Making monsters with Zoe Robinson

It is an end of an era. After nearly a decade, Zoe Robinson will be leaving Fantasy Flight Games for bigger and better fun at Blizzard. For the past seven years I have had the opportunity to work with Zoe to make a lot of fun monsters for some of my favorite licenses.

Sam Flegal, your truly, and Zoe Robinson at Illuxcon when it was still in Altoona, PA.

Photo by Jeannie Zaengle Wilshire

I have written about the ups and downs in my career here on the blog before. From 2005 - 2008 I worked exclusively with Wizards of the Coast, but that all came to an abrupt end around December of 2008. Zoe was one of the first art directors to give me work in 2009 when I decided to double down and stick with working in the gaming industry. In April of 2009 I received my first assignment from Zoe, and some how she saw something in it and gave me more and more over the years. I wanted to share with you some of the work I created with Zoe as my AD. Consider this a celebration of the opportunities she has given me, and I am sure many of you out there, to create art for some of our favorite games and franchises.

The very first one... in all its "glory".

The Basilisk from Taliman: Frost March was the first piece I created for Zoe in April 2009.

It is hard to look at now with all its flaws, but I was learning a lot and it was printed very small.

Jump ahead a year and a half, at the end of 2010 Zoe asked me to paint all three of the Game of Thrones dragons. I knew nothing about AGOT at the time, which was kind of for the best so that I did not over think the assignment and sabotage myself. Also, note the difference a year and a half can have on someone's art.

GIANT SPIDER MOUTH!

Zoe knows I love monsters so she had me make a TOTALLY NOT Shelob for one of the nightmare decks for the Lord of the Rings card game. Apparently when she got the art order she thought of me.

Zoe reached out to me to make, in the end, five different pieces of the dragon Smaug for the Hobbit card game. I had not thought I was up the challenge of doing five pieces, but I was convinced by my wife and Zoe tag teaming me into taking the assignment. This one continues to be my favorite.

FFG got the license to do the Star Wars games and Zoe was the lead on the games. She gave me my first assignment in Star Wars with the choice of a Wookiee or a Tuskin Raider. I picked the Wookiee... ALWAYS pick the Wookiee. While there were some ups and downs with this piece it marked the start of many years of Star Wars art.

Zoe knew what monsters I would like best and gave me the room to make the pieces I wanted to make. The art order for this Salacious Crumb piece called for a very different portrayal of Crumb but I knew the piece I wanted to make and Zoe supported me all the way. This is still one of my favorite pieces that I ever created with Zoe.

When something new needed to be designed and illustrated for the Star Wars RPG Zoe came to me and I got to design something for Star Wars!

When I decided to make the transition from digital to traditional Zoe supported me, as long as I could provide a comparable quality and I dealt with revisions. This was one of the first pieces I did for Zoe traditionally and continues to be a favorite of mine.

Last, but surely not least. This is my favorite piece that I ever did for Zoe and is among my favorite pieces that I have ever created. I threw myself into this piece and Zoe supported me through the process to do the piece I wanted to do of Yoda.

Thank you Zoe for all the monsters and fun over the years. Thank you for fighting the good fight to get the artists that worked for you higher rates at FFG. Thank you for the fun at conventions. And thank you for giving me that second assignment after I gave you that wonky Basilisk. While many of us will miss working with you at FFG I know you will be doing great things at Blizzard.

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

Ungoliant's Spawn - Process

Way back in May I shared with you a big spiky spider that I did for the Lord of the Rings card game. Today I finally have for you the process that went into the piece as well as a look at how things didn't go as planned for this particular piece. So that we are all on the same page, here is how the final for the Ungoliant's Spawn turned out...

Ungoliant's Spawn

© 2013 Fantasy Flight Games

RAWR! Giant spider! Hard to go wrong with an assignment like that... but I almost found a way, but I am getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning with some good ole thumbnails like I do every time I start an illustration. As with many other of my assignements for LotR the dimensions of the final card art needs to be more of less a square. I don't really want to make square illustrations. To make sure everyone is happy I plan out the piece to work in the required square and a personally more desirable rectangle. If I remember correctly this assignment came to me with a bit of urgency and I hit the ground running. I turned over the thumbnails rather quickly and included notes if my frantic scribblings were a little to chaotic...

