Sculpture by Andreas Knoll
That is all for another 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
Showing posts with label In Memoriam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label In Memoriam. Show all posts
Friday, April 27, 2018
In Memoriam, Andreas Knoll
This week I learned that Andreas Knoll passed away last September after a long battle with cancer. I knew Andreas as MetalSnail over on DeviantArt and it pains me have not known of his passing sooner. Andreas lived in Australia and I never met him in person and only chatted with him a handful of times on DA, but he seemed like a nice guy and I loved his art. He was constantly posting new drawings, paintings, and sculpture. I love his style and his art was just so fun and completely full of monsters. A couple years back Andreas was selling some of his sculptures at criminally low prices and I jumped at the opportunity to get one. I was happy to own one of his sculptures at the time and now I am even more grateful to have a piece of his work. Please take a moment to head over to DeviantArt and have a look at Andreas' work. He will be missed.
That is all for another 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
That is all for another 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, February 5, 2018
Remebering William O'Connor
I should not be writing this. These are things that should not be happening now, and when they eventually have to happen it should be after a long long life. Here we are anyway, left to grieve and left to worry about all those left behind. Last week we lost William O'Connor, a husband, a father, a gracious friend, and a powerhouse of an artist. I am still trying to get my head around all this and not doing a very
good job of it. The details have not been released to my knowledge, but
what has been shared was that it was sudden and unexpected. I am left
wondering what stole Bill from us, but does it really matter? Will it
change anything? Or is it just voyeuristic curiosity? I am just trying
to focus on my memories of Bill and how his art inspired me to be a
better artist and a better designer. Remembering who he was and how he
impacted all of our lives seems like the only thing I can do to counter
the grief and confusion by his sudden death.
I first became familiar with Bill's beautiful work and distinct style when I was working on 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. At the time I did not know it was 4th Edition, I was just working on monster and armor designs for upcoming D&D projects. I would get loads and loads of gorgeous concept work to use and to help shape my own work. I was instantly in love with the work I was being given, I did not know who Bill was, but I certainly wanted to meet him. There was so much action, character, and detail in the work. I really felt out classed and I needed to up my game if this was the work they needed me to create for D&D. For a long time in the early days of my D&D career I strived to be like Bill. He has done some truly epic work, huge involved pieces that encompass entire battlefields or cities. I chose not to share that today, instead the work I am sharing today are some of the concept pieces I was give when working on 4th Edition. These are some of Bill's pieces that most profoundly effected me.
I finally got to meet Bill at Illuxcon in 2009. He was instantly gracious and eager with advice and more than happy to talk about his work, my work, anyone's work. I loved hearing about how he created randomized lists of elements that he would roll dice and let fate and chance pick what a character would be or the details he would have to include. He would get the various results and then think about how a character would realistically include all the various elements. It is something he still was doing till his death. He was still posting the results on his BLOG and he made one of his list available ONLINE. At IX he told a group of us about one character on a large battle scene cover he had done. The figure was small but still extremely detailed. Apparently his dice rolls resulted in flowers or gardening and so the fighter had flowers on him as well as a large pair of scissors. Bill imagined that this character came from a family or background of florists, and the scissors were second nature to them and as a last ditch move, when all else failed there were those scissors to use as a final weapon. Bill was so exited when he told us that story. It was infectious.
I think everyone has at least one or two truly amazing Bill stories. One of my favorites was at Illuxcon when it was still in Altoona. It was late one night and folks were having parties in various hotel rooms. Some of the details are lost to me, but someone had brought a board game to IX that Bill had done the cover art for. It was a big battle scene and a really great piece. The intentions were to get the board game box signed by Bill. The game was still in the plastic and everything. Well, one thing led to another and Bill signed the cover... he signed the ENTIRE cover. Apparently Bill tore back the plastic and signed his name huge across the front cover of the game box. It was amazing... and not exactly what the owner of the game was expecting. But that was Bill and it was great. And now he is gone.
*UPDATE*
I received permission to share a never released piece of Bill's work. Back in 2007 Bill created the box art for the Serrated Dawn set of the WotC miniature game, Dreamblade. Serrated Dawn was never released and all of the art associated with it was shelved. As you my know, I designed a lot of miniatures for that game. One of the pieces that Bill did for the box art was based on one of my designs, the Dragon Ambassador, which is how I know about it and have a copy of the art. As far as I know this has never been shared publicly which is why I wanted to get permission before sharing it. I always loved this piece and was glad to just know of its existence even though it was never used. Now you can know about it too!
Tiefling concept for Dungeons & Dragons by William O'Connor
©Wizards of the Coast
I first became familiar with Bill's beautiful work and distinct style when I was working on 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. At the time I did not know it was 4th Edition, I was just working on monster and armor designs for upcoming D&D projects. I would get loads and loads of gorgeous concept work to use and to help shape my own work. I was instantly in love with the work I was being given, I did not know who Bill was, but I certainly wanted to meet him. There was so much action, character, and detail in the work. I really felt out classed and I needed to up my game if this was the work they needed me to create for D&D. For a long time in the early days of my D&D career I strived to be like Bill. He has done some truly epic work, huge involved pieces that encompass entire battlefields or cities. I chose not to share that today, instead the work I am sharing today are some of the concept pieces I was give when working on 4th Edition. These are some of Bill's pieces that most profoundly effected me.
