NEW Eidolon Miniature

Today, I am pleased to share a new miniature based on an illustration I did for Dungeons & Dragons back in 2018. While the mighty Eidolon has received two miniatures to date, this is the first to include the shattered brazier in my painting. To start things off, here is my illustration of the Eidolon.

Eidolon

Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

11 x 14 - Digital

Art Director - Kate Irwin

© 2018 Wizards of the Coast LLC

The Eidolon is a spirit or undead force that inhabits inanimate objects, such as a giant statute that was originally depicted on the original D&D Player's Handbook cover. While the statue on the cover of the PH has been a known image for decades, it was such an honor to design and illustrate it, standing up and getting ready to make the player's day a whole lot more interesting. Here is the new Eidolon miniature in all its glory.

The new Eidolon is larger than its predecessor.

 

Oh! But that is not all. They also made an official miniature depicting the statue from the cover of the Player's Handbook. It is cool to see this original version as a miniature after all these years.

Player's Handbook Cover Statue in plastic form!

Finally, all the different versions of this statue and the Eidolon.

They turned out beautifully!

That is all for another exciting week 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

Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures - Eidolon

I don't get into gaming stores as often as I used to, and the past fifteen months certainly haven't helped. Now that things are beginning to improve, I recently once again found myself in a gaming store. As I was taking in the many delights and noticing how many products I contributed to, I came across something that caught my attention. It was a new to me miniature that was based on my Eidolon from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. You might be aware that the Eidolon has already been made into a miniature, but this one is a little different. To start things off, here is the illustration for the Eidolon.

Eidolon

Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

11 x 14 - Digital

Art Director - Kate Irwin

© 2018 Wizards of the Coast LLC

I am often out of the loop on what is actively happening in the tabletop gaming world as my head is down working. I was slightly aware of the unpainted series of D&D miniatures, Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures, but I haven't looked too closely into them. Much to my surprise, while standing in the gaming store recently, I was surprised to see the Eidolon. I, of course, had to pick one up. Here is the unpainted Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures release of the Eidolon.

 

Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures - Eidolon

I thought something was a little off when I first looked at this mini. Maybe the detail was a little crisper; perhaps they changed the height, whatever it was, I couldn't put my finger on it at first. Eventually, I realized that the pose is flipped from the pre-painted version and my illustration. The eyes are consistent, but everything else is inverted. I like this aspect a lot. It gives you a different version of the same miniature, so there can be some variation at the table if there is more than one in a gaming session. I will need to pay a little more attention to the Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures line to see what else might be out there. Lastly, here is the pre-painted miniature of the Eidolon for comparison.

 

Eidolon Pre-painted Miniature

That's all for another exciting week 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

D&D Monster Cards - Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes - Return of the Hydroloth, Sacred Statue, and Choker

Within the past two years, give or take, a D&D Monster Card deck was released for Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. Included in this deck are three of the monsters that I painted for Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. Where are the rest, you ask? That is a story or another day. As I have mentioned countless times, being in a book is fantastic, but there is just something extra special about having my work as a miniature or a card. While my first introduced to D&D through books, I once played countless hours of card and miniature games. Maybe that is where this comes from? With the release of Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes Monster Deck, my Hydroloth, Sacred Statue (Eidolon), and Choker ger their own cards. Here is a look at the deck box and the cards.

 

Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes Monster Deck

 

 

Hydroloth

 

 

Sacred Statue (Eidolon)

 

Choker

Of these there monsters, all but the Hydroloth has been made into a miniature. In my book, that is not too shabby, and it is always fun to see my monsters make the rounds. Here again, is the final art that I created of these three monsters.

 

Hydroloth 

Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes 

11 x 14 - Digital

Art Director - Kate Irwin 

© 2018 Wizards of the Coast LLC

 

 

Eidolon

Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

11 x 14 - Digital

Art Director - Kate Irwin 

© 2018 Wizards of the Coast LLC

 

 

Choker

Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

11 x 14 - Digital

Art Director - Kate Irwin 

© 2018 Wizards of the Coast LLC

That's 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

Eidolon Miniature

Today I have for you the closest thing that there will likely be a miniature of myself. I illustrated the Eidolon for Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. If you are unfamiliar with the origins of this particular creature, you must only look back to the original Player's Handbook to see a giant statue holding a brazier that it losing one of its jeweled eyes. At some point, that statue got fed up and decided to toss the brazier down and seek its revenge. That was where I came in and my painting.

 

Eidolon

Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

11 x 14 - Digital

Art Director - Kate Irwin

© 2018 Wizards of the Coast LLC

In the past, I have talked about my surprise that some of the monsters that I have designed and painted were turned into miniatures. This particular one seemed like it could eventually end up as a miniature, and I am happy to see that it did sooner rather than later. As I have mentioned many times here on the blog that I use myself for nearly all reference required for my monsters, this makes this particular mini the nearest I will come to be cast in plastic. Not that this is in any way a direct self-portrait, there are physical tells in the pose and posture that have carried over to the mini that I see as being me. It's the little things. Here are some images of the final production miniature of the Eidolon.

