Artorder Sketch - B&W Vampires

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...

As a note, the final size is 3" x 6.75" as requested, just shown here larger for your viewing pleasure.

The assignment for this week was to depict a pair of vampires. The piece had to be black and white line art and include several other key details, a full description can be found here. Jon Schindehette really raised the bar on this one. Not only is he giving out an art commission to the 'winner' but he has invited several other art directors from competing companies to have their say and possibly discover new artist. A list of those other art directors can be found here. So there will probably be a lot of new faces on the line up this Tuesday besides the regulars that participate each week, should be exciting!

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

Bloodwolf - Dreamblade

Another quick post due to time constraints, but it gets to be a look back at a miniature from the very first set of Dreamblade, so that is cool, right? You betcha!

Today I bring you the Bloodwolf and it's many quick sketches that give me wonder to why on Earth I am letting them see the light of day. Since Dreamblade was my first miniatures project AND my first Wizards of the Coast project I was feeling a lot of internal pressure to be super amazing. This manifested in me doing a lot of sketches - often rather fast - to pinpoint the direction I needed to go with the the design. As I got more and more experience under my belt the process did streamline some what - and the quality of the sketches greatly improved.

I hit the general body shape and pose on the first pass but there was much tweaking of his details to come. Added veins and worked of variations of his "blood vats" on it's back. The final addition of the explosives got the blood wolf signed off and I could move on the final.

Final turnaround for the Bloodwolf. To see how the final production miniature turned out, click here

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

Artorder Sketch - Biker Gang - VOTING NOW LIVE

Head over to ArtOrder and cast your vote for your favorite artist in this weeks Concept Tuesday event. If you missed my post last Friday this week's theme was to take one of the featured Dungeons and Dragon races and deck them out in full biker gear and give them something to ride.

I would greatly appreciate it if you would stop by and cast your vote for me by leaving my name in a comment. A vote for me is a vote for the future!

RAWR!

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

Vampires and Caterpillars

Another busy weekend. Finished up an assignment consisting of 4 paintings for a new client. Always exciting and a little nerve racking to work with a new client. So far it has been a real pleasure. I also go a bit of drawing in. Here is my sketch for a certain black and white Vampire assignment, stop back by on Friday to see the inked final.

On a completely different tangent here are some images from the garden this weekend. Our swallowtail caterpillars were finishing up what remained of our fennel and were finding hiding places to form their chrysalis. Some were not as well hidden as others.

Look at them go - OM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM!
As of this morning they are all gone and so was the fennel.

One will always choose the matchstick plant and allow us the opportunity to follow it through it's transformation.

Same one as of this morning. If I remember right from last year there will be a butterfly emerging in about 2 weeks.

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

ArtOrder - Biker Gang

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 for this week was to take one of the featured Dungeons and Dragon races and deck them out in full biker gear and give them something to ride. I think it speaks for itself. Only thing I will add is that for some reason I really needed to put a cowboy hat on a Dragonborn... not sure what that says about me. (?)

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

Troglodyte Bonecrusher

Another crazy busy week and I am running a little behind schedule today, so a quick look back at the Troglodyte Bonecrusher I redesigned for the Dungeons of Dread expansion of Dungeons and Dragons. The redesign process went fairly quickly for this monster and I was told the end product was very well received by the development folks on D&D. The first pass on the other hand...They wanted the Troglodyte to have the proportions of a dwarf and to be a feral minion to stronger smarter masters. This first pass was seen to be too civilized and lacked the correct proportions. So with that in mind I moved onto a new drawing.

I nailed it on the second drawing. The only outstanding change they wanted was to equip it with a cruder weapon. The art order did originally call for a mace but reviewing this incarnation it just didn't seem right now.

Equip one crude club. Made out of rock? Or is that a fossilized piece of shell? Or both? Turns out there was one minor tweak as I moved into the final turn around and that was to adjust the angle of the club.

Final turn around of the Troglodyte Bonecrusher. To see how the final production miniature turned out, click here.

I would also like to thank everyone that voted for me for last weeks ArtOrder challenge. It is an honor to win and I could not have done it with out your votes. THANKS!

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

Who am I? Contest! - WINNER!

Congratulation to Amy Hollen, winner of my first Who am I? Contest! Not only was she the first to get me her answers she was able to correctly name all the selections. Some of these proved to be more difficult then I first imagined. If you are wondering what the correct answers are... look no further:

1) Chrysota's Chapel, 2) Bloated Parasite, 3) Sorceress Creation Scourge, 4) Aquatic Predator, 5) Boll Deevil Concept, 6) Beast Concept

Thanks to everyone that took part in the fun, I hope you enjoyed it! I will most likely be doing this again. I learned a lot from this first time out and the next contest will be even better!

If you have a chance, you can check out Amy Hollen's work here: www.starrust.com

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

Who am I? Contest! - WIN A PRIZE!

Hey everyone, something new! Contest time! Win a signed print of my art!

Below are 6 sections from pieces of art that I have up currently on my web site. These sections are at 100% of the original pieces, can you tell which painting or drawing these belong to? If you can you have the chance to win a signed print of my art!