Dragonborn concept for Dungeons & Dragons by William O'Connor
©Wizards of the Coast
I finally got to meet Bill at Illuxcon in 2009. He was instantly gracious and eager with advice and more than happy to talk about his work, my work, anyone's work. I loved hearing about how he created randomized lists of elements that he would roll dice and let fate and chance pick what a character would be or the details he would have to include. He would get the various results and then think about how a character would realistically include all the various elements. It is something he still was doing till his death. He was still posting the results on his BLOG and he made one of his list available ONLINE. At IX he told a group of us about one character on a large battle scene cover he had done. The figure was small but still extremely detailed. Apparently his dice rolls resulted in flowers or gardening and so the fighter had flowers on him as well as a large pair of scissors. Bill imagined that this character came from a family or background of florists, and the scissors were second nature to them and as a last ditch move, when all else failed there were those scissors to use as a final weapon. Bill was so exited when he told us that story. It was infectious.
Dragonborn concept for Dungeons & Dragons by William O'Connor
©Wizards of the Coast
I think everyone has at least one or two truly amazing Bill stories. One of my favorites was at Illuxcon when it was still in Altoona. It was late one night and folks were having parties in various hotel rooms. Some of the details are lost to me, but someone had brought a board game to IX that Bill had done the cover art for. It was a big battle scene and a really great piece. The intentions were to get the board game box signed by Bill. The game was still in the plastic and everything. Well, one thing led to another and Bill signed the cover... he signed the ENTIRE cover. Apparently Bill tore back the plastic and signed his name huge across the front cover of the game box. It was amazing... and not exactly what the owner of the game was expecting. But that was Bill and it was great. And now he is gone.
*UPDATE*
I received permission to share a never released piece of Bill's work. Back in 2007 Bill created the box art for the Serrated Dawn set of the WotC miniature game, Dreamblade. Serrated Dawn was never released and all of the art associated with it was shelved. As you my know, I designed a lot of miniatures for that game. One of the pieces that Bill did for the box art was based on one of my designs, the Dragon Ambassador, which is how I know about it and have a copy of the art. As far as I know this has never been shared publicly which is why I wanted to get permission before sharing it. I always loved this piece and was glad to just know of its existence even though it was never used. Now you can know about it too!
Royal Dragon (Dragon Ambassador) by William O’Connor for the never released set of Dreamblade, Serrated Dawn
For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com
Friday, January 12, 2018
Remembering Nick One Year Later
A year ago we lost Nicholas Rich and a year ago I shared some thought of him and a selection of his great art. I have been thinking about him a lot lately and thought it would be a good time to share his work again with you. If you are familiar with it already, or if you have never seen it before, please take a moment or two and have a look at my post from a year ago.
My original post about Nicholas Rich can be found HERE.
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
Thursday, January 12, 2017
In Memoriam, Nicholas Rich
My friend Nicholas Rich passed away this week. If you were fortunate enough to know Nick, you will know what an amazing and kind human being he was. Nick was just so damn nice. I certainly did not know him as well as I had liked and I did not see him as often as I should, but we all live forever and there will always be more time. Until there isn't. Nick left us far too soon and left far too many people behind. Believe me when I say that Nick was one of the best of us... humble, kind, thoughtful and giving. It pains me to no end to be writing this. I can not help but think of his family and the hole his passing has caused in their lives and in so many others. BUT, we had the chance to know Nick and we had the gift of having him in our lives.
Nick was also an artist. Though he would constantly be self depreciating and dismissive of his work, I always enjoyed it and was happy to see what he was working on. He dreamed of working more in the fantasy side of things and I am pretty sure he wanted to work on games. I tried to help him as best I could with his work, but there is never enough time and things don't always work out the way you think they will. I want to share with you some of his work. You can't know the man by looking at his art, but hopefully you can see a little into his mind and appreciate his voice.
Nick was a model for a couple of my pieces back in 2012. One was for Dungeons & Dragons and the other was for my 2012 Illustration Master Class assignment that unfortunately was never completed. Always really liked both of these pieces and they mean a little more to me now. No one will know it is Nick, but hopefully I have given him a little immortality through D&D.
For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com
Nick was also an artist. Though he would constantly be self depreciating and dismissive of his work, I always enjoyed it and was happy to see what he was working on. He dreamed of working more in the fantasy side of things and I am pretty sure he wanted to work on games. I tried to help him as best I could with his work, but there is never enough time and things don't always work out the way you think they will. I want to share with you some of his work. You can't know the man by looking at his art, but hopefully you can see a little into his mind and appreciate his voice.
All images are copyright Nicholas Rich
This last image we are fortunate enough to own and is part of our collection
If you would like to see more of Nick's work you can see it HERE
Nick was a model for a couple of my pieces back in 2012. One was for Dungeons & Dragons and the other was for my 2012 Illustration Master Class assignment that unfortunately was never completed. Always really liked both of these pieces and they mean a little more to me now. No one will know it is Nick, but hopefully I have given him a little immortality through D&D.
Slaves of the Oba
Digital
Dragon magazine #414
© 2012 Wizards of the Coast
Illustration Master Class 2012 concept
11 x 14 - Pencil on paper
© 2012 Christopher Burdett
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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