Monday, April 4, 2022

Breaching Hippocamp Paint Alter

Due to my schedule and workload, I generally do not take on private commissions and only offer black and white ink and marker drawings on the back of Magic the Gathering's artist proofs. That said, occasionally, I find myself taking on a piece I would not otherwise accept. The first person to my table at Pensacon asked if I would do a paint alter extension of the Breaching Hippocamp Magic the Gathering card. This is something I no longer offer, but as they were first to my table, agreed to the price, and were fine with me doing it after the convention, I found myself with a paint alter needing to be done. It didn't hurt that this was the second card I painted for MtG, so it has a special meaning for me. Here is the altered card.

Breaching Hippocamp Paint Alter
 © 2022 Christopher Burdett

I have not traditionally painted anything since September 2016. Yes, that long. That was the completion date of the final Star Wars painting that I took on. Since then, I have been working digitally for any client work I accept. My books, which take up nearly all my time, are limited to black and white colored pencil, black ink, and white acrylic paint. Yes, I am still using white paint, but this was more involved than that. In fact, I was a little nervous about taking this on since it has been so long since I painted anything with actual paint. I was worried about something that I didn't need to worry about. I was amazed at how it all came back to me, even after a nearly six-year gap. I will be honest, one of my artist faults, if you want to call it that, is that I am not great at generating color from thin air. I look at a lot of color reference, and I have a workflow both digitally and traditionally that generates a color mess on the canvas that I can then respond to and work on top of. Even though I can not pull colors quickly or easily from the ether, I can match what I see and work with and from the color on a surface. In other words, it takes me a lot of work to (digitally) paint that sky initially, but I can quickly match it with paint and extend it. I am also not a big fan of working as small as the MtG cards are, but I find a way to make it work. In the end, I am thrilled with how the card turned out, and it almost - ALMOST, makes me want to do more. Here is the Breaching Hippocamp card before I got to work.

The card, before altering it - shows how much I extended the image.

That's all for another exciting Monday on the blog. See you back here on Wednesday! Until then...

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

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