50 Days of Star Wars

Starting today and running for 50 consecutive days, I will be sharing pieces of Star Wars art that I produced since 2011, when I first began working on the Star Wars tabletop games. While I am kicking things off here on the blog, my daily posts will be on various social media platforms. To see the daily D&D be sure to follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or my Facebook Page. If this seems familiar to you, that is because it is. In September of 2021, I shared 100 days of Dungeons & Dragons art. It was so much fun that I thought it would be fun to do the same with my Star Wars work. I never worked on or produced as much work for SW as I did for D&D, so I only have 50 days of art to share.

To start things off, I am going to the very beginning with the first piece of Star Wars art that I was ever commissioned to create, the Wookiee Navigator card art for the core set of the Star Wars Card Game in 2011. This card went through some edits to end up where it eventually did and was promptly forgotten about. Only later, when the card was reused as the Gunner card in the X-Wing miniature game, did the art catch on and find a fan base. Huh, look at that! A black Wookiee, I feel like there is a black Wookiee of notoriety that has been in the spotlight lately. I guess I was ahead of the curve 11 years ago. No matter, here is the art I created for the Wookiee Navigator card. 

Wookiee Navigator
  Star Wars LCG Core Set
9.6 x 6.9 - Digital

© 2011 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

As with all my work, there are one or more drawings to go along with the finished painting. For this particular Wookiee, there is the line art and a tonal study. It is always interesting to see where my tonal work started and how much it has advanced over the years.

Wookiee Navigator - Drawing
  Star Wars LCG Core Set

11 x 9 - Pencil on paper

Original - SOLD

© 2011 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

 

Wookiee Navigator - Tonal study
  Star Wars LCG Core Set

12 x 9 - Pencil on paper

Original - SOLD

© 2011 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

 See you on social media over the next 50 days as I share paintings, drawings, and more!

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

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

The Return of the Wookiee Navigator - Veteran Turret Gunner

A quick post today about the return of the very first Star Wars card I ever painted. The Wookiee Navigator first saw life in the Star Wars Card Game and went fairly unnoticed. When it was added to to the X-Wing miniature game as the Gunner card it got a lot of attention. Now that the second edition of X-Wing has been released it looks like the Gunner card has made the leap and is now the Veteran Turret Gunner. Here is look at the original art from 2012...

Wookiee Navigator

© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games

The good thing is that this time around the art is a little bigger. I think. Never the less, it is on a bigger card. I think. Which ever it is, here is the card...

Veteran Turret Gunner Card

If you want to get your hands on the card all you need to do is buy one of the new Y-Wing ships and it will be in there...

X-Wing 2nd Edition release of the Y-Wing that contains the Veteran Turret Gunner

That is all for another exciting Wednesday 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

Wookiee Gunner

What better way to conclude an exciting week on the blog then with a Wookiee! Today I have for you a piece I put together to have at Gen Con which you may have already gotten a glimpse of, my toned paper Wookiee Gunner...

Wookiee Gunner

12 x 9

colored pencil on toned paper

Original "Wookiee Navigator" sketch © 2013 Fantasy Flight Games

The Wookiee Gunner may be familiar to you for other reasons too, since it is based off of the Wookiee Navigator that I created for the Star Wars Card Game. Apparently this Wookiee is getting around a lot more then I originally knew. After Gen Con I got a message from Sam Flegal (this becomes even more relevant as you read on). The message included a photo of a Star Wars card with the image of the Wookiee Navigator and the card title of "Gunner". I was dumbstruck! Turned out the card comes with the Slave One, Star Wars miniatures expansion. How cool is that! Here is a look at the card and the mini...

Slave One and Gunner from the Star Wars miniatures expansion

Gunner! that happens to be a Wookiee...

Speaking of Sam Flegal... as mentioned in my Gen Con coverage, Sam is now the happy owner of the Wookiee Gunner! The circle is now complete, when the Wookiee Gunner left me it was but the learner, but now... it is the master. Or something like that...

