Beastly Mercenary

My studies continue and this time it is a turtle with an axe! You might remember my recent posts about the Beastly Caster, Beastly Fighter, Beastly Archer, Beastly Scribe, Beastly Pirate, and Beastly Rider. I am trying to make the most of my personal drawing time by incorporating more reference to hopefully improve my overall drawing skills. So today on the blog I have for you the seventh of my studies...

 Beastly Mercenary

© 2012 Christopher Burdett

In my talk at Illuxcon I briefly touched on the subject of abstraction. Namely my frustration with my classmates in college who woke up one morning at the age of 22 and decided they were abstract expressionist painters. What are you abstracting? You don't know how to draw or paint, so how can you possibly be abstracting from anything? This line of discussion went along with Jon pointing out that mistakes and short comings in your work are not a STYLE. Explaining away by anatomy or perspective as you STYLE is NOT acceptable or any kind of justification. Bad anatomy is BAD ANATOMY.

This all leads back to this drawing. I lead toward big hulking humanoid forms. I just like them. Big upper body, long arms and most of the time short legs. If given half a chance I will push my humanoid monsters into this general body structure. ...This STYLIZATION of the human form. When doing thing with something that is human, for me at least it is a very fine line of where it works and where it does not. For monsters, I find that window of what works if a lot bigger, BUT it is not without boarders. An aspect of these studies to to feel out what works for my monsters, and what sort of results are created when you push or pull anatomy in different ways. Are the long arms too long or not long enough? What if they were a LOT longer? What if the legs were a LOT shorter? Does it matter that it is reptilian versus mammalian or avian? All things to take into account and to think about and to experiment with.

I am also continuing to look at and to work with different combinations of layers of attire and armor. What works and what looks good to create a believable and interesting collection of forms and shapes of armor and costuming. The abstraction of armor is as difficult a challenge as abstracting anatomy, but that discussion will have to wait for another day when I feel a little more comfortable with my own skill set.

That is all for another exciting week on the blog! Until then...

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