Showing posts with label Crawling One. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crawling One. Show all posts

Friday, March 20, 2026

Revisiting the Crawling One

In 2009, I was hired to design a series of miniatures for Fantasy Flight Games. They were gearing up to make plastic minis of all of their Arkham Horror/Call of Cthulhu monsters, and I was at the right place at the right time to get the bulk of them. It was a fun project with a lot of freedom for a grotesquely small amount of pay. And then nothing. It wouldn't be until 2011/12 for the monsters to finally be released as unpainted figures in board game sets and as fully painted premium minis. By and large, they all turned out great, and I still look back at them favorably. As it has been 17 years since I made the art and 15 years since they were eventually released, I thought it would be nice to revisit some of them. Next up in alphabetical order, we have the Crawling One. Here is my design and the final miniature.

Crawling One
12 x 9 - Pencil on paper - 3 separate drawings 
Arkham Horror Monsters / Mansions of Madness 
© 2009 Fantasy Flight Games
 
Crawling One miniature.  

And, as an added bonus, something I have never shared before, here are the thumbnails that I created for this piece. Over the past 17 years, I had forgotten how loose and sketchy these were.

Crawling One - Thumbnails
Arkham Horror Monsters / Mansions of Madness 
© 2009 Fantasy Flight Games

And, AND as another added bonus. Here is a piece I did a couple of years after this assignment, where I go to illustrate myself and the Crawling One for the Call of Cthulhu: Silver Twilight Lodge expansion. For the miniature design and the illustration, I started with established FFG designs for these monsters. I smoothed them out a little and added a lot of myself, but they are still on guide. I distinctly remember in the forums for this game that there were a few people who were not happy at all about the look of the Crawling One, and that it was wrong, as it doesn't look like this. I laughed and got back to making art and monsters. As a side note, this piece originally came out in 2011, but in 2020 (or thereabouts) it returned in the Arkham Horror expansion Final Hour.

Unbound!
 Call of Cthulhu: Silver Twilight Lodge
 © 2011 Fantasy Flight Games

Unbound!
 In card form!
 © 2011 Fantasy Flight Games

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

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

Monday, April 20, 2020

Arkham Horror: Final Hour - The Return of Unbound!

While I am usually sharing the reuse of my Star Wars work, today I have something a little different. One of the monsters that I originally created for the Call of Cthulhu card game has recently resurfaced in the Arkham Horror expansion, Final Hour. The piece reused was titled Unbound! and features my redesign of the Crawling One that I did for Mansions of Madness games and miniatures way back in 2011. Here is a look at the book art for Final Hour, pretty neat! Now, let's take a look inside.

Arkham Horror expansion Final Hour

Look at all these tokins. Lots of monsters on them, but one of them looks somewhat familiar.

Ah, yes! Here's one that looks very familiar indeed!

Cropped and stuck on a piece of cardboard, the Crawling One is still looking good after all these years. Too bad, there was not the room for the early artist cameo that appears in the original art. Nine years later, there is so much I would change about this piece, but we live and learn, and that is the whole point.

Unbound!
Call of Cthulhu: Silver Twilight Lodge
9.3 x 6.9 - Digital
© 2011 Fantasy Flight Games

As an added bonus, here is my turnaround for the Crawling One miniature that I created before getting the Unbound! assignment. I was asked to redesign the monster for the miniatures and give it a new spin. With all my miniature work, it was super fun to work on. I kind of miss those miniature designing days. 

Crawling One
Mansions of Madness
12 x 9 - Pencil on paper - 3 separate drawings
© 2011 Fantasy Flight Games

That is 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

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Arkham Horror Monsters - Dark Young

Arkham Horror Monsters - Premium Figures, are now available over on the Fantasy Flight Website. I mention this because one of the brand new fully painted miniatures they are offering, as part of wave one, is my very tentacled Dark Young. The Dark Young was the very last Lovecrathian miniature that I designed, and I am just thrilled that I am not having to wait to the end to see it! Here is the miniature turnaround...

