TIME Show - Keeper of the Clocks

I am happy to announce that my recent piece, Keeper of the Clocks, will be appearing at Haven Gallery as part of the TIME show. In fact, Keeper of the Clocks is the featured piece as part of their promotion for the show! The show is curated by Patrick and Jeannie Wilshire (the folks behind IX), and I am THRILLED to be a part of it. The show opens May 19th and runs through June 23rd. While I will not be able to make it to the show, I imagine there will be many artists from the show on hand for the opening reception.

TIME

Haven Gallery

May 19th - June 23rd, 2018

155 Main St., Northport, NY

This will be the first time one of my big environmental pieces for The Grand Bazaar of Ethra VanDalia will be out in the wild, and it will be available to purchase at the gallery. The rest of the pieces will remain on hold till the Kickstarter for the book, but this piece will be up for grabs as part of the TIME show. To do it justice, we got the piece done up in a nice new custom frame, and I could not be happier with how it turned out. Also got it a nice new shipping box. Spared no expense to make sure the Keeper looked her best and made it safely to New York.

Keep of the Clocks - framed and ready for shipment

While I had planned this piece all along for my project, I actually had to move it to the front of the queue to make the show deadline. Really glad it worked out this way since it gave me a little more pressure to get it done, and I am really happy with how this one turned out.

Detail of the frame

If you are attending TIME, be sure to check out Marc Scheff's solo show, Depth Charge, which is also at Haven Gallery and run concurrent to TIME. I am sure it will be an amazing show with the quality of work Marc has been putting out lately.

Marc Scheff

Depth Charge

That is all for another exciting Monday on the blog. See you back here on Wednesday! Until then...

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

In Memoriam, Andreas Knoll

This week I learned that Andreas Knoll passed away last September after a long battle with cancer. I knew Andreas as MetalSnail over on DeviantArt and it pains me have not known of his passing sooner. Andreas lived in Australia and I never met him in person and only chatted with him a handful of times on DA, but he seemed like a nice guy and I loved his art. He was constantly posting new drawings, paintings, and sculpture. I love his style and his art was just so fun and completely full of monsters. A couple years back Andreas was selling some of his sculptures at criminally low prices and I jumped at the opportunity to get one. I was happy to own one of his sculptures at the time and now I am even more grateful to have a piece of his work. Please take a moment to head over to DeviantArt and have a look at Andreas' work. He will be missed.

Sculpture by Andreas Knoll

That is all for another 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

Gulf Coast Fan Fest 2018 Guest Announcement

I am happy to announce that I will be returning as a guest to Gulf Coast Fan Fest this coming October 13-14, 2018! This will be my first time as a guest at GCFF and I am really excited to attend. I have never been to Biloxi before and this is taking place the weekend of my birthday, so it should be an interesting time! The organizers behind GCFF are the same at Pensacon, which is one of my favorite conventions, so I know GCFF will be a great time.

I will see you at Gulf Coast Fan Fest October 13-14, 2018!

This is the second year for GCFF and my first time there, so I am not sure what to expect. I already know there are some really great guests lined up with MANY more to be announced. I will keep you updated here on the blog when and if panels are announced and anything else related to my appearance at GCFF. If you are in the gulf coast area I hope to see you at Gulf Coast Fan Fest!

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

The Grand Bazaar - The Grand Bazaar of Ethra VanDalia

I have a new piece from The Grand Bazaar of Ethra VanDalia! With all the monsters complete, it is now time to begin exploring the Grand Bazaar itself. The second stop is a mostly clear view of the Great Tower of Ethra VanDalia Ethra's from a busy street. This is an older part of the Bazaar, so you can actually see up and take in the skyline in a few places... if there was a skyline. While you are in this food district, I highly recommend you stopping by Elko Pio, the Egg Monger. He is one of the last to carry Lammergeier eggs.

The Grand Bazaar
16 x 20 - Pencil, ink, and acrylic paint on paper
Original - SOLD

Currently Available Grand Bazaar Originals
© 2018 Christopher Burdett

The Grand Bazaar - Drawing
16 x 20 - Pencil on paper
© 2018 Christopher Burdett

Due to the complexity of these larger full environment pieces I am now working on, I have needed to do value studies to make sure I know where I am going and don't lose my way. Doing these value studies has been one of the best course of action on this project and have saved me a lot of headaches. Here is the value study for The Grand Bazaar...

