The DOODLES, DESIGNS, and aRT of CHRISTOPHER BURDETT: Ephant Mon - Star Wars

In April I first shared with you my Ephant Mon painting for the Star Wars LCG. Today I have for you the process and steps that went into making this painting. Like my Wicket W. Warrick painting from last week, Ephant Mon is nearly two years old now. I worked on it at the end of 2014 and now at the end of 2016 I am sharing the process. I have come a long way with my traditional work in this time, so in some ways this is a look back at how I use to paint, and not how I currently paint. To start things off, here is how the final painting of Ephant Mon turned out...

Ephant Mon

Star Wars LCG - So Be It

14 x 11 - Acrylic and pencil on board

Art Director - Zoe Robinson

Original for sale over on my web store!

I relied heavily on my action figures to be the reference and compositional tool for this piece. While the painting was to focus on Ephant Mon, I really wanted to add several other characters into the piece that I wanted to paint. To come with a successful composition and arrangement of figures in the painting I set up action figures and moved them around till I was happy. I took a lot of photos and tried out many options. If these figures had been all more humanoid I would have used myself for the reference and acted out the scene, but since most of these aliens were very much not a standard humanoid form the action figures were a perfect solution. Here are some of the photos I used for reference (notice my wedding ring being used to prop up Ephant Mon)...

Ephant Mon reference images

With plenty of reference to work from it was now time to work up some thumbnails. I needed to work out some interior architecture as refine some of the poses, details, value structure, and compositional elements. Here are the final thumbnails I submitted for this piece...

Ephant Mon - Thumbnails

Option "B" was selected and looking back now, it is the clear winner of the three. While I would have liked to have included a Whiphid in the background it was just not meant to be. Now that I had an approved thumbnail it was time to work up the final drawing for Ephant Mon...

Ephant Mon

Star Wars LCG - So Be It

17 x 14 - Pencil on paper

Art Director - Zoe Robinson

Original for sale over on my web store!

The drawing was approved without comment and it was time to paint. As with my Wicket W. Warrick painting I had a very particular mood I wanted to capture that is influenced by Return of the Jedi. The Jabba's Palace scenes were often cast in a blue light and were often smoky and atmospheric. I very much wanted to capture this look and feel in my painting. Hopefully I managed it. Here is my Ephant Mon painting coming together...

Ephant Mon - Process Steps

While straight forward, there was a lot of pushing and pulling with this piece to get it to where I wanted it. I work back to front, generally, so I was spending a lot of time on the background figures long before ever getting to Ephant Mon. In that time I was falling in love with them and making them the stars. By the time I got to Ephant Mon I realized that I needed to knock those background figures way back and de-emphasize them a lot. While it is sometimes hard to paint over details and work you really like, it needs to be done and will make for a better painting. As I was pushing back the background I needed to make sure I pulled Ephant Mon into focus and made him the star. Hopefully I did. I worked on this piece and the Wicket piece back to back at the end of 2014. At the time I think I was more into Wicket, but as time moved on, I think I like Ephant Mon the best in the long run. Opinions change and moods are temporary. Here is an animated progression of this painting taking shape so you can better see what is going on...