The DOODLES, DESIGNS, and aRT of CHRISTOPHER BURDETT: spider

Showing posts with label spider. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Knobby White Spider - Process - Star Wars: Between the Shadows

Today I have for you another process post for a "recent" Star Wars piece. This time around is the piece, Knobby White Spider, from Star Wars: Between the Shadows! I first shared these pieces in February, so here is how the final Knobby White Spider turned out...

Knobby White Spider

Star Wars: Between the Shadows

10 x 8.4 - Digital

The Knobby White Spider appears in the concept work and expanded stories relating to The Empire Strikes Back. While it looks like a massive spider creature it is in fact a plant. The Knobby White Spider is the juvenile state of the gnarltree and wanders around Dagobah eating things before it plants itself to grow into a tree. FUN! Since this piece takes place on Dagobah my thumbnails were really loose and messy, it is a swamp after all. Here are how the thumbnails turned out...

Knobby White Spider - Thumbnails

I really wanted to link this piece to Yoda or the events that took place in The Empire Strikes Back. As you can see my thumbnails included Luke's crashed X-Wing, Yoda's Hut, and even Yoda himself. I was informed that any card with Yoda, no matter how unrelated or minimized becomes by default a Yoda card. I REALLY wanted to have something Yoda in this card... but it just was not going to be happening. That left option 'A' with Luke's crashed X-Wing. One the plus side this is the first X-Wing I have been asked to depict, albeit in a rather minimized state. Now that I have an approved thumbnail it was time to work up the finalized drawing...

Knobby White Spider

12 x 9 - Pencil on paper

Original for sale over on my web store!

Now that I was working on the final drawing it was time to flesh out my portrayal of the swamps of Dagobah and draw all the details. Scribble scribble scribble... Really wanted to capture a moment in the typical say of a Knobby White Spider that just so happens to be walking past a crashed star ship. The drawing was approved and it was time to work on the painting. In the typical easy twelve steps that all my paintings take the piece came together... or not... Here is a look at the process of the painting...

Knobby White Spider - Progress progression

A big issue of this piece was to get a good separation of the background and the monster. There was a lot of push and pull on this to make sure the background, while complicated, fell away and the spider stood out. I also edited the the configuration of the back legs near the end of the painting. I felt the anatomy was off and didn't look right. While it may have be totally okay, I wanted to tweak it to make it better. I also narrowed the body mass a bit a the painting went along. To better show all of these changes in the painting, here is an animated progression of the painting...

Knobby White Spider - Animated Progress thingy

Once again here is the final painting for Knobby White Spider as well as the final production card that appears in the game. I am also including the card mod I did at Gen Con this year. I was asked to make the Knobby White Spider a little more snooty and pompous. It was really fun to do...

Knobby White Spider

10 x 8.4 - Digital

Knobby White Spider in handy dandy card form

Customized Knobby White Spider at Gen Con becomes the Snobby White Spider... RAWR!

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

Monday, June 29, 2015

The Lost Project of 2010 - Part 4

WAAAAAAY back in 2010 I worked on a really exciting project. I created a bunch of monster portraits on neutral backgrounds that were going to live and breath in an super fun game. It is now five year later and that super fun game still has not happened. Will it ever happen? Who knows... What I DO know is that I got permission to FINALLY share the work that I did for this lost project!

I can not share any details from project at this time, but I can share my work from it. All the names have been changed to protect the innocent, and please, do not play the guessing game of what this was or is. I will be sharing my work from this lost project in five parts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5). Here is Part 4...

"S.O.U.S. Scorpion of Unusual Size"

5.35 x 7 - Digital

"S.O.U.S. Spider of Unusual Size"

5.35 x 7 - Digital

"Furious Olaf"

5.35 x 7 - Digital

As an added bonus, here are the drawings that went into making these illustrations...

"S.O.U.S. Scorpion of Unusual Size" - Drawing

9 x 12

Pencil on Paper

"S.O.U.S. Spider of Unusual Size" #1 - Drawing

9 x 12

Pencil on Paper

"S.O.U.S. Spider of Unusual Size" #2 - Drawing

9 x 12

Pencil on Paper

"Furious Olaf" - Drawing

9 x 12

Pencil on Paper

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, February 4, 2015

Knobby White Spider - Star Wars: Between the Shadows

On Monday I shared with you the first of my contributions to Between the Shadows, the newest deluxe expansion to the Star Wars card game. Today brings the second new contribution to this set and it is a little more monstrous. The giant Knobby White Spider of Dagobah is here to keep an eye on Yoda and Luke...

Knobby White Spider

Star Wars: Between the Shadows

10 x 8.4 - Digital

I think is my first piece to directly be set during the Empire Strikes Back... because I put Luke's crashed X-Wing in the background. There was that Icetromper on Hoth a while back, but there is no direct tie in to the movie. I think most of my Star Wars work has been taking part in the Expanded Universe or in Return of the Jedi, so it was nice to do something from ESB. This was a weird one to work on but I will share some of that when the process post goes up in the coming weeks. Here is a look at how the final card turned out...

