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

Showing posts with label Wookiee. Show all posts

Thursday, February 3, 2022

50 Days of Star Wars

Starting today and running for 50 consecutive days, I will be sharing pieces of Star Wars art that I produced since 2011, when I first began working on the Star Wars tabletop games. While I am kicking things off here on the blog, my daily posts will be on various social media platforms. To see the daily D&D be sure to follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or my Facebook Page. If this seems familiar to you, that is because it is. In September of 2021, I shared 100 days of Dungeons & Dragons art. It was so much fun that I thought it would be fun to do the same with my Star Wars work. I never worked on or produced as much work for SW as I did for D&D, so I only have 50 days of art to share.

To start things off, I am going to the very beginning with the first piece of Star Wars art that I was ever commissioned to create, the Wookiee Navigator card art for the core set of the Star Wars Card Game in 2011. This card went through some edits to end up where it eventually did and was promptly forgotten about. Only later, when the card was reused as the Gunner card in the X-Wing miniature game, did the art catch on and find a fan base. Huh, look at that! A black Wookiee, I feel like there is a black Wookiee of notoriety that has been in the spotlight lately. I guess I was ahead of the curve 11 years ago. No matter, here is the art I created for the Wookiee Navigator card.

Wookiee Navigator
Star Wars LCG Core Set
9.6 x 6.9 - Digital

As with all my work, there are one or more drawings to go along with the finished painting. For this particular Wookiee, there is the line art and a tonal study. It is always interesting to see where my tonal work started and how much it has advanced over the years.

Wookiee Navigator - Drawing
Star Wars LCG Core Set

11 x 9 - Pencil on paper

Original - SOLD

Wookiee Navigator - Tonal study
Star Wars LCG Core Set

12 x 9 - Pencil on paper

Original - SOLD

See you on social media over the next 50 days as I share paintings, drawings, and more!

That's all for another exciting Thursday on the blog. See you back here next week! Until then...

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

Friday, May 3, 2019

Rememebering Chewbacca

You may have heard by now that we lost Peter Mayhew earlier this week. For most of us, Peter is interchangeable with the character he brought to life in Star Wars, Chewbacca. It is fair to say that Chewbacca is Peter Mayhew and Peter Mayhew is Chewbacca. I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Peter several times over the years. The first being when I worked at a comic shop in the early/mid-90s. Back then you could have actors from Star Wars come to your shop to do appearances and signings. I, of course, got my Chewbacca figure signed. Back then the signatures were free. Peter was quick with a story and a kind word. I don't often meet people that are taller than me, but Peter was a full foot taller than me, and it was quite the experience to be around someone so large. It was easy to see why Wookiees are so formidable. In the years since then, Peter has been a guest at various events I was working or was a guest at myself. He remained a singular figure until the end.

Since becoming an artist, I had the opportunity to illustrate Chewbacca twice for the Fantasy Flight Star Wars games. It meant a lot for me to take on the challenge of painting Chewie since he holds a special place in our household. I did all that I could to capture Peter and Chewie in my paintings. In the end, I think the second painting was a better likeness, but who am I so say. It was an honor to paint Chewbacca, and I hope I did the character justice.

We lost a legend this week, but we did not loose Chewbacca. He will always be with us, no one is ever really gone. Joonas Suotamo has picked up the torch and has been doing a great job filling Chewies shoes.

Here are the two illustrations of Chewbacca that I created for the Fantasy Flight games.

Chewbacca

Imperial Assault Winter Organized Play Kit

11 x 14 - Acrylic and pencil on board

Art Director - Deb Freytag

Original - SOLD

Chewbacca
Star Wars LCG - 2016 Store Championship Kit
11 x 14 - Acrylic and pencil on board
Art Director - Taylor Ingvarsson
Original - SOLD
© 2016 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

That's all for another exciting week on the blog, see you back here next week! Until then...

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

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

The Return of the Wookiee Navigator - Veteran Turret Gunner

A quick post today about the return of the very first Star Wars card I ever painted. The Wookiee Navigator first saw life in the Star Wars Card Game and went fairly unnoticed. When it was added to to the X-Wing miniature game as the Gunner card it got a lot of attention. Now that the second edition of X-Wing has been released it looks like the Gunner card has made the leap and is now the Veteran Turret Gunner. Here is look at the original art from 2012...

