The Vale of the Inner Sun - Process

Back in September I shared with a recent Dungeons & Dragon piece that I appeared in Dragon magazine #414, The Vale of the Inner Sun. Today, I have for you a look at the process that went into the mutated elf foulspawn that was ever so briefly threatened by magenta. Let's start off with having a look at the finished piece before jumping into the process...

The Inner Sun

© 2012 Wizards of the Coast

 

I have alluded for a while now that there was a story involving magenta with this piece. Basically, as an artist you sometimes take risks or you do something you think at the time is really awesome. Sometimes it IS really awesome and the artistic risks pay off... and sometime they do not and the art director has to tell you to change it. My "at the time good idea" was to put some wicked awesome back lighting on this guy... but I am getting ahead of myself. First it all started with some concepts since this was a new monster. This new creature was described as an elf that has been corrupted and mutated into a foulspawn spell caster with a eyeless mask, staff, spell book, and had blood drenched robes. Its arms and torso needed to be elongated as if stretched. Here are the concepts I came up with...

The Inner Sun - concepts

© 2012 Wizards of the Coast

I followed the concepts up with some thumbnails of the creature emerging from a cave entrance is several dynamic and exciting ways. At the time I did not have a clear personal favorite so I used all the concepts in the thumbnails to get a better feel for what it working and what was not. When it was all said and done, I think I was leaning toward thumbnail 'B' or 'C'...

The Inner Sun - thumbnails

© 2012 Wizards of the Coast

Production always has a clear perspective on things and went with option 'A'. Now that I had a direction I could move forward with the final drawing to work out the details and flesh things out... 

The Inner Sun - drawing

© 2012 Wizards of the Coast

With everything approved it was now time to work on the final painting and this is where it all gets weird. As part of the description for this piece there was a bit of background added describing how underground earthquakes that could happen anywhere could unleash these creatures so that they could be added to any campaign. I imagined some horrific underground event involving magic and arcane wonders and horrors that cause and are the aftermath of all this and so should be included in the illustration... namely in the form of some glow from inside the cave. Let's see how that all worked out when the glow ended up being MAGENTA...

The Inner Sun - process

© 2012 Wizards of the Coast

Um... yeah. Everything should look relatively similar to my current build up of my images in steps 1 - 5. In step 5 you can see the introduction of color and the glow taking form. Steps 6 - 8 it just keeps going and going and step 8 is what I turned into the art director the first time. When the note came back to get rid of the magenta it was a little overwhelming and was a bit worried at the scale of this change... at least I was not working traditionally where it would be a lot worse. At first I thought the color needed to just be changed to another color and that added to the confusion of the revision. But after some emails with the AD is was more clear to me on what the problem was and what needed to be done.  The color was not only overwhelming it was also causing the blood to become less noticeable and pulling focus. Sometimes the illustration is just about a monster standing in the opening of a cave. Here is a side by side comparison of the two final versions of this piece, you be the judge...

The Inner Sun - with and without MAGENTA

© 2012 Wizards of the Coast

Now that the MAGENTA has been dealt with the piece was quickly approved. This is another reason why it is good to get your assignments in early. I had the pieces in well before they were due and even with this change I was still able to deliver the final work to the AD ahead of deadline and at happy AD makes for a happy artist! ALSO, don't fight the revisions, just do them. You will lose the fight every time and might lose a lot more in the long run if the AD never calls you back for another job. The AD and production  have an objective view point and thankfully in my experience have always been a source for improvement. Granted, there are exceptions and if they are making changes to the final that should have been addressed by them in the sketch phase there are time when you have the power to act on behave... but the general revision notes need to be done quickly and with a smile. Here is the final piece one more time...

The Inner Sun

© 2012 Wizards of the Coast

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