Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Chewbacca - Imperial Assault - Process

This one is definitely a bit overdue. Today I have for you the process and steps that went into my Chewbacca painting that was created for the Winter Organized Play Kit of Imperial Assault. I first shared this piece with you last October and I painted in in March of 2015. Here is how the final painting turned out...

Chewbacca
Imperial Assault Winter Organized Play Kit
11 x 14 - Acrylic and pencil on board
Art Director - Deb Freytag
Original - SOLD
© 2015 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

This was a really exciting piece for me. Not only was it the first time I got to paint Chewbacca, it was the most prominent character that I have been asked to paint, AND I was going to attempt the painting traditionally. I will never paint Luke, Han, or Leia, but I definitely can paint a Chewbacca. There was a little stress going into this piece since it was such a recognizable character and I was going to paint traditionally. In the end it all worked out, obviously. To start things off, I got to work on some thumbnails...

Chewbacca - Thumbnails
© 2015 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

The piece called for a strong and powerful Chewbacca fighting some Stormtroopers. There needed to be some defeated troopers in the scene as well. As you can see thumbnail option 'C' was the winner, but there were things about all three that I liked. Looking back now, 'C' is by far the best, though I still like some of the action in 'A'. With a selected thumbnail I got to work on a finalized drawing...

Chewbacca - Drawing
Imperial Assault Winter Organized Play Kit
17 x 14 - Acrylic and pencil on board 
© 2015 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games 

There was a small tweak requested with the positioning of the bow caster after the drawing was submitted, but that was done digitally. Not even sure why it was requested or how much it actually changed the image, but I did it and it was approved. Now it was time to paint! In just eight simple steps I had myself a Chewbacca paint, not really...

Chewbacca - Process progression
© 2015 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

While the background, stormtroopers, and bow caster were all straight forward and easy enough to paint, Chewbacca was a bit of a struggle. I am still more of a scale and skin kind guy and all that fur overwhelms me sometimes. Gotta make the masses of fur read as well as the strands and bits. Then there was the issue of getting Chewbacca's likeness right. In the end I very much like this piece and I think over all it definitely looks like Chewbacca. The second Chewbacca piece that I did for the LCG, in my opinion, looks a lot more like Chewbacca, but this one was a good first attempt. You will notice that that the shape of the head does change from the drawing and there is extra work put into the face to make sure it reads more like Chewbacca. I may have spent the same amount of time on Chewbacca's head and torso as I spent on the entire rest of the painting. Some artist would expect nothing less, but it was a little new to me at the time. As time moves on it has become more common. Here is an animated process of the painting coming together so you can better see the changes I have mentioned...

Chewbacca - Animated process
© 2015 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

I looks like I took a image of my work space while I was working on this piece. The image was tucked in with the rest of my process images that I took while painting. This offers a glimpse of what my work space looked like back in March of 2015. Things have changed as much as they have stayed the same since then...

Work space while working on Chewbacca circa March 2015

Once again, here is the final painting as well as the final production card...

Chewbacca
Imperial Assault Winter Organized Play Kit
11 x 14 - Acrylic and pencil on board
Art Director - Deb Freytag
Original - SOLD
© 2015 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

Chewbacca 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

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