Wookiee Navigator

The good thing is that this time around the art is a little bigger. I think. Never the less, it is on a bigger card. I think. Which ever it is, here is the card...

Veteran Turret Gunner Card

If you want to get your hands on the card all you need to do is buy one of the new Y-Wing ships and it will be in there...

X-Wing 2nd Edition release of the Y-Wing that contains the Veteran Turret Gunner

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, April 12, 2017

Chewbacca - 2016 Store Championship Kit - Process

Today I have for you the process and steps that went into my Chewbacca painting that was created for the 2016 Store Championship Kit of the Star Wars LCG. I first shared this piece with you last November of 2016, and I painted it in August of 2015. Here is how the final painting turned out...

This was my second Chewbacca assignment in the same year, and I had learned a lot from the first one. Approaching this second painting, I wanted the likeness to be better, and I wanted the overall feel to be more Star Wars-y. The latter was definitely helped by the fact the piece needed to depict a moment from Return of the Jedi that happened just off-screen. The assignment called for the depiction of Chewbacca tossing the AT-ST driver out of the cockpit as Chewies Ewok friends prepare to go after the remaining driver inside the walker. Seems pretty straightforward and fun! As I did my research of this scene in the Return of the Jedi, I noticed several details I never really gave any attention to before. One, even though Chewbacca and the two Ewoks swing over to the AT-ST on a vine together you never see them on the top of the AT-ST while Chewbacca is opening the hatch and reaching in and two, the Ewoks weapons change from the moments before they swing over to the AT-ST and the scenes where they are attacking the driver inside the AT-ST. Funny what you notice once you watch a single scene over and over and over and...

Once I reviewed my film reference, I shot some photo reference using myself for all four characters and got to work on some thumbnails. Here's how those thumbnails turned out...

Chewbacca - Thumbnails
© 2016 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

Option "A" was the winner, and I was given the go-ahead to move forward on the final drawing, granted that I add little more bleed. No matter how much bleed I put on this piece I am always asked to add more. Here is how the final drawing turned out...

Chewbacca
Star Wars LCG - 2016 Store Championship Kit
14 x 17 - Pencil on paper
Art Director - Taylor Ingvarsson
© 2016 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

The drawing was approved without comment, and it was now time to get to work on the final painting. This painting, except for one part, was straightforward and really fun to work one. The one part that was rather difficult and caused a lot of problems was Chewbacca. The background and the AT-ST were a lot of fun to work on, and the rest came together with little effort. Unfortunately, Chewbacca made up for all that easy painting with a lot of stress and hard work. Here is the painting taking shape, it should be obvious where things go wrong once I get to painting Chewie...

Chewbacca - Process progression
© 2016 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

As you can clearly see, Chewbacca got really beefy and weird, and his face went into some really weird directions before I had to step back and paint it out and start over. Not sure how is body mass got all bulky and out of shape, but it happened gradually, and then it was just all wrong. His face may have been off since the beginning, but along the way, it got way worse. As I have said many times before here on the blog, you need to step back, look at your work objectively (which can be really really hard), and correct the things that need correcting. It should not be up to your art director to tell you to fix all the things that are not working or that are at 75%. You need to be able to look at your work and be able to go back in and address things if they have gone wrong or are not working. Part of the job. Here is an animated process of the painting coming together so that you can better see the edits to Chewie that I did...

Chewbacca - Animated process
© 2016 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

While I was working on fixing Chewbacca's face, I made an image file using all my reference to compare it to my painting to figure out what was not working and how to get it to be more of a likeness to Chewbacca. Always interesting how subtle moments and slight changes to proportions can make or break a likeness. This took a bit of work and a lot of studying to get it across the finish line. Even though the viewer might never know about the trails and tribulations that go into some of these paintings, hopefully, the hard work pays off in the end. Here is a real glimpse behind the curtain at what goes on to make my paintings...

Getting the face correct

I happened to take a photo of my work space as I was fixing Chewbacca. The controlled chaos that is where I paint...

Work space while working on Chewbacca circa August 2015

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

Chewbacca
11 x 14 - Acrylic and pencil on board
Original - SOLD
© 2016 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

Chewbacca in handy dandy card form

That's 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

Sunday, December 25, 2016

HO HO RAWR!

Happiest of holiday wishes from me to you. I hope that whichever winter festival or celebration you participate in, that it brings you fulfillment, happiness, and time with family and loved ones. I hope the Bounty Hunters and Bounties in your life can come together in the season... RAWR!