Wookiee adaption program

That is 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

Wookiee Navigator - Process

On Monday I shared with you the recently released Wookiee Navigator from the core set of the new Star Wars: The Card Game. As promised, I have for you today a look at the process that went into the Wookiee AND what the piece almost ended looking like. Cutting to the chase, here is the ORIGINAL version of the Wookiee Navigator... or at least the version I first submitted upon completing the piece...

ORIGINAL Wookiee Navigator

© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games

From the beginning of the assignment this piece was referred to as the NOT Chewbacca card. It was important for it to be a Wookiee depicted in a similar roll as Chewbacca, but it needed to no be the one Wookiee everyone is familiar with. I tried very hard to make sure the body mass and proportions I gave to my Wookiee were different to the proportions and body mass of Peter Mayhew in the Chewbacca suit. With the addition of the braids and the over all color shift towards the Wookiees that appeared in Episode III I thought I was golden... not so much. I am getting ahead of myself, as always, this piece started with thumbnails...

Wookiee Navigator - thumbnails

© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games

The assignment was very straight forward, depict a NOT Chewbacca Wookiee in a gunner chair similar to what you saw in Star Wars: A New Hope when Luke and Han were firing at Tie fighters. I have plenty of good reference of those scenes so I was feeling good about what I needed to depict. I worked up four variations on a Wookiee in a gunner chair and turned them in. You might be able to see that in some of the thumbnails there are the bandoliers and shoulder pads worn by Wookiees in Episode III. I added these elements to help distance this Wookiee from Chewbacca. In the end, production felt they had the opposite effect and they were removed once I moved forward on the final drawing...

Wookiee Navigator - drawing

© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games

Everything was moving right along and there were no sings of problems thus far. The drawing was approved and all I had to do was paint it. By now you know that this is where it all went wrong. I thought I proceeded in a safe and NOT Chewbacca direction. Here is a process progression of the piece and it includes the changing of the Wookiee's coloration...

Wookiee Navigator process progression

© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games

Thanks goes out to Zoe Robinson for helping me make sense of the revision requests from production. I didn't see it coming so there was a little bit of an adjustment phase to get my head around what I needed to do to make it right. It took a little nudge to get me to go as far as they wanted, but I got there and in the end the piece was finally accepted and approved. Here is a side by side comparison of the two pieces so you can see what changed...

Wookiee Navigator - comparison

© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games

One last look at how the final card came out and appears in the the game...

Wookiee Navigator

© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games

As mentioned on Monday, this was my first Star Wars assignment... not just with Fantasy Flight Games, but anywhere. I REALLY wanted to do a good job and I really wanted to make sure I got a lot more SW assignments. There were some very surreal moments when I would stop and realize that this was a strange manifestation of decades of wishing, dreaming, and work. After all the movies, comics, toys, and merchandising it all came together in a Wookiee painting that was very much "just another job". Then there was the stress of the massive revision which made it a very atypical work experience. Your wishes and dreams never really work out the way you expect... but they do come true on occasion, and for that I can be very grateful.

That's all for another exciting Wednesday 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

Wookiee Navigator

Back in 2011 I began working on the Star Wars games being worked on over at Fantasy Flight Games. The very first piece I produced was the Wookiee Navigator for the core set of Star Wars: The Card Game. I am very happy to now be able to share it. Here is how the FINAL Wookiee Navigator turned out...

Wookiee Navigator

© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games

I have mentioned my affinity to Star Wars before on the blog... and then there was the photos of my office that should drive the point home. I have wanted to "make Star Wars" since I was a very small child watching Star Wars in the theater back in 1977. It has taken a little time and some work but I finally got to make myself some Star Wars. I am glad to say I have more on the way and I look forward to sharing it! Here is how the final card turned out...

 Wookiee Navigator in card form

This piece went through some revisions late in its development and there were some tense moments. I will have a in depth breakdown of the process and the revisions that went into this piece on Wednesday. Many thanks goes out to Zoe Robinson for involving me in the project and for getting us both through the revisions!

That is all for another exciting Monday on the blog, see you back here on Wednesday for more Wookiee fun! Until then...

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