The DOODLES, DESIGNS, and aRT of CHRISTOPHER BURDETT: Daniel Gelon

Showing posts with label Daniel Gelon. Show all posts

Monday, September 15, 2014

Dungeon & Dragons Monster Manual - Salamander

I will start things off today with saying that this is my favorite illustration that I completed for the 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. What monsters is it? Well, none other then the wily Salamander! Even though it stumbled briefly in the design phase it ended up on top of the pieces I produced for the MM (IMHO). Here is my Salamander for the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons...

Salamander - Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual

One last time, with feeling... we were asked to create additional detail sketches that would be used in the design of the book. Not all of the drawing got used for all the monsters, but they were part of the process. Here are the details sketches that I created for the Salamander...

Salamander - Detail Sketches

No cropping this time and around! The Salamander ended up nice and big on the page and appears with several detail sketches. Here is a bad photo of theSalamander page I managed to take at Gen Con...

Handy dandy book version of the Salamander for all your RPG needs!

I am all too familiar with the wily Salamander. I redesigned it for myself a handful of months before I was asked to rework it for 5th Edition. While I was working from the same source material for my version and the 5E version I was taking them in very different directions. The 5E redesign needed to be true the classic D&D incarnation of the Salamander... but spruced up for the new edition. With that in mind I got started on some thumbnails...

Salamander - Thumbnails / Concepts

While not bad, looking at these now they leave me a little underwhelmed. I think the real issue was that I was designing them to closely in hand with the Fire Snake... which can be understood since they are different stages in its growth cycle. I think they would have done better to have their own workspace to be explored in... but not to worry, I got there in the end. Option "B" won the thumbnail concept competition and I moved it forward to a more finished drawing...

Fire Snake and Salamander - Version 01

12 x 9

Pencil on paper

Hurm... awkward... Bad drawings happen. This is why a good relationship with your art director is so important. They help steer you past the bad ones and point the way to find the good ones. This is also the concept phase of everything and less successful ideas need to be explored too. ...I think. You gotta draw the bad ones so they are out and they make room for the good ones. With notes from Jon I approached the Salamander anew...

Salamander - Version 02

9 x 12

Pencil on paper

This was approved without additional notes or revisions. Just needed to get that bad one out and shake it off, the good one was in me. Needed to have some fun with it and not worry so much about it. Now that there was an approved design it was time for some color...

Salamander - Final Concept

As mentioned in my Fire Snake post I really expanded upon the initial coloring and patterning on the Salamander when I worked on the final illustration for the book. Wanted to give him a little extra pop.

Well, that concludes the monsters that I painted for the Monster Manual, but there will be plenty more to come. As previously mentioned I redesigned 18 monsters for 5th Edition and I have only shared 4 of those with you so far. Plenty on monsters still to come in the coming weeks! MONSTER OVERLOAD! RAWR!

A HUGE THANKS to Jon Schindehette for all the monsters and direction during the design phase of 5th Edition (and for including me in the process to begin with!) and to Daniel Gelon for the art direction on the illustration!

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

Friday, September 12, 2014

Dungeon & Dragons Monster Manual - Fire Snake

Baby monster!

The Fire Snake is an infant Salamander (coming next week!). Much like most of the monsters I have been sharing I both designed and illustrated it. Fire Snakes are cute little totally harmless ...neutral evil snappy super heated bodied baby monsters determined to kill your hero. Here is my Fire Snake created for the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons...

Fire Snake - Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual

As I have repeated and repeated... we were asked to create an additional series of detail sketches that would be used in the design of the book. Not all of the drawing got used for all the monsters, but they were part of the process. Here are the details sketches that I created for the Fire Snake...

Fire Snake - Detail Sketches

The Fire Snake did not receive any cropping and ended up a solid quarter page monster, but none of the detail sketches made it into the book. Here is a bad photo of the Fire Snake page I managed to take at Gen Con...

Handy dandy book version of the Fire Snake for all your RPG needs!

I designed the Fire Snake and the Salamander (like I said, next week!) at the same time and for a time they were designed in tandem. I was asked to separate them during the design process and they went off to live their own monstrous lives. I have edited out the Salamander in these to not give out any secrets just yet. I of course started things off with some thumbnail concepts...

Fire Snake - Thumbnails / Concepts

There was not a lot of reinventing the wheel with the Fire Snake... it is a crazy snake monster that grows up to be a Salamander. A lot of its character came from what I was doing with the Salamander. Option 'B' was looking good and I worked up a small but more fleshed out version of the Fire Snake. Sadly the Salamander was not working and the two needed to part ways. Here is the first version of the Fire Snake...

Fire Snake and Salamander - Version 01

12 x 9

Pencil on paper

Now that is was off on its own the Fire Snake can live large and be in charge. Not much changed from the first version except for getting rid of the sneer and getting more detail and attention. Here is the final drawing of the Fire Snake concept...