HO HO RAWR!

Happy Wookiee Life Day!

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

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

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

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

Original for sale over on my web store!

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

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

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

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

Monday, November 7, 2016

Chewbacca: Star Wars LCG - 2016 Store Championship Kit

More new Star Wars work on the blog today! I say new, but apparently, this has been out for months and months, and I was only alerted to its release at Gen Con. This Chewbacca piece was created for the 2016 Store Championship Kit and was released at the beginning of the year. Oops! I guess it is fine to finally be sharing it in November. I present to you my second official Chewbacca painting for the FFG Star Wars games...

Chewbacca
Star Wars LCG - 2016 Store Championship Kit

11 x 14 - Acrylic and pencil on board

Art Director - Taylor Ingvarsson

Original - SOLD

Last year I shared with you my first Chewbacca piece that I did for Imperial Assault. I still really like that piece a lot, but I always felt it could be more and look more like Chewbacca. When I was given a second chance to paint everybody's favorite walking carpet I really made sure that Chewie looked like Chewie. When I share the process for this piece, I will show you just how many times I painted, repainted, painted over, started over, and reworked Chewies head and face on this piece to get it where I wanted it to be. Since this is an iconic Return of the Jedi moment, I really wanted to make sure this was Jedi Chewie. I think I got the job done. Also, when I share the process for this post, I will talk a bit about how inconstant the actual scene in the movie I am depicting was. Anyway, here is the drawing that I created that goes along with this painting...

Chewbacca
Star Wars LCG - 2016 Store Championship Kit

14 x 17 - Pencil on paper

Art Director - Taylor Ingvarsson

Last, but not least, here is a bad scan of the final production card with all the cropping action you could possibly want. You can also see why there was so much blank AT-ST at the bottom of the painting. The actual card does a pretty good job in capturing the look of the painting, even though I feel my own images of the painting do not. Gotta love a painting in person.

Chewbacca in handy dandy card form

That's 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, December 25, 2015

HO HO RAWR!

Happiest of holiday wishes from me to you. I hope that whichever winter festival or celebration you participate in that it brings you fulfillment, happiness, and time with family and loved ones. I hope the Rancors and Gamorreans in your life can come together in the season... RAWR!

HO HO RAWR!

Happy Wookiee Life Day!

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

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Chewbacca - Imperial Assault Winter Organized Play Kit

Just in time for Illuxcon! My Chewbacca painting has been spoiled over on the Fantasy Flight website. This marked the first time I was asked to paint everybody's favorite Wookiee and it was a very exciting assignment. I was asked to depict Chewie giving a bunch of Stormtroopers a very difficult time. Speaking of Stormtroopers, this is the first time I got to paint Stormtroopers as well! I present Chewbacca for the Imperial Assault Winter Organized Play Kit...

Chewbacca

Imperial Assault Winter Organized Play Kit

11 x 14 - Acrylic and pencil on board

Art Director - Deb Freytag

Original - SOLD

This piece was completed in March and it feels like a million years ago now in terms of painting. In the first full year of painting traditionally for clients and myself I produced 30 paintings. If I remember correctly, Chewbacca was number eight or nine, in the top ten for sure. This image of the painting is still a scan and not a photograph so needless to say, the actual painting looks SO much better in person. Really thrilled I will be able to bring this with me to Illuxcon!

This painting will be used as alternate art as part of the Winter In-Store Organized Play Kits for Imperial Assault. Each kit has only two copies of the card so hopefully it will be in high demand. Here is a look at the rest of the Winter Organized Play Kit...

Imperial Assault Winter Organized Play Kit courtesy of the Fantasy Flight Games website

A HUGE thanks to Deb Freytag for giving me this assignment and for the great art direction during the creation of this piece! Thanks, Deb!

That is all for a very special extra Tuesday post 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

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

HO HO RAWR!

Happiest of holiday wishes from me to you. I hope that whichever winter festival or celebration you participate in that it brings you fulfillment, happiness, and time with family and loved ones. I hope the Trandoshans and Wookiees in your life can come together in the season... RAWR!

HO HO RAWR!

Happy Wookiee Life Day!

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

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

HO HO RAWR!

