Right about now, sixteen years ago, I
was reintroducing myself to my clients and making a fresh start of
things with my art. Well, I should say that all the work to improve my
skillsets and to become more serious about what I was making and doing
began to manifest. Over the next several Mondays, I plan to share my
contributions to the ArtOrder Mutation Nation art challenge that Jon
Schindehette ran... sixteen years ago. The next one I will be sharing
is the Anglerphant.
The
focus of the challenge was to take two animals, combine them, and make a
new crazy mutant. I ended up designing four monsters, and three became
finished paintings. These three paintings saw a major improvement in my
painting skills, my use of reference, and baby steps into creating an
environment for the monsters. This is also when I officially announced I
am only working on monsters moving forward. These were well received
and were 100% responcible for me once more working on projects with
WotC. The time and energy I put into these more than paid off, and would
mark the beginning of a new chapter in my art career.
That's all for another exciting week 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
2010, sixteen years ago now, I began a personal project to redesign
most, if not all, of the monsters in the original Dungeons & Dragons
Monster Manual. That original MM had a profound effect on me and led me
to eventually work on the game. While I was already working on the game
when I began this project, it did prove useful as I have redesigned
many D&D monsters in my career on the game. In the end, I completed
over 100 drawings for the project and even had a gallery show featuring the work.
I
thought it would be nice to look back at some of my favorites. Today
brings us to the Troll. Enjoy!
Right about now, sixteen years ago, I was reintroducing myself to my clients and making a fresh start of things with my art. Well, I should say that all the work to improve my skillsets and to become more serious about what I was making and doing began to manifest. Over the next several Mondays, I plan to share my contributions to the ArtOrder Mutation Nation art challenge that Jon Schindehette ran... sixteen years ago. The next one I will be sharing is the Rhinostrich.
The focus of the challenge was to take two animals, combine them, and make a new crazy mutant. I ended up designing four monsters, and three became finished paintings. These three paintings saw a major improvement in my painting skills, my use of reference, and baby steps into creating an environment for the monsters. This is also when I officially announced I am only working on monsters moving forward. These were well received and were 100% responcible for me once more working on projects with WotC. The time and energy I put into these more than paid off, and would mark the beginning of a new chapter in my art career.
That's all for another exciting week 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 2010, sixteen years ago now, I began a personal project to redesign most, if not all, of the monsters in the original Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. That original MM had a profound effect on me and led me to eventually work on the game. While I was already working on the game when I began this project, it did prove useful as I have redesigned many D&D monsters in my career on the game. In the end, I completed over 100 drawings for the project and even had a gallery show featuring the work.
I thought it would be nice to look back at some of my favorites. Today brings us to the Rust Monster (and likely my favorite of the entire project). Enjoy!
Right about now, sixteen years ago, I was reintroducing myself to my clients and making a fresh start of things with my art. Well, I should say that all the work to improve my skillsets and to become more serious about what I was making and doing began to manifest. Over the next several Mondays, I plan to share my contributions to the ArtOrder Mutation Nation art challenge that Jon Schindehette ran... sixteen years ago. The first one I will be sharing is the Scuttling Grizzly.
The focus of the challenge was to take two animals, combine them, and make a new crazy mutant. I ended up designing four monsters, and three became finished paintings. These three paintings saw a major improvement in my painting skills, my use of reference, and baby steps into creating an environment for the monsters. This is also when I officially announced I am only working on monsters moving forward. These were well received and were 100% responcible for me once more working on projects with WotC. The time and energy I put into these more than paid off, and would mark the beginning of a new chapter in my art career.
That's all for another exciting week 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
2010, sixteen years ago now, I began a personal project to redesign
most, if not all, of the monsters in the original Dungeons & Dragons
Monster Manual. That original MM had a profound effect on me and led me
to eventually work on the game. While I was already working on the game
when I began this project, it did prove useful as I have redesigned
many D&D monsters in my career on the game. In the end, I completed
over 100 drawings for the project and even had a gallery show featuring the work.
I thought it would be nice to look back at some of my favorites. Today brings us to the Owlbear. Enjoy!
I didn't expect to be revisiting this one, but as I finally, after nine years, got to play through the entire program, I thought it would be fun to take another look at this project and all the monsters I made for it.