Fire Snake - Version 02

9 x 12

Pencil on paper

Now that the Fire Snake is all approved it is time to get some color on it. If you compare the color versions of the final concept and the illustration you will see I enhanced the details and patterns a lot. Next week you will see more of that with the Salamander. The illustration just allowed me to flesh it out so much more... if I had not illustrated the Fire Snake any artist sticking to this final concept would have produced a totally fine result. It was really nice to have the opportunity to flesh this monster out myself. Here is the final concept for the Fire Snake...

Fire Snake - Final Concept

A HUGE THANKS to Jon Schindehette for all the monsters and direction during the design phase of 5th Edition (and for including me in the process to begin with!) and to Daniel Gelon for the art direction on the illustration!

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

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

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Dungeon & Dragons Monster Manual - Kraken

Release the KRAKEN!

For this installment of my work on the 5th Edition Monster Manual I have for you the mighty Kraken. I did not design this particular monster but I did illustrate it. The design work for the Kraken was handled by the super amazing creature designer Brynn Metheney and it was a HUGE honor to illustrate one of her designs. Here is my Kraken illustration for the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons...

Kraken - Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual

As mentioned before, we were asked to create an additional series of detail sketches that would be used in the design of the book. Not all of the drawing got used for all the monsters, but they were part of the process. Here are the details sketches that I created for the Kraken...

Kraken - Detail Sketches

I will not be sharing the concept work that I used to illustrate the Kraken at this time. As far as I am aware Brynn has not shared her work on it and I am not going to beat her to the punch in displaying her designs. When I post about the process of painting this piece in the coming months I will then share the concept work. What I can mention now is that in the process of illustrating the Kraken I was asked by production to tweak the face/head of the Kraken. More on this as well will be shared in the process post.

Some cropping aside, the Kraken ended up in the book nice and big, but I don't think any of the details sketches made their way into the book. Here is a bad photo of the Ankheg page I managed to take at Gen Con...

Handy dandy book version of the Kraken for all your RPG needs!

A HUGE THANKS to Jon Schindehette for all the monsters and direction during the design phase of 5th Edition (and for including me in the process to begin with!) and to Daniel Gelon for the art direction on the illustration!

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

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

Monday, September 8, 2014

Dungeon & Dragons Monster Manual - Aarakocra

FIRST!

Upon opening the 5th Edition Monster Manual the first entry is the feathery Aarakocra... which I just so happened to have redesigned for 5E and illustrated for the MM. Not sure if there is any real benefit to being first in the MM... but it just makes me feel all warm and tingly and gives me a certain amount of monstrous satisfaction. With that all said, let's get to the monster! Here is my redesign and illustration for the 5th Edition D&D Aarakocra...

Aarakocra - Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual

As mentioned in the Ankheg post, the artists working on the MM were asked to create an additional series of detail sketches that would be used in the design of the book. Not all of the drawing were used for all the monsters, but they were part of the process. Here are the details sketches that I created for the Aarakocra...

Aarakocra - Detail Sketches

The Aarakocra did not get cropped and appears with a couple of its details sketches. Here is a VERY bad photo of the Aarakocra page I managed to take at Gen Con...

HORRIBLE photo of the handy dandy book version of the Aarakocra for all your RPG needs!

I wonder why I did not take a second photo...

With the illustration all done, let's jump back in time further to look at the process of redesigning the Aarakocra. The Aarakocra (R-ah-cock-rah? R-ah-coke-ra?) required a bit more time in the concept phase compared to some of the other monsters of 5E that I worked on. I blame those meddlesome six limbs... or the fact that I had already done a bunch of winged things... or ...ah... I draw bad sometimes. Whatever the case I produced several rounds of concepts as we (production / ADs / and I) zeroed in on the design. Here are the three rounds of concepts thumbnails that I produced for the Aarakocra...

Aarakocra - Thumbnails / Concepts

Aarakocra - Thumbnails / Concepts (Round 2)

Aarakocra - Thumbnails / Concepts (Round 3)

By the time I went into round three the direction was really mapped out and the notes back from production sent me down the right path to a final design. While there were several aspects of the design to still work out I knew what needed to be done and the third round was approved.

Side note! Sometimes (often) I have to shake off the funky sketches and ideas at the beginning of a project. Gotta get the bad ideas out so that I can make something less bad. These bad warms up usually get delete and are NEVER shown to anyone. Looks like some of my SUPER CRAPPY warm up sketches for the Aarakocra survived... aren't you lucky! Two sketches managed to hide themselves in the layers of my thumbnail file while a third was sliced off at the very tip top edge...

Aarakocra - the HORRIBLE HORRIBLE warm up sketches that no one saw

(...but you just have so you are super special!)

Back to the actual process... With the thumbnails pretty much resulting in a completed design it was now time to clean it up on paper and flesh it all out. Here is the final drawing for the Aarakocra redesign...

