The Burning of Lake-Town #2 (Smaug the Magnificent)
© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games
Since I went into so much detail and back story about this project in the first process post I am going to assume you are familiar with the main points and address the parts that are unique to this piece. This second piece needed to depict a "Fear Attack", the horrifying and impressive monster that is Smaug. I instantly thought of a nice worm's eye view looking up at Smaug being big and scary with the lighting silhouetting the head with glowing eyes and mouth. Which is what I was trying to covey in the thumbnail I submitted...
The Burning of Lake-Town #2 - thumbnail
© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games
The thumbnail was approved and I moved forward with the drawing. As I mentioned previously, this project was under a really tight deadline and time was of the essence. I was rushing things where ever I could and once of the places, at least for this piece was the drawing. Rushing the early stages is something I have warned about many times here on the blog and here I was making the mistake I have warned against. This is how that rushed drawing turned out...
The Burning of Lake-Town #2 - drawing
© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games
While the drawing was approved when it came tome to actually work on the painting I realized that my haste had resulted in a less then ideal starting point. Some of the anatomy was a bit of wonky and the over all piece lacked symmetry and things were misaligned. The other issue was that after completing the first of these new Smaug pieces I had made some modifications and improvements to make the over all design and look of Smaug more interesting. Before moving forward with this painting I needed to fix the mess my haste had created and I needed to make sure the dragon was depicted identically across the three pieces. Thankfully, fixing the drawing was a relatively straight forward and easy process...
The Burning of Lake-Town #2 - revised drawing
© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games
Now that the drawing was squared away I was all set to move forward with the painting. Even though I was still getting comfortable with my new technique this piece came together quickly and easily once the drawing was fixed. Here is a break down of the painting process...
The Burning of Lake-Town #2 - process
© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games
The piece was approved without revisions. I think I am can say without a doubt that the piece was well received because not only was it used for the intended card but the art was reused for the cover card of the entire set! Here is how the card and the cover card turned out, you can see how the cropping changed from my version to the version used...
One last look at my final version. I always find it interesting how I and other react differently to a piece. I always have a favorite when doing a series of paintings all at the same time. This is not my favorite, but it is obviously liked by the folks at FFG. As time passes, this piece is growing on me. I think that some of the goofs with the drawing started me off on the wrong foot with it. Oh well, looking at the final painting you would never know any of that...
The Burning of Lake-Town #2 (Smaug the Magnificent)
© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games
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
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