Eidolon Miniature

 

That's all for another exciting week 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

Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes - Eidolon

Last year I had the joy of working on Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, the newest supplement for Dungeons & Dragons. I created five monster illustrations for the book and had a fantastic time doing so. A huge thanks go out to Kate Irwin for including me on this project! Today I have for you the mighty Eidolon...

Eidolon

Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

11 x 14 - Digital

Art Director - Kate Irwin

© 2018 Wizards of the Coast LLC

Eidolon

Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

11 x 14 - Pencil on paper

Art Director - Kate Irwin

Original - SOLD

© 2018 Wizards of the Coast LLC

This was a fun one and hit me in the D&D feels. If you are familiar with the long history of D&D you should see a striking resemblance between this animated statue and the statue on the cover of the First Edition Players Handbook. In fact, I was asked to make this Eidolon look exactly like the station on the Players Handbook... if it had just stood up and was about to cause some trouble. You might notice that there is a different length in the loin cloth from the drawing to the final... that is a story for another day.

Keep an eye on the blog as I share the rest of my contributions to Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes!

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

Jaynestown Statue, there and back again - Firefly

Funny how things work out.

On Monday, I shared with you some images of the Jayne Cobb statue that I was in charge of constructing for the show, Firefly. Not only did that post BLOW UP on reddit (thanks for the traffic everybody!), but I was contacted by Mike Schotte, who it turns out, owns the remains of the Jayne Cobb statue!

Mike acquired the head from Adam Baldwin who played Jayne Cobb awhile back and ever since he has been looking high and low for information and details on the origins of the statue. He has talked to a lot of people over the years but somehow we never crossed paths till now... and I had all the information he was looking for. Yays, INTERNETS!

Mike was nice enough to share with me some more current images of the Jayne Cobb statue. Sadly, my hands are not in his collection. I had completely forgotten all about it, but thanks to these images I am reminded about the 'hero' statue head bust that we made as a gift to Adam Baldwin. You can see the details in the original statue that were lost when the statue was covered in mud on set.

Mike has a great twitter account dedicated to the head, @Jayne_Statue.

Jayne Cobb statue... now with 94% less body.

I wonder if I signed it if it would be worth more or less?

Probably... less........

Jayne Cobb statue bust made as a gift by us for Adam Baldwin.

The happy family now live with Mike Schotte.

We did not make the sign, pretty sure props took care of that.

...if my memory serves me.

All images courtesy Mike Schotte

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

Taking a break: Jaynestown Statue - Firefly

Still taking a little break on the blog since I am a little overwhelmed elsewhere. In my absence, here is some stuff I have never shared from my days in the Makeup FX industry! Today... today I have something SHINY for you...

You remember that one time that I mentioned I worked on Firefly? Well here are some images to back that up! One of the biggest things that I worked on for the series was the statue of Jayne. I was "in charge" of putting this together, but I had a couple of great guys working with me on this and we all worked really hard on fabricating it. The head was from a life cast of the actor that was then modified by one of the sculptors... and the hands you ask? Why those lovely meat hooks on the statue or my hands. We needed some fists for the statue and mine were the right size.

For the record, I thought I had WAY more images of my work on FF, in addition to some process steps (like me when I was getting my hands cast)... and for the life of me I can not find them. I will have to look through my non-digital photo archives to see what I can find. If I find anything else I will be sure to share. Enough talk, here is a statue I worked on back in 2002...

Since the statue was mostly a bunch of pieces cobbled together and then coated in resin is was not a pretty site when completed. A coat of paint was needed to tie it all together and make it presentable for review by production. If you look at the base... that is was the whole thing kinda looked like.

We started with a generic body form that was the appropriate size and then started adding the additional parts... feet, hands, head, etc.

Once it was altogether we dressed the entire thing with clothes provided by wardrobe.

The statue is held up by metal rods in the legs that run trough the shoes and into the base. This caused ALL SORTS of problems on the day of filming when the statue had to be broken off and knocked down... OOPS! There were lots of outtakes of failed attempts. Eventually the metal was cut and the thing went right over. I *THINK* some of the those failed attempts were edited together with the successful break in the episode.

While mostly made out of resin and two part rigid foam it was a bit of a pain to move around.

While the plan all along was to make it look like the statue was made of foam it was decided in house to give it a nice paint job before going off to set...

SO...  one of the temp painters spent a bunch of time painting the Jayne statue up all nice and pretty with detail and texture...

So that is could go to set and be covered with mud by props and set teams. Now you know what the statue really looked like!

For this episode I also designed the burn makeup for the Stitch Hessian character. I went and looked at the design... it was SO bad that I am not ready to share it yet. ALSO... again, I can not find all the images I thought I had including some pics of the final makeup on the actor and some process images. Not sure where they are, but if I ever find them I will be sure to share them here on the blog.

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