First and foremost, this was created for my day career back in 2017. I originally shared this here on the blog in 2019, and it then vanished as if it never existed. For the project, I named it, created the logo, designed and created all the monsters, designed and created the Hub World in both normal and damaged states, mini game tutorial animations, and more. It was an extremely fun project to be a part of, and it is good to revisit and share it all again. The project was to create a testing interface for reading, word comprehension, and understanding. As you move through it, you will be tested, and if successful, you get a clue to the monster responsible for the damage and then play a fun little timed mini game. At the very end, you have to pick your monster from a lineup. After successfully finishing everything, you can make your own monster using all of the parts and colors.
And as I have finally been able to play through it all, it is a lot of fun and a great mix of testing and fun. Here is the vast majority of what I created for the project.
The Monster P.I. poster that I created using my assets.
Here are the monsters I created in their original forms. I also named all the monsters and created a backstory for each one. Respectively, they are: Zirrple, Dundur, Tromps, Wobbly, and Snerp.
All of their parts and colors are entirely interchangeable, making for many interesting, silly, and fun monsters.
Here are larger images of each monster. Cycling movements were added to give them a little more life. Everything was made to be interchangeable, which created some fun and challenging obstacles.
Dundur, Snerp, Tromps, Wobbly, and Zirrple.
Clues would include tentacle legs, four arms, a spotted body, big ears, or the color.
The Hub World was another large undertaking for the project. I needed to make the city look interesting and fun. I color-coded each location to the monster that, in its original form, is likely to be attracted to. Meaning that Zirrple likes the library. This was done mostly for myself and the little stories I wrote about each one. In the actual game, the monster will be a unique combination each time it is used. But this allows the location to be visually unique. After you visit a location, take the tests, collect the clue, and play the mini game, the location is repaired, and you can select another location to investigate.
The Hub world.
The damaged Hub World.
The last major contribution to the project was animated tutorials for each of the mini games. They needed to be quick, simple, and explain what you need to do in the game to succeed. Each location had a themed game you could play. The game was timed, and you are rewarded one to three stars based on your performance.
Game tutorial animations.
Here is a video that the center has used to advertise the game and our ability to create such projects. We are always on the lookout for projects like this, as they are super fun and allow us to really push ourselves and be creative.
Monster P.I.!
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
In 2010, sixteen years ago now, I began a personal project to redesign most, if not all, of the monsters in the original Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. That original MM had a profound effect on me and led me to eventually work on the game. While I was already working on the game when I began this project, it did prove useful as I have redesigned many D&D monsters in my career on the game. In the end, I completed over 100 drawings for the project and even had a gallery show featuring the work.
I thought it would be nice to look back at some of my favorites. Today brings us to the Lizardfolk. Enjoy!
In 2010, sixteen years ago now, I began a personal project to redesign most, if not all, of the monsters in the original Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. That original MM had a profound effect on me and led me to eventually work on the game. While I was already working on the game when I began this project, it did prove useful as I have redesigned many D&D monsters in my career on the game. In the end, I completed over 100 drawings for the project and even had a gallery show featuring the work.
I thought it would be nice to look back at some of my favorites. Today brings us to the Kobold. Enjoy!
Not to sound like a broken wheel, because I will be saying this for a while longer, but I am REALLY BUSY writing the next book, so the blog continues to mostly be posts looking back at older work. Today I am looking back at one of, if not the, favorite of Smaug paintings done for the Hobbit card game (original process post!). In total, I painted five Smaug-centric pieces, and this was the first one in the series and the last to be released. The art was eventually cropped to a square, but you do what you can. This piece is not without its flaws, I know them all too well, but I still really like this one, even with it being painted in 2012.
I used to spend SO much time laboring over these pieces I was being paid nearly nothing for. I guess it was good because I still have this cool dragon to show off. But all that time and effort spent on someone else's world. I will always say that doing that work taught me so much about how to create my work and my world.
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
Today, I am happy to share the process and steps for my contribution to the Dungeons & Dragons supplement, Forgotten Realms: Adventures in Faerun. As mentioned previously, while I created three pieces for this project, sections of the book were removed during production, which left only one of my illustrations included. While I was aware of the Phaerimm, I had never done anything with this particular monster before, so it was fun to get to working on something new. Here is a look at my final illustration for the Phaerimm.
You might notice that this monster has a background. This was one of the new requirements for the monster vignettes, as they have backgrounds now. No more isolated figures now. The Phaerimm is a strange plant monster horror thing. I am good with that, so no complaints. I got to work on some thumbnails for this one.
The thumbnails were well received, and the second one was chosen. With a selected thumbnail, I got to work on the drawing for this one. When the linework was finished, and before I completed the rendering, I scanned the image to use the line art in the painting process.