Dark Young
(With 100% more tentacles)
© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games

I ordered myself one so that I could hold it in my hands and I was not disappointed in the quality of the miniature. It is nice and big and is surprisingly true to the design, though with all minis some changes had to be made. I took some pics of the mini, and here they are...

RAWR! I came here to cause madness with my tentacles and chew bubble gum... and I am all out of bubble gum.

If you are a fan of Mansions of Madness and MoM: Forbidden Alchemy then you are in luck! The miniature appearing in both sets that I designed are also part of wave one of Arkham Horror Monsters - Premium Figures. Now you can have a fully painted Crawling One, Hound of Tindalos, and Witch (as well as the rest of the these set's monsters) to have a hold in your hands! They make great miniatures for any game and I can't wait for my D&D players to run into a pack of Crawling Ones or a Dark Young or two. I am sure there will be many more of these in the future and I will be sure to share them with you here!

That is all for another exciting tentacled filled Wednesday, see you back here on Friday! Until then...

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

Monday, December 19, 2011

Mansions of Madness: Forbidden Alchemy

Forbidden Alchemy, the newest expansion for Mansions of Madness is now out and I designed one of the miniatures in this expansion! This time around it is the Crawling One, a Mythos horror I particularly like. The reference art I was given to base the miniature on was a little dark and vague so I was given a lot of room to flesh the Crawling One out and give it my own spin. This is what I came up with...

Crawling One
(Planning to touch you with all its tentacles)
© 2011 Fantasy Flight Games

As I mentioned previously, I did all these designs way back in 2009 and they are slowing being released. Patience is a virtue when it comes to miniatures, but after two years I am getting pretty anxious to see the rest of my designs become plastic. If the Crawling One looks familiar to you it is because it appeared in another Cthulhu piece that I have done. Having enjoyed designing the Crawling One so much, when I was given the chance to include any Mythos monster I wanted to I jumped at the chance to revisit the big CO.

I look forward with sharing more monster miniatures with you, but we will need to be patient because it will most likely be a while to wait.

That is all for today, see you back here for another exciting day 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

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Call of Cthulhu: Silver Twilight Lodge (part 2)

On Monday I shared the first of two cards I produced for the Call of Cthulhu: Silver Twilight Lodge expansion. Today, I have for you my second one, Unbound! (it has TENTACLES!). This was a great piece to work on, the art order allowed me to choose any Cthulhu mythos monster I wanted and depict it expectantly appearing in a ritual gone wrong. For reasons I can not yet share (save it being neat and having tentacles) I picked the Crawling One. So here is the Crawling One, UNBOUND...

Unbound!
(RAWR! Behold my glistening tentacles! THEY ARE MIGHTY!)
© 2011 Fantasy Flight Games

Again, thanks to the internet I have an image of what the final card turned out. The big bad Crawling One gets to strut his stuff... I wonder if he is going to eat that 2...

Unbound!
(now on a piece of card stock for your convenience)
© 2011 Fantasy Flight Games

Here is the drawing for Unbound!, unlike the Faceless Abductor there were not really any major changes to the overall piece as it went from drawing to painting. As I have mentioned previously I started with several loose thumbnails and then settled on this final composition after sharing them with the client. Originally I liked another composition much better, it had the Crawling One more in a profile, turning back to take notice of the fleeing cultists. Looking at them all agian now, I think the better decision was made...

Unbound!
(now on a piece of paper in pencil for your convenience)
© 2011 Fantasy Flight Games

This was a really fun one to work on and my favorite of the the two piece I contributed to this expansion. I did get to pose for photo reference for all the monsters and fleeing cultists, which is always fun. Running around in a cloak in the yard and imagining I have a torso of tentacles can really get you in the right frame of mind to work on a piece.

That is all for an exciting tentacled Wednesday, see you back here on Friday! Until then...

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