Yuan-ti Anathema - Dungeons and Dragons

Only one post this week while I wrap things up for the year and recoup from the holidays. ...and the ravages of Beatles Rockband is taking a toll on my productivity.

Today I bring you the Yuan-ti Anathema. This was another creature redesign for Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition as well as a miniature turnaround for the Against the Giants miniature expansion. It is always an honor to have a chance to add my voice to the legacy of Dungeons and Dragons. One of the coolest aspects of this design was the fact it was slated to be a 72 mm "huge" scale miniature. Bigger is always better in my book when it comes to miniatures.

This creature was changing a bit from it's earlier incarnations and it's changes were at first causing me some headache. The body mass had to be a huge swirling mass of little snakes. The problem was I was concentrating on the "little snakes" aspect and not the "huge mass" aspect of the design. Once again I was fretting about the details and forgetting to address the bigger picture. I had some rather horrifying false starts before I got my act together on this one. I remembered a piece I had done previously that involved a creature of twisting tentacles and allowed me to move forward in the right direction.

RAWR! I'm a monster! ...with tentacles...
© 2006 Christopher Burdett

Now with a better outlook on how to proceed I moved forward with the official first pass on the Yuan-ti Anathema and come up with this...

First pass at snaky monster goodness...
© 2007 Wizards of the Coast LLC

Not bad for a first pass but there was something that was not quite right. My art director suggested trying the head a bit bigger and lengthening the body...

Giant headed snaky monster goodness...
© 2007 Wizards of the Coast LLC

Hurm... the body is working but the head... yeah... Onto another revision. Moving back to the smaller head with the elongated body but this time a bit of a neck...

Proper snaky monster goodness
© 2007 Wizards of the Coast LLC

There we go! Much better. This version is approved and I moved forward with the complete turnaround.

© 2007 Wizards of the Coast LLC

You can see how the Yuan-ti Anathema turned out in it's final production miniature form, HERE. That's all for this week. See you next week for a fresh start in a new year!

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