Knobby White Spider in handy dandy card form

This piece was not my last digitally painted Star Wars piece (that would be my work on Stay on Target) but this is the last digitally painted Star Wars piece to be released. From this point forward, unless otherwise mentioned, my Star Wars work is traditionally painted. For me, this is kind of crazy to think about. Got some interesting stuff on the horizon.

I will be bringing you one more piece from Between the Shadows on Friday, but this is a piece that has already been used elsewhere. I will be sharing the process that went into that piece to make it a more interesting post.

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

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Taking a break: Spider Demon - Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 7

The blog break continues as I am still overwhelmed elsewhere. In my absence, here is some stuff I have never shared from my days in the Makeup FX industry! Today I have for you the Spider Demon from season 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer...

The Spider Demon came a long very soon after I started working on Buffy and I was VERY excited to design it. This is the kind of monster I have always been interested in (and continue to be), so I was really excited to show my bosses and production what I could do. I made this know to my coworkers when this monster was announced to the shop. That was when the one of the lead sculptures went behind my back to the bosses in an attempt to get me out of the way so that he could design this monster. Seriously. This was the first time encountering something like this, but sadly not the last... I have mentioned I don't do this type of work anymore, right?

Long story short, I ended up one of two designers on this monster... me and the sculpture (but really I was the designing this). The sculpture was now mad at everybody because his cunning plan had not completely panned out. My designs were far and away more liked and my design was the one approved and selected. Fun side note, whenever the bosses would like something in my designs, suddenly that element would appear in the sculptures designs.

Unfortunately the process of fine tuning the design of this creature was a long and muddled road. Production had two default statements for feedback: "It looks phallic." and "It looks vaginal." Sometimes, if we were really lucky, they would tell us it was BOTH. They saw genitals in EVERYTHING. More then once in an attempt to deal with a perceived phallus or vagina they would have us make changes and actually made the situation worse.

While I was the designer on this monster and did some of the paint and prep work and went to set with it there was an entire team of my skilled coworkers that saw the the sculpting, mechanics, molding, casting, and everything else that went into seeing this creature come about.

Enough talk, here are the Spider Demons...

RAWR! I'm the watered down Spider Demon!

This thing ate hearts and was important to the episodes story. Remember... it HAS to eat hearts...

This is what the Spider Demon SHOULD have looked like. I am standing behind this even after 12 years. This may be one of the best designs that I did for these shows and barring some bendy windy issues with limbs, it still is a nice design. I looked at reference and nature and came up with something that is not too horrible.

Let's jump back a step to have a look at my very original concepts.

Looking back now, I am not even sure these were really shown to production. The bosses were already sold on the above design and were pushing that one. It was clearly the best design.

I did some color variants... and that was when the phallic comments began to surface...

Apparently, when production looked at this design, they saw penis.

I think then need a counselor.

And so began the variations on the mouth for the Spider Demon. This one now has a beak like snapping mouth thing...

This handy diagrams shows you how it will work. This was all still TOO PHALLIC.

To make it less phallic, production had us do this...

This... THIS... is their less phallic suggestion. THIS is their big sollution to make it look less...

...oh, I give up.

Here is the final design for the Spider Demon. When it was all said and done, this is how it will look on a normal day... more or less.

Still was working out some of the extending mouth that comes out halfway up the body.

Nope, nothing phallic here... nice cloaca, though...

NOM NOM NOM! I am the hand puppet of doom!

The sculpture of the Spider Demon begins!

It is coming along nice and all... but isn't it a LITTLE small?

Yeah... it was a little small. About a forth of the size it should have been!

OOPS! Time to start over! Torso shown for size comparison.

I am just going to say it, because it was repeated time and time again at the time...

The sculpture didn't get his way with his schemes to be the only designer for this monster, my design was ultimately chosen, there was a false start with the smaller sized sculpture... so by the time it came to the this final version he was all grumpy and did not do as good of a job as he could have.

REMEMBER, no matter what, ALWAYS do your best work on any project. If you are hired to do your best work, then that is what you need to deliver.

Some close ups of the mouth hole.... or cloaca.

I think he wants you to scratch his belly.

Here is a full view of the mouth parts that comes out and eats hearts.

Cause this is WAY LESS phallic then just a big toothy mouth on the end of a giant insect.

He is the final monster standing on it's own. Ignore the person holding it upright.

Lighting is everything. Taking photos of this inside is not doing this any favors.

It makes it look really cheap and all the flaws show up worse.

That pesky seam down the center of it's body...

That is better! Nature lighting makes it look a lot better and plays up a lot of the iridescent paint and coating.

The body is foam latex, the limbs have armature wire in them and they are cast of a semi-rigid foam.

Hey, Mr. Beefy, cleat the shot...

Mr. Beefy is hard at work coating the legs with a nasty nasty chemical.

Don't miss the nasty dangerous chemical one bit.

Mr Beefy is living the dream... painting monster legs with a shiny coat of goo...

It should be noted that this creature was mostly CG in the episode. The good folks at Zoic scanned it and made CG models and handled all the animation. We built the practical side of things for all the close ups.

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

Friday, October 18, 2013

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

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

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

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

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