In May I first shared with you my Forest Awareness painting for the Star Wars LCG. Today I have for you the process and steps that went into making this painting. This is another older Star Wars piece that was finally released and now I finally am getting around to sharing the process. To start things off, here is how the final painting of Forest Awareness turned out...
Forest Awareness
Star Wars LCG - Press the Attack
14 x 11 - Acrylic and pencil on board
Art Director - Zoe Robinson
© 2016 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games
This piece was a straggler that was done shortly after my Ephant Mon and Wicket paintings that I have previously shared. Star Wars cards come out in six pack blocks which are built around a theme, one set per month (give or take) for six months. An entire card block worth of art is commissioned all at once, so art can take a long time to come out.You never know if your card will be in the first pack or the last pack. Then there are times when the details, names, titles, etc change in production and then you never know what is going on. It's fun that way! Like I said, this is another card I did a while back that is just recently getting an official release.
This was an interesting one. The art order was really wide open and simply called for an Ewok doing something smart or knowledgeable in the forest. There were suggestions of the Ewok leading Rebels through the forest, hunting, tracking, etc. I talked a bit with Zoe about the direction to go with this one and we finally both agreed on an Ewok following track. Also, since the art order was open and allowed for it, I suggested that I make the Ewok a named and recognizable Ewok and I got approval to make it Teebo. With all that taken care of it was time to get to work!
Starting things of we have some thumbnails... because that is ALWAYS how I start these things off. I shot some weird selfies of myself crouching in my studio doing my best Ewok impression and then got to work. Here are how the thumbnails turned out...
Forest Awareness - Thumbnails
© 2016 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games
Looking at the thumbnails you know that option 'A' was the winning one. I still really like option 'B' and wonder how it would have turned out if we had gone in that direction. I liked the idea that Teebo is sniffing the air and getting his barrings on the animal that he is tracking. Oh well, what could have been. No matter, we have a finiahed painting of 'A' to look at. With a thumbnail approved, it was time to get drawing...
Forest Awareness
Star Wars LCG - Press the Attack
© 2016 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games
They get no more straight forward than this. Translated the thumbnail into a finished drawing and it was approved. Added lots of details, worked out some stuff and at this point it was just a matter of getting started on the painting. Which I did. Here is the Forest Awareness coming together in 16 easy steps...
Forest Awareness - Process progression
© 2016 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games
This one had a little bit of an uncertain start. If you notice I was definitely going in one direction with this piece at the beginning - blue sky, a cool color scheme... and it was just not working. Hard to tell here, but it was really not working for me. It also felt odd, off, and maybe a little to similar to my Wicket piece. I wanted to do something different and something cool. I pushed the sky yellow and warmed a lot of things up and the moment I did this the painting began to come together. After this choice to go yellow the only other hurdle was to get the foot prints to work the way I wanted them to. The foot prints seemed to take way longer then they should of. Oh well... thems the breaks. Here is an animated progression of the painting to better show it coming together...
Forest Awareness - Animated process
© 2016 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games
As an added bonus, I happened to have taken a photo of my work space when I was finishing up this painting. Not sure if it will unlock any secrets, but if should give you an idea of how I work... or at least how a worked a couple years ago.
Forest Awareness - Work space
© 2016 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games
Here again is the final painting of Forest Awareness and the final production card that it was used on...
Forest Awareness
Star Wars LCG - Press the Attack
14 x 11 - Acrylic and pencil on board
Art Director - Zoe Robinson
© 2016 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games
Forest Awareness in handy dandy card form
That is all for another exciting Thursday on the blog, 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