The Grand Bazaar - Value study
Digital
© 2018 Christopher Burdett

Here are all of the monsters appearing in the first volume of The Grand Bazaar of Ethra VanDalia: Aberrant Stilter, Belled Kreep, Corrupted Knight, Dight-Kin, Eau-de-nil Elder, Ethra VanDalia, Footman, Gray Wanderer, Gullet, Humgruffin Mother, Irritated Girasol, Judicator, Kiplorbic Animal Dealer, Lammergeier Transport, Myopic Riflemen, Nimsbane Curse Victim, Ophiomornous Bureaucrat, Petrous Blacksmith, Quincaillerie, Rapacious Guttersnipe, Saint Marque, Smokestack, Thrice, Uncanny Scribe, Virulent Artificer, Woven Egg, Woven Shaper, Xandrell Tree, Yote Arms Dealer, and Zombic Spore.
 
As an added bonus, I have some images of the line work and rendering process of this piece so that you can get a better idea of it taking shape... 

The Grand Bazaar - Process © 2018 Christopher Burdett

That is all for another exciting Monday on the blog. See you back here on Wednesday! Until then...

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

Dungrons & Dragons - Dungeonology

Earlier in the week I went down a rabbit hole of discovering a bunch of my work illegally being used on items for sale (another story for another day). In the process of finding all of the stolen artwork I did learn that some of my work was being used legitimately on projects I did not know about. I discovered that I was credited on the Dungeons & Dragons book, Dungeonology. Dungeonology came out in 2016 and while I was aware of its existence I had no idea some of my work was actually in it. Learning that I had a credit in it I rolled the dice and ordered one to see if in fact the credit was accurate and because I collect things with my work in it. The book arrived and I began paging through to find my reused work. While it was easy enough to spot my name on the first page under contributing artists, finding my art turned out to be a little more difficult. I searched through the entire book twice with no luck in finding anything that looked like mine. Maybe my name being in the book was an error? Maybe my work had originally been in there but it was removed along the way due to edits? Maybe I was not looking hard enough? Well, I began looking through the book a third time, carefully scouring each page, flipping through each supplemental mini book, and unfolding every flap, edge, and map in a the quest for something made with my hand. Here is what I found...

The cover of the Dungeonology is so shiny and fancy!

Looks like just another normal page with no sign of my art...

...but what's this? A secret flap? An extra bit of content and information!

Looking closer... what's this?

FINALLY! I drew that feather!

As far as I can tell this is my only art in the book and I think it is awesome and hilarious. I am eternally grateful for the professionalism for everyone over at WotC and the team on Dungeons & Dragons. It would have been so easy to no give me credit for this, after all it is just a little feather on one page. I have not been given credit plenty of times with other companies, so it is so wonderful when things like this happen. If you are wondering why I had drawn a feather for D&D you just need to look back to 2014. When working on the 5th Edition Monster Manual the artists were asked to supply detail pencil sketches for their monsters so that production can use them as part of the layout of the book. One of the sketches that I did for the Aarkocra was... you guessed it! ...a feather.

Aarakocra - Detail Sketches

9x12 - Pencil on paper

© 2014 Wizards of the Coast

That is 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

Art vs Artist - 2018

The art vs artist comparison meme is going around again and while I am probably late to it, I thought I would throw my hat in the ring again. I previously shared some art vs artist images back in 2016. This time around I thought I would just stick with the pieces I am currently working, the monsters of The Grand Bazaar of Ethra VanDalia. Here is my submission for #artvsartist...

Art vs Artist 2018

Not much else to say about this, I think it speaks for itself. I need to get back to work. RAWR!

That is all for another exciting Wednesday on the blog, I will see back here soon! Until then...

