The DOODLES, DESIGNS, and aRT of CHRISTOPHER BURDETT: Smaug the Magnificent

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Smaug the Magnificent - Process

Back in March I shared with you the two Smaug pieces that I have in the second Hobbit themed expansion to the Lord of the Rings living card game, On the Doorstep. Today I have for you the various production steps and process progression for the seconf of my two Smaug pieces, Smaug the Magnificent. Before we get started on how I went about creating it, here is how the finished piece turned out...

Smaug the Magnificent

Smaug the Golden was the first of my Smaug pieces and I looked to what I was designing and establishing in that piece to influence the direction of this card. All that said, during the thumbnail stage of this piece I was still exploring what I wanted to do with Smaug. Speaking of thumbnails, here are the three that I submitted for Smaug the Magnificent...

Smaug the Magnificent - Thumbnails

As mentioned before in the process of Smaug the Golden I included double crop marks on the thumbnails to indicate the size I was going to produce the actual painting at and the size required for the assignment. At the time, I think I was really interested in working on option "C". Funny, looking back at it now, I think I ended up doing something similar for the second set of Smaug pieces for the Gen Con set. As you can clearly see, option "A" was the winner and I moved forward on the drawing...

Smaug the Magnificent - Drawing

These were really fun to draw to say the least. I also thought I had done my job in providing a large enough image to allow for me to create the image I wanted and the image the client needed. Only one way to find out, stick the drawing in the template...

Smaug the Magnificent - Drawing mock up in template

Oh well... the image was not large enough on three sides, could have bee worse. The drawing was approved as long as I made sure to extend it as indicated in the mock up to fulfill everybody's needs and wants. The only thing left to do is paint this bad boy. For those that may have missed it, I went into a lot more detail about my drawing prep and my under painting process on this very blog last Friday. Here is a look at the process...

Smaug the Magnificent - Precess progression

In six easy steps... If I remember correctly, I think I ended up fighting with this one more then its partner, Smaug the Golden. For me, Smaug the Golden was such an iconic depiction that anything else just seemed to fall flat. It totally could be me... or not... but this was definitely not my favorite of my Smaug pieces. They can't all be your favorites, I guess. Here is how the final art turned out on the card...

Smaug the Magnificent in handy card form!

As an added bonus this art was reused as a part of the decklist insert that comes with the game. So I guess my views of this piece were not shared by everyone! Of course, I guess it is hard to hate a fire breathing dragon...