one had Yoda about to touch down on the ground and the other brought the ground up to make the requested leg length. The second version was picked. Here are my two variations on shortening Yoda's legs...

Yoda - Revision variants

Lastly, here is an animated gif that better shows the piece coming together. You can see the shortening of the legs clearly and how I adjusted the over all image as I worked...

Yoda - Animated progression thing

This piece will be a benchmark for all my work to come. Since I am now working traditionally I have a lot to learn and a lot to aim for. This piece will be my goal and the level of quality and detail I want to achieve with my traditional work. ...as well as any digital work that I find myself doing. Here again is the final image of Yoda...

Yoda

Star Wars: The Card Game National Championship Prize

12.4 x 8.9 - Digital

Here is how the art looks on the card as seen at Gen Con 2014 where the card was part of the National Championship for the Star Wars LCG. I thought the card turned out great and hope that I can be part of something like this again in the future!

A fistful of Yodas in handy dandy card form

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

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Yoda - Process

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