Festering Mummy - Amonkhet - PROCESS

Today I have for you an overdue post about the process and steps that went into a Magic the Gathering piece of mine that I first shared with you way back in April of 2017, the Festering Mummy. This was the first opportunity to create a self-portrait on a Magic card, and I had a lot of fun working on it. To start things off, here is the final art for Festering Mummy.

Festering Mummy
Magic the Gathering - Amonkhet 
PRINTS available at OMA!
ARTIST PROOFS available over on my web store!   
14 x 10.2- Digital 
© 2017 Wizards of the Coast

As with all of my pieces I began with a photo shoot of reference to get my head around the physicality of the piece, composition, and lighting. Dear Wife took many a silly photo of me being a mummy. Once the photo shoot was completed, I got to work on a series of thumbnails that distilled my ideas down to something usable. Many of these I was excited to work on.

Festering Mummy - Thumbnails

© 2017 Wizards of the Coast

As you can see option 'B' was the winner. I was putting my money on 'A,' 'D,' and 'E,' but it was not meant to be. There was concept work in the style guide for this set of Magic that depicted mummies without arms. I was fascinated by that and had wanted to do a mummy that was armless but still a danger with its mouth. Maybe another day. Now that I had an approved thumbnail it was time to work on the final drawing.

Festering Mummy
Magic the Gathering - Amonkhet
17 x 14 -Pencil on paper
 SOLD
© 2017 Wizards of the Coast

This drawing came together quickly and easily. You can even watch the drawing being created with this handy dandy time-lapse video I shot while working on this set. Now you can watch and learn all my drawing secrets.

Festering Mummy Drawing Time Lapse

With a finished drawing, it was time for the tonal study for the piece where I work out the lighting and values. Not much more to add. It is just the heavy lifting of figuring out the painting.

Festering Mummy - Tonal study
Magic the Gathering - Amonkhet
17 x 14 -Pencil on paper 
Original available NOW!
© 2017 Wizards of the Coast

Now that all the prep work was completed and I had a little bit of an idea of what  I was going to do with this piece it was time to paint. This piece came together quickly and was a straight forward painting. A relatively isolated figure on a low definition background. No horror stories to share on this one, it was only a matter of putting in the time working to get it completed.

Festering Mummy - Process progression 
© 2017 Wizards of the Coast

To better show, the painting taking shape here is an animated progression of the painting taking shape. Little by little it becomes a monster.

Festering Mummy - Animated process 
© 2017 Wizards of the Coast

 
And with that, the painting was completed. There were no edits or revisions with this piece, and it was approved after submission. Here again, is the final art of the Festering Mummy as well as the production card.

Festering Mummy

PRINTS available at OMA!

ARTIST PROOFS available over on my web store!   
© 2017 Wizards of the Coast

Festering Mummy in handy dandy card form

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

Eau-de-nil Elder - The Grand Bazaar of Ethra VanDalia - Final Drawing and Render Time Lapse

Today I have the finished Eau-de-nil Elder. I previously shared the line work and time-lapse for this piece here on the blog. There has been a couple of months gap during the creation of this piece, but I am happy to say that it is now finished. As with the line work, I recorded myself doing all of the rendering and made a time-lapse of it. Before I get ahead of myself, here is the completed Eau-de-nil Elder.

Eau-de-nil Elder 
11 x 14 - Pencil on paper

Currently Available Grand Bazaar Originals

© 2016 Christopher Burdett

It took me 3.5 hours, spread over three separate sessions to complete the rendering of this piece. I condensed that time down to 25 minutes for the time-lapse. I know that is a bit to watch, but if it were any faster, you wouldn't be able to see what I was doing. If you are interested in how I work and draw, this is an excellent opportunity to see just that.

Eau-de-nil Elder render time lapse

View above or on YouTube for the high res version.

© 2016 Christopher Burdett

If you are doing the math, that was 3.5 hours to render, it was about an hour to do the line work, to do the original digital sketch it was about an hour, and the photo reference shoot took about 15 minutes. Sometimes these pieces go quicker, sometimes they take longer. It all depends on the drawing, the number of distractions, and the amount of time I can spend on the piece uninterrupted.

Here are all the other completed monsters for The Grand Bazaar of Ethra VanDalia: Aberrant Stilter, Belled Kreep, Corrupted Knight, Dight-Kin, Eau-de-nil Elder, Ethra VanDalia, Footman, Gray Wanderer, Gullet, Humgruffin Mother, Irritated Girasol, Judicator, Kiplorbic Animal Dealer, Lammergeier Transport, Myopic Riflemen, Nimsbane Curse Victim, Ophiomornous Bureaucrat, Petrous Blacksmith, Quincaillerie, Saint Marque, Smokestack, Thrice, Uncanny Scribe, Virulent Artificer, Xandrell Tree, Yote Arms Dealer, and Zombic Spore.

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

Eau-de-nil Elder Line Drawing Time Lapse

In an attempt to do a better job of documenting and recording my process and steps I have been trying out a new camera set up to record myself working. Ultimately, I would like to be able to offer time lapse of some of my work as well as record while I am working to explain what I am doing better. The first test of the new set up was a little rocky. I had originally thought the entire recording was corrupted,  it turned out a large piece of it was salvageable. This time lapse does not include the entire drawing process, it does record most of the line work going down on the Eau-de-nil Elder.

Eau-de-nil Elder line work time lapse

View above or on YouTube for the high res version.

© 2016 Christopher Burdett

Details about this drawing and my drawing process:

• I am using tan BFK Rives paper and black (and eventually white) Prismacolor colored pencils.
• I created the thumbnail sketch for digitally and printed the thumbnail onto the paper at 20% opacity.
• I create a digital thumbnail for most of my planned drawings for both myself and clients. This allows for a much faster product and for a cleaner final drawing. I can revise and work out ideas so much quicker and easier when working up my initial sketches digitally.
• I still continue to draw without using this digital thumbnail method, but this is usually when I am relaxing or drawing without a set goal of a finished drawing. 
• I generally always start at the top and work down the drawing.
• I will continually revisit what I have already finished working on to add detail and edit parts that might not be working fully. 
• You will notice that I spin the pencil around in my hand while drawing (watch the markings on the pencil to see the spin). This is to get more life out of the tip while I am drawing. By spinning it I control the marks the pencil is making.
• When my hand disappears I am sharpening my pencil in an electric pencil sharpener.
• When my hand pauses on the drawing I am thinking about the piece.
• While the thumbnail is already worked out I often change it if I think the piece would be better suited to go in a different direction.

Eau-de-nil Elder line work

11 x 14 - Pencil on paper

Work in process

© 2016 Christopher