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

Scribbling Intensifies - Grand Bazaar WIP

My schedule continues to be overly full so just a quick update on my current drawing. I am practically done with the first black render pass on the drawing. This is a huge milestone and even though there is still plenty to do I can see the finished drawing taking shape. Once I finish this black render I will start with the white pass, then paint, then ink, and finally any needed pushing and pulling of the piece as a whole. While that sounds like a lot, the drawing really speeds up at this point and magically comes together. As it stands now I am finally starting to see the drawing that has been in my mind taking shape in front of me. I can not rush it and there will be a few more sessions to go before it is done, but it should be finished next week. Really looking forward to sharing this one. It will be the first reveal of what the Grand Bazaar looks like. That said, here are some extremely tight cropped images of the drawing from last night...

All the little monsters going about their day in the Grand Bazaar.

Just more monsters to flesh out another day and to tell their story.

Roof topper.

All the little monsters going about their day after I worked a little more on them.

Process images © 2018 Christopher Burdett

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

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

The Grand Bazaar of Ethra VanDalia Monster Line Up

A lot is going on that can not currently be shared, and a lot is going on in general. I have always said that this blog is the first victim of my busy schedule... and it will be suffering for a while. I will spare you the tedious details. I am busy, a lot is going on, I am hard at work, nothing really new to share. That said, I want to continue to keep everyone reminded about my current project, The Grand Bazaar of Ethra VanDalia. To that end, I have a nice little image that has all the monsters currently appearing in the first volume. If you are familiar with the blog or follow me on social media, these are not new images, but they are all together for the first time. Soooo... TA-DA!

Monsters line up for The Grand Bazaar of Ethra VanDalia

Currently Available Grand Bazaar Originals

Here are all of the monsters appearing in the first volume of The Grand Bazaar of Ethra VanDalia: Aberrant Stilter, Belled Kreep, Corrupted Knight, Dight-Kin, Eau-de-nil Elder, Ethra VanDalia, Footman, Gray Wanderer, Gullet, Humgruffin Mother, Irritated Girasol, Judicator, Kiplorbic Animal Dealer, Lammergeier Transport, Myopic Riflemen, Nimsbane Curse Victim, Ophiomornous Bureaucrat, Petrous Blacksmith, Quincaillerie, Rapacious Guttersnipe, Saint Marque, Smokestack, Thrice, Uncanny Scribe, Virulent Artificer, Woven Egg, Woven Shaper, Xandrell Tree, Yote Arms Dealer, and Zombic Spore.

And there is more to read over on The Grand Bazaar of Ethra VanDalia blog! Hopefully, there will be some updates over there sooner rather than later.

That is all for another exciting Monday on the blog. See you back here on Wednesday! Until then...

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

Mordenkainen’s Mayhem!

Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes is the newest suppliment to the Dungeons & Dragons and it comes out on May 29th (with a limited alternative cover hitting game stores slightly earlier on May 18). With that knowledge and what I am sharing with you today I think it is safe to say that I worked on this book! I had a ton of fun making a bunch of monsters for Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes and I am really looking forward to sharing them with you in the coming months. That said, one of my pieces has be spoiled as part of the Mordenkainen’s Mayhem monster competition currently going on over on the Dungeons & Dragons website.

Mordenkainen’s Mayhem!

One of monsters that I did the illustration for won the first battle and will be moving on to the second round of combat. Always nice when the monster wins... though it is only monsters battling. I will just leave this other image here in case you were wondering exactly which was mine (more on this SOON!)...

Winner winner demon chicken dinner!

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

Shrapnel Rounds - The Return of Krash

Recently, one of my pieces from Star Wars Edge of the Empire has made an appearance over in Imperial Assault. While it has been severely cropped and adjusted a little I recognized it immediately. I present to you the newly named Shrapnel Rounds...

Shrapnel Rounds

Star Wars Imperial Assault - Heart of the Empire

Actually, this is the reverse of what usually happens. I will create a piece of work for an project and for whatever reason it ends up being weirdly cropped and you can hardly see the image and only later when it is reused do you get to see the whole thing. If you did not recognize the Shrapnel Rounds just have a close look at Krash's midsection...

Krash

Star Wars - Edge of the Empire: Mask of the Pirate Queen

9 x 12 - Acrylic and pencil on board

Original - SOLD

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

Krash is a little older piece of mine that kind of flew under the radar. You can read more about its announcement and process here on the blog. This was a fun one to work on and glad to see that it is getting a little more attention out there.

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

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