To win, head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com then send me an email containing the number of the section and the name of the original drawing or painting that you believe it belongs to. Email to: contest@christopherburdett.com. Failure to do any of this will disqualify you.


Too hard? Too easy? You be the judge. Still working out some of the bugs and details, this is the first one after all! Feel free to leave your thoughts and comments below.

* The contest in now over! Thanks to everyone that took part in my first contest challenge. You can find out the correct answers and see who won here!*

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

Boneclaw Impaler

I have always liked the look and feel of the undead Boneclaw, so it was a real treat to receive the assignment to design a new Boneclaw for the Against the Giants expansion for Dungeons and Dragons miniatures. I did several early sketches that helped me get my head around the creature that I sent to the Art Director to get feed back as I narrowed in on a final creation.

First pass, just feeling out the creature, it currently has a very stiff pose.

Second pass, better, still stiff... but I feel I understand the monster now and can move forward with the supplied feedback and create the final. As a side note, my Art Director on this, Stacy Longstreet, in joking commented it felt like it was greeting people at Walmart. So....

...I took a couple of minutes and whipped this up and sent it back to her.

Third pass, much better and almost there, one final minor edit to the wrappings hanging off the left arm and I will have an approved design.

Final turnaround of the Boneclaw Impaler. To see how the miniature turned out, click here.

That's all for today, not sure what I will have for Friday... my schedule is rather a little full and I might have to skip my posting. Hopefully not.

If you already haven't, make sure you head over to ArtOrder and cast a vote for my Concept Tuesday submission by leaving my name in a comment at the bottom of the page!

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

Artorder Sketch - Exchange - VOTING NOW LIVE

Head over to ArtOrder and cast your vote for your favorite artist in this weeks Concept Tuesday event. If you missed my post last Friday this week's theme was to take a silhouette created by another ArtOrder artist and flesh it out into a finished design.

I would greatly appreciate it if you would stop by and cast your vote for me by leaving my name in a comment. A vote for me is a vote for the future!

RAWR!

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

Twisting with Tornadoes

I am on the last big push to complete the child safety course I have been working on for several months. This last section deals with non-fire natural and man made disasters and emergencies. Here are several graphics dealing with tornadoes and heavy storms. I really enjoyed the tornado section, it allowed me a small bit of destructive fun.

When tornadoes strike, it is best to stay away from pink cars.

Tornadoes can achieve wind speeds of up to 300 miles per hour (not joke here).

Still waiting to hear back from the client if I am too over the top on this one. I hope not.

This is what the weather has been like for the past couple of weeks and it has been most problematic to my biking routine.

That's all for now. I have been super busy on gaming projects, but unfortunately I can't show that work off until it is published.

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

Artorder Sketch - Exchange

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


The assignment for this week was to take one of the silhouettes from the Usual Suspects assignment and expand it into a finished design. The twist is that everyone had to take another artist's silhouette! For this assignment I selected Ruth Kim's Defender. I found it the most appealing because while it contained a lot on information in it's shape it still left a lot to the imagination. I really enjoyed this assignment and hope that there will be more collaborative projects in store for ArtOrder.

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

More bugs and a fish - Dreamblade

Another look back at some Dreamblade miniature designs. These are from set 4, Anvilborn, which was the first set I had the opportunity to work with the Art Director Peter Whitley. If my memory serves me, I have not shown anyone some of these drawings, you get to be the first!

Today we meet the Omen Locust, Foul Beetle and the Abyssal Predator. That's right, more bugs! As I mentioned before, I have designed a lot of bugs for Dreamblade, but only one fish. Sometimes I hit a home run on the first drawing and sometimes I have to give it a fresh look after receiving notes from the AD. All three of these required some level of revision.

My first passes on these 3 miniatures. I know the Omen Locust is all wrong here.. but it always creeped me out... I imagined it human sized and standing right behind you, clicking it's mandibles.

A couple revision notes later I was on the right track and on my way to approved designs.

Final Omen Locust

Final Foul Beetle

Final Abyssal Predator

I am really happy with how these translated into their final miniature form, sometimes things get lost along the journey into plastic but these held up. Check out their final plastic goodness here: Omen Locust, Foul Beetle, Abyssal Predator.

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

Of burning children and inappropiate touching

I have to deal with some sensitive subject matter with my graphics from time to time and it can be a fine line between what is appropriate and what is over the line. I am currently working on a course dealing with child safety with an emphasis on fire safety and that has led to some graphical problem solving. How best to depict the real threat of the fire is smoke which can be very deadly? Should I actually show a child on fire?

One of the main reasons this course is being made is a little girl succumbed to smoke inhalation during a fire at a child care facility.

STOP. DROP. and ROLL! The audio for this section pretty much described a child on fire and I considered for a little while different ways of trying to actually depict said child on fire. In the end after talking with some colleges I really toned it down and made it graphical in nature rather then a literal depiction.

I have also had to address the abuse of children in the courses I create graphics for. This subject matter by far trumps anything dealing with fire or safety.

Physical abuse can be easier to depict...

...while sexual abuse needs to be handled more subtly.

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