The DOODLES, DESIGNS, and aRT of CHRISTOPHER BURDETT: AGoT - A Hidden Agenda

Monday, January 20, 2014

AGoT - A Hidden Agenda - Viserion, Drogon, and Rhaegal

When you get the email that asks if you are available to work on a project because George R. R. Martin asked for you, by name, to paint some more dragons for the A Game of Thrones card game... you make time in your schedule. This happen last January and it is still a little surreal. My schedule was also rather full at the time, but this is one of those times you make the time and you do the work. A year later I can finally talk about this weird chain of events and share the dragony results. I present you with a second pass at Viserion, Drogon, and Rhaegal...

Viserion - A Hidden Agenda
© 2014 Fantasy Flight Games

Drogon - A Hidden Agenda
© 2014 Fantasy Flight Games

Rhaegal - A Hidden Agenda
© 2014 Fantasy Flight Games

Back in 2010 I painted these three dragons for the first time for the Queen of Dragons expansion and they were very well received. If you are unfamiliar with those pieces, you can see them here: Viserion, Drogon, and Rhaegal. For the Queen of Dragons expansion I was given a lot of leeway to give them my own personal spin, as long as I followed the general description found in the books. Which is good since at the time I was not very familiar with the novel and world the Mr. Martin was creating. I was just wanting to make cool dragons. With my return to paint new versions of the dragons I did had approved designs I needed to stick to, but I also had several years more experience so that I could approach the dragons with a fresh pair of eyes. The dragons were to be depicted a little younger then I originally painted them, but I am not sure if that really came across. Again, really more concerned in painting cool dragons. With as much as I did to maintain the look and feel that I had with them originally, I did make sure to correct some anatomical and detail issues that bothered me about those original dragons. When I do my process post for these I will compare the originals to these new versions and talk about what and why I made changes.

Here are how the final production cards turned out and you can see how they were cropped down for production...

Viserion, Drogon, and Rhaegal in handy card form! RAWR!

The back of the card packaging features the Drogon piece very nicely, I may not be on the front of the package, but I am rocking the back of it...

Drogon is hiding out on the back of the package... RAWR!

These three new versions of the three dragons really got me thinking, and by the time the Illustration Master Class rolled around last year I still had dragons on my mind. When one of the assignments turned out to be A Game of Thrones related I took the assignment without hesitation. I really wanted to see how I would have completely redesigned the dragons if I had the chance. If you followed my posts about IMC last year you my remember how the final product turned out...