Ungoliant's Spawn - Thumbnails

© 2013 Fantasy Flight Games

Option 'A' was a quick winner and I was sent on my way to make the final drawing... which I did... As mentioned before, this assignment had a bit of urgency around it. Which means I probably felt rushed... which means I probably didn't spend as much time as I should have on the drawing. This was my first mistake. Not a huge mistake... but like a snowball rolling down hill it soon got bigger. That was all still ahead of me, here is the final drawing...

Ungoliant's Spawn - Drawing

© 2013 Fantasy Flight Games

Now that I had an approved drawing I made some edits to the mouth of the spider and got started painting. When this was painted I was still using my older process. I touched on this last week as well. In six easy steps the spider took shape and came together really quickly...

Ungoliant's Spawn - Process Steps

Wait... wait... I said something about things not working out and almost messing up this painting, didn't I? Yes I did! Going into this assignment I had the big idea to do this piece traditionally. I got permission from my art director (Thanks, Zoe!) and she gave me the blessing to proceed... as long as I left time in my schedule to do it digitally is things hit the fan (this is when I pause and look you meaningfully directly in the eyes).

SO... I got started working on this piece in real paint. At this time I had a couple traditional pieces under my belt and I was feeling rather brave. What is the worse that could wrong? I would have to paint a giant spider twice... right... yeah... hurm... Anyway, I had a clear vision of what I wanted this piece to look like (see above process and finished piece to see what that clear vision actually was) and I got started painting...

Ungoliant's Spawn traditional process steps of what was never to be.

Yeah... I had lost control of my color almost immediately, among other things. That mouth that I rushed was causing me a lot of problems and I was trying to fix it in the paint which was causing more problems then it was solving. Needless to say, there is a lot of local color issues, color temperature issues, and a general lack of cohesiveness trough out the image... as well as the little fact the piece was spiraling further and further away from where I actually wanted to go.

After a lot of work and struggle and some soul searching I decided to abandon my first attempt at making a traditional piece for a client and go back to my digital strengths. I of course quickly banged out a final piece that was better then I actually expected it to be as well as a piece that was very well received by the client. This left me a little frustrated to say the least. Since this personal set back I have produced two completely traditional pieces for clients, the most recent for Fantasy Flight Games. So in the end it all worked out and I just needed more time and practice. ...you know, that thing I have talked about time and time and time and time again here on the blog, all you need in the end to succeed is a lot of time and hard work. Maybe I am not just rambling incoherent nonsense here on the blog... or maybe I am and I just got one thing right...

Here again is how the final Ungoliant's Spawn turned out as well as a very bad scan of how the final card turned out with the cropped down selection of the art...

Ungoliant's Spawn

© 2013 Fantasy Flight Games

Ungoliant's Spawn in handy dandy card form!

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

Ungoliant's Spawn

Spiders, for some the stuff of nightmares... for me, another day on the job. Today I have for you a recently released Lord of the Rings piece that I produced last year. If your local gaming store hosts an FFG Game Night, then you may have already seen this piece. Ungoliant's Spawn is part of the Passage Through Mirkwood Nightmare Deck that is part of the current FFG Game Night. Enough about all that, bring on the monster...

Ungoliant's Spawn

© 2013 Fantasy Flight Games

I was approached to create a big bad spider 'boss' for the nightmare deck and I aim to please. Though there were some ups and downs with this piece (which took place all on my end and will be addressed on another day), I am really happy with how the piece turned out. They wanted a 'RAWR!' worthy monster spider and I think I managed to give them that. Thanks to a search on the internet I was able to find an image of the final cars... though it is not the best image, it is more then I had before doing the search...

Ungoliant's Spawn in handy card form

(Thanks internet, even though it is blurry)

As you can see I once again produced a piece that I wanted to have while providing a piece that give the client something that they can use. I wanted a nice big wide image of a monster spider and they needed a square close up of a spider monster... WIN/WIN! In the coming weeks I will have a more thorough look at the steps and process that went into this piece as well as some thoughts on the ups and downs.

That is all for another exciting monster filed Monday, 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