Aarakocra

9 x 12

Pencil on paper

This design was approved without comment or revision. It was time to now work up a color version so that anyone working with Aarakocra in the future had an idea of what they should look like...

Aarakocra - Final Concept

With the launch of 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons has come new miniatures! While I have not been involved with designing the actual miniatures one of the first minis to be released is an Aarakocra which is obviously based on my design. Super thrilled to have miniatures based on my work and even more thrilled to have them in my hands! Here are some images of the Aarakocra mini...

Aarakocra - Miniature

Icons of the Realms

A HUGE THANKS to Jon Schindehette for all the monsters and direction during the design phase of 5th Edition (and for including me in the process to begin with!) and to Daniel Gelon for the art direction on the illustration!

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

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

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Dungeon & Dragons Monster Manual - Ankheg

One would think that since I am all about the monsters that I would have already started posting my work done on the monsters of 5th Edition D&D. To be honest, I just didn't know where to start! I designed 18 monsters for this new edition of D&D and illustrated 5 monsters that appeared in the Monster Manual (4 of my own design and 1 that I did not design). This was also the most personal work that I produced for a client last year. You don't have to look too hard on the blog to see that I have spent a lot of time redesigning the monsters of D&D for myself.

With all that in mind, I decided to start with the Ankheg. It is a monster I have always liked. I illustrated it for the Monster Manual 2 for 4th Edition, redesigned it for myself, redesigned it for 5th Edition, and finally have illustrated it for the new Monster Manual. You could say the Ankheg and I have some history. What better place to begin than with a monster I have gone full circle with? Here is my Ankheg for the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons...

Ankheg - Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual

As part of the assignment the Monster Manual, we were asked to create an additional series of detailed sketches that would be used in the design of the book. Not all of the drawings got used for all the monsters, but they were part of the process. Here are the detailed sketches that I created for the Ankheg...

Ankheg - Detail Sketches

Some cropping aside, the Ankheg ended up in the book nice and big with a couple of detailed sketches hanging out. Here is a lousy photo of the Ankheg page I managed to take at Gen Con...

The handy dandy book version of the Ankheg for all your RPG needs!

While we are on the subject of Ankhegs, how about I talk about the process of designing it! I worked on monster designs in waves, a handful at a time, from start to finish. If my memory serves me, I worked on the Ankheg in the second wave. I was really getting into it by the second wave, and I wished I could design ALL the monsters and that this assignment would never end. Maybe under other circumstances, that could have happened... but that is neither here nor there. With all the monsters, I started with some thumbnail concepts...

Ankheg - Thumbnails / Concepts

They wanted something beefier than the previous design. The Ankheg needed to feel like it could really tear through the ground with its forelimbs and be a monstrous threat. I looked at a lot of mole crickets, like a LOT of them. One of my thumbnails made the cut on the first pass, option 'B,' and I was ready to work up a more finished drawing...

Ankheg - Version 01

12 x 9

Pencil on paper

I REALLY liked this design. Unfortunately, upon additional review, some changes were needed. Since most of the design was working, I moved forward with the revisions digitally over my original drawing...

Ankheg - Version 02

Once these revisions were completed, I could see why I was asked to make them. This is a much more straightforward concept and not as busy. There was also concern that the appendages I added on the end of the thorax would give the impression that they could be used in battle, something the Ankheg could not do. With the design, all approved it was time to work up a color comp to assist the artist that was going to illustrate it for the book...

Ankheg - Final Concept

Conveniently, I became the illustrator, so I was very familiar with the new design and color scheme. I was also familiar with what had been the incarnation for the Ankheg for the previous five years during the 4th Edition. By sheer randomness, coincidence, or the aligning of the planets, I was asked to pretty much depict the Ankheg in the same way I had for the Monster Manual 2. I took this opportunity to improve upon myself and "do it right" this time. Here is a comparison of my Ankhegs created five years (almost to the day) apart for Dungeons & Dragons...

Ankheg - The circle is now complete: 2008 - 2013

A HUGE THANKS to Jon Schindehette for all the monsters and direction during the design phase of 5th Edition (and for including me in the process, to begin with!) and Daniel Gelon for the art direction on the illustration!

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

Friday, April 10, 2009

Artorder Sketch - Undead Demon Dinosaur

If you missed it, last weeks sketches are up over at Artorder as well as this weeks assignment. Here is my sketch for this week...

This week the assignment was to create an undead demon dinosaur, or Dinogloth. I really had to fight the urge to draw a zombie T-rex. Yes it would have been fun, but to quote Jon Schindehette, "it would have been grasping the low hanging fruit" (for me - not judging anyone else).

After a little more thought and time, I give you the Undead Demon Queen of the Dinosaurs, DINAMAT. I want to give a special shout out to Daniel Gelon for contributing to this week's theme, many thanks, it has been far too long since I drew a dinosaur. They are so fun to draw.

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