The drawing was approved without notes, and it was time to work on the painting. As mentioned above, these now have backgrounds. This also means that the creature and the background need to be on different layers so effects and vignetting can be done by production. For me, this means painting the background first and painting out the monster to some degree so that there is plenty to work with and no layering issues. I then go back in and work on the monster on its own layer set. This part I am very familiar with. There are other things I can say about this one, but that should wait till later when other pieces are eventually released.
Here again is how the final painting turned out, as well as a look at the piece in the book. You can see in that image how having the background as a separate layer works with the layout. On the page, the monster now breaks the borders of the image.
In 2010, sixteen years ago now, I began a personal project to redesign most, if not all, of the monsters in the original Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. That original MM had a profound effect on me and led me to eventually work on the game. While I was already working on the game when I began this project, it did prove useful as I have redesigned many D&D monsters in my career on the game. In the end, I completed over 100 drawings for the project and even had a gallery show featuring the work.
I thought it would be nice to look back at some of my favorites. Today brings us to the Imp. Enjoy!
In 2010, sixteen years ago now, I began a personal project to redesign most, if not all, of the monsters in the original Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. That original MM had a profound effect on me and led me to eventually work on the game. While I was already working on the game when I began this project, it did prove useful as I have redesigned many D&D monsters in my career on the game. In the end, I completed over 100 drawings for the project and even had a gallery show featuring the work.
I thought it would be nice to look back at some of my favorites. Today, I am sharing the classic of classic monsters, the Goblin. Enjoy!
In 2010, sixteen years ago now, I began a personal project to redesign most, if not all, of the monsters in the original Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. That original MM had a profound effect on me and led me to eventually work on the game. While I was already working on the game when I began this project, it did prove useful as I have redesigned many D&D monsters in my career on the game. In the end, I completed over 100 drawings for the project and even had a gallery show featuring the work.
I thought it would be nice to look back at some of my favorites. Today, I am sharing the double trouble that is the mighty Ettin. Enjoy!
While I plan to update you all with things on Monday, and why I am so busy, and why I am sharing even more older work. Let's just say, for now, that I am really, really busy.
In 2010, sixteen years ago now, I began a personal project to redesign most, if not all, of the monsters in the original Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. That original MM had a profound effect on me and led me to eventually work on the game. While I was already working on the game when I began this project, it did prove useful as I have redesigned many D&D monsters in my career on the game. In the end, I completed over 100 drawings for the project and even had a gallery show featuring the work.
I thought it would be nice to look back at some of my favorites, and to start things off, I am sharing the very first one that I completed, the Bugbear. Enjoy!
Two years later, in 2012, I shared the painted version of this drawing. I was making my transition from digital to traditional, and this was one of the first pieces I used to practice and learn what I was doing. I still very much enjoy how this turned out.
The newest Dungeons & Dragons supplement, Forgotten Realms: Adventures in Faerun, was recently released, and I can finally share my work on this book... sort of. I was lucky enough to have produced three pieces for the book. But, due to events outside my control, sections of the book were removed during production, and with the sections so went two of my pieces. That means that I can only share one piece with you today. Hopefully, in the future, those pieces will find a home and I will be able to share them. Of my pieces, the Phaerimm was the lucky one to make the book. While it was not an entirely new monster for me, I was aware of its existence, but I had never worked with or played with one before. So that was a treat for sure. Before sharing the final paintings for the Phaerimm, let's have a look at the book you can find it in.
Forgotten Realms: Adventures in Faerun
For those unfamiliar with the Phaerimm, it is an abomination that looks like a flying sunflower cornucopia with arms and a needle-toothed maw at its center. You know, the type of thing one would find in the Forgotten Realms. Here is my final painting for the Phaerimm, as well as the preliminary drawing.
Lastly, here is the monster in the book for all to see. An interesting side note, backgrounds are now included with the monsters I have been creating lately. So there is more context to the monster, and it isn't simply sitting in a white void on the page. This meant that I needed to supply the creature, separated from the background. Make of it what you will, it was a new aspect to the process that I will elaborate on when I share the entire production process.
The Phaerimm on the page for all your Phaerimm needs.
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
I am still SUPER swamped, so I have for you another unreleased piece from many moons ago.
First and foremost, I can not tell you anything about this work or the project it was created for. I would love to, but I can't, so please do not ask or try to guess.
Continuing from the last post in the series back in October, I am sharing some design work that never went anywhere. As mentioned before, this was a project that I was really excited about, but the pay was criminally low, I did a ton of work on it, and it never went anywhere. Not sure I can saw much more about it, other than I still have all the art I made for it and likely will forever. I would have been cool.