Happiest of holiday wishes from me to you. I hope that whichever winter festival or celebration you participate in that it brings you fulfillment, happiness, and time with family and loved ones. On Hoth they celebrate them all... because it is winter year round... RAWR!

HO HO RAWR!

Happy Wookiee Life Day!

That is all for today, 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, September 6, 2013

Wookiee Gunner

What better way to conclude an exciting week on the blog then with a Wookiee! Today I have for you a piece I put together to have at Gen Con which you may have already gotten a glimpse of, my toned paper Wookiee Gunner...

Wookiee Gunner

12 x 9

colored pencil on toned paper

The Wookiee Gunner may be familiar to you for other reasons too, since it is based off of the Wookiee Navigator that I created for the Star Wars Card Game. Apparently this Wookiee is getting around a lot more then I originally knew. After Gen Con I got a message from Sam Flegal (this becomes even more relevant as you read on). The message included a photo of a Star Wars card with the image of the Wookiee Navigator and the card title of "Gunner". I was dumbstruck! Turned out the card comes with the Slave One, Star Wars miniatures expansion. How cool is that! Here is a look at the card and the mini...

Slave One and Gunner from the Star Wars miniatures expansion

Gunner! that happens to be a Wookiee...

Speaking of Sam Flegal... as mentioned in my Gen Con coverage, Sam is now the happy owner of the Wookiee Gunner! The circle is now complete, when the Wookiee Gunner left me it was but the learner, but now... it is the master. Or something like that...

Wookiee adaption program

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

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Wookiee Navigator - Process

On Monday I shared with you the recently released Wookiee Navigator from the core set of the new Star Wars: The Card Game. As promised, I have for you today a look at the process that went into the Wookiee AND what the piece almost ended looking like. Cutting to the chase, here is the ORIGINAL version of the Wookiee Navigator... or at least the version I first submitted upon completing the piece...

ORIGINAL Wookiee Navigator

From the beginning of the assignment this piece was referred to as the NOT Chewbacca card. It was important for it to be a Wookiee depicted in a similar roll as Chewbacca, but it needed to no be the one Wookiee everyone is familiar with. I tried very hard to make sure the body mass and proportions I gave to my Wookiee were different to the proportions and body mass of Peter Mayhew in the Chewbacca suit. With the addition of the braids and the over all color shift towards the Wookiees that appeared in Episode III I thought I was golden... not so much. I am getting ahead of myself, as always, this piece started with thumbnails...

Wookiee Navigator - thumbnails

The assignment was very straight forward, depict a NOT Chewbacca Wookiee in a gunner chair similar to what you saw in Star Wars: A New Hope when Luke and Han were firing at Tie fighters. I have plenty of good reference of those scenes so I was feeling good about what I needed to depict. I worked up four variations on a Wookiee in a gunner chair and turned them in. You might be able to see that in some of the thumbnails there are the bandoliers and shoulder pads worn by Wookiees in Episode III. I added these elements to help distance this Wookiee from Chewbacca. In the end, production felt they had the opposite effect and they were removed once I moved forward on the final drawing...

Wookiee Navigator - drawing

Everything was moving right along and there were no sings of problems thus far. The drawing was approved and all I had to do was paint it. By now you know that this is where it all went wrong. I thought I proceeded in a safe and NOT Chewbacca direction. Here is a process progression of the piece and it includes the changing of the Wookiee's coloration...

Wookiee Navigator process progression

Thanks goes out to Zoe Robinson for helping me make sense of the revision requests from production. I didn't see it coming so there was a little bit of an adjustment phase to get my head around what I needed to do to make it right. It took a little nudge to get me to go as far as they wanted, but I got there and in the end the piece was finally accepted and approved. Here is a side by side comparison of the two pieces so you can see what changed...

Wookiee Navigator - comparison

One last look at how the final card came out and appears in the the game...

Wookiee Navigator

As mentioned on Monday, this was my first Star Wars assignment... not just with Fantasy Flight Games, but anywhere. I REALLY wanted to do a good job and I really wanted to make sure I got a lot more SW assignments. There were some very surreal moments when I would stop and realize that this was a strange manifestation of decades of wishing, dreaming, and work. After all the movies, comics, toys, and merchandising it all came together in a Wookiee painting that was very much "just another job". Then there was the stress of the massive revision which made it a very atypical work experience. Your wishes and dreams never really work out the way you expect... but they do come true on occasion, and for that I can be very grateful.

That's 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