RYZ Dungeons and Dragons Shoe Contest

RYZ is currently accepting Dungeons and Dragons themed shoe designs for the Sell your Sole event! Only a couple days remain to submit your designs so you better hurry on over. Jon Schindehette has a great submission tutorial over at ArtOrder that provides a detailed step by step how to. Here are the five designs I have currently submitted, I hope to submit several more before it is all over:

Ankheg Attack

Gray Render ambush

Ambushed by the Ambush Vine

Flesh Weavers

Dragonborn vs. Zombies

After the submission period ends voting will begin on July 15th and continue through July 28th. Expect loud and frequent reminders to vote for my deigns! I will keep you up to date as things develop. You can currently follow the links under each of the approve images to leave a comment as the excitement builds to the start of voting.

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

Artorder Sketch - Catastrophic Dragon

If you missed it, last weeks concepts are up at Artorder as well as the next two assignments. Here is my concept for this week...

The assignment this week was to create a new incarnation of the Catastrophic Dragon. The Catastrophic Dragon is a new type of primal elemental dragon recently debuted for Dungeons and Dragons. This dragon's elemental force was "Earthquake". A full description of this challenge can be found here.

For the record his lower jaw opens and then slits down the middle and hinges out to the sides. I had drawn an insert of this, but I didn't like it so I left it out. I envisioned that this dragon would slam his head into the ground to create shock waves. It would also rapidly smash it's massive fore limbs into the ground releasing primal energy from the large openings in it's husk.

Don't forget to visit ArtOrder every Tuesday to vote for your favorite artist by leaving their name in the comment field of the Concept Tuesday post! A vote for me is a vote for the future!

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

Getting ready for Comic Con

I mentioned on Monday that I am getting ready for the San Diego Comic Con, which will be upon us in just a couple of weeks. One of the things that I have been working on is a new business card and postcard leave behind. There is a secret item I am working on that I will share with you when it is all finished.

Now that I have committed to these I think back to the last business card and leave behind I carried around at Comic Con and a little piece inside me dies. Live and learn, right? There is much more recent work I wanted to use for these, but alas I can't due to NDAs. The good news is that many of my recent clients are allowing me to use unreleased work in my hard copy portfolio for self promotion at the Con, so I can't really complain.

New and improved double sided business card with Info-tastic-mega-overload power!

Postcard leave behind. I will of course realize all the things I should have done once I am talking to an art director at the con.

I will keep you posted as the other items progress. I hope they will turn out super neat.

For those of you not following me on Twitter or Facebook you may not have heard my update yesterday about the ceiling tile I painted for Tijuana Flats. I have been told it took second place in a popular vote... which I was never told would be a popular vote and thus did not allow me to vote for my own tile or get anyone else I know to vote for said tile. Oh well, I still won some free burritos and the tile is very well placed in the restaurant with my web address clearly visible.

Second place! (...is the first loser) ;)

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

Endings and Beginnings

Last week's posting schedule was off so if you missed anything make sure you check out the ceiling tile, Ankheg wallpaper, and Oso de la Fez.

Last week marked some endings and beginnings. Some of you may know I finished a project I have been working on for the last 6 months. I have been talking about this project off and on for a while now, I call it "my other work" and have featured some of the graphics I have created for it. Well, 1145 graphics and copious revisions later, the project is done and will be going live for use today (just between you and me I would not be surprised if I get some more revisions any moment now).

As this project ends other begin. I have some card art and black and white book illustrations gearing up in the sketch phase. There is also a dragon I am planning on having finished for Friday that some of you might be working on as well *cough* ArtOrder *cough*. Lastly... there is Comic Con. I will be attending the San Diego Comic Con July 22 - 26 and I am way behind in getting ready. If you will be attending SDCC try to find me and say 'hi', I will be free roaming so it might be hard. There will be more details on that as we get closer.

Here are some graphics from the project I just finished, they dealt with exterior threats to child care homes and facilities:

Forest or wild fires can be a threat to you and the children in your care.

Bomb treats are never a joke. That clown still gives me nightmares.

I was just thrilled I finally had a use for that guy.

It is on screen for just seconds but I am strangely really proud of this one.

Thanks to H1 N1 this project got expanded and the size increased and I almost got pinched by the deadline that did not get extended.

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

Tijuana Flats Ceiling Tile

Better later then never... a bucket load of Internet issues today. Anyway... Here is the ceiling tile I did for the new Tijuana Flats that has opened near me. Every time a new store opens they have a ceiling tile painting contest and there a three winners that get bragging rights and some gift cards for free food. I thought this would be something fun to do and a little bit of free advertising (notice my cleverly placed web address!) The sky is the limit on what you can do but they did offer several themes they would like to see: hot sauce, fire, heat, iguanas or super heroes. I decided on hot sauce and tentacle beast. They go well together. The winners were to be announced yesterday which is why I had not shown this yet (just in case), but apparently not everyone could handle the deadline so it has been pushed till next week. I will update you as thing develop. Enough of my rambling., here is my tile:

Before it went up. Why yes, that is real paint, painted with a real brush - so retro. I used spray paint, acrylic, and paint markers.

Here a bad photo of it in it's final spot in the ceiling of Tijuana Flats.

If you were curious, here is a close up of the tile.

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

Ankheg Wallpaper

You might remember me constantly asking for you to vote for Ankheg. If you don't then you obviously don't follow this blog, or my Twitter account, or me on Facebook, because for a while there I would not shut up about... VOTE FOR ANKHEG!!!! ... Anyway, you all listened, voted, and Ankheg made it to the semi-finals for the Dungeons and Dragons Creature Competition! That makes your friend and mine the winner of being immortalized on a series of desktop wallpapers!

Head over to the Wizards of the Coast website and download your very own Ankheg wallpaper today! ...oh yeah, there are three other monster wallpapers too, but they are not Ankheg.

I'm a monster at 800 x 600, 1024 x 768 or 1280 x 960, RAWR!

In all seriousness, thanks to everyone that voted for my monster. I am fairly sure you all swung the voting at least once or twice, and no election is worth a grain of salt if it can't be manipulated to produce the results you want!

You guys rock! Thanks for the votes!

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

ArtOrder - Oso de la Fez

A quick update, if you were wondering why there was no post on Monday, I was on a much needed mini vacation and was completely away from my computer for four whole days. Now I have a stack of emails to deal with and work to catch up on. I plan to add a post tomorrow to make up for missing Monday.

Now down to business... Oso de la Fez! There was a special challenge announced last Friday over at ArtOrder and I had a little down time over the last four days to whip something up:


You can read the specifics of the challenge here, but the overview was to design the bear familiar, Oso de la Fez, created by Shelly Mazzanoble for her D&D game which she has been writing about for Dragon magazine. Yes, he is a circus bear. I had thought this piece was due today but while I was away from the Internet the due date moved to Sunday... better to be done early rather then late. You maybe wondering if I was away from my computer, how ever did I make this?!? I used analog techniques! Copic marker, colored pencil and gouache helped me through this. Let me know if you would like to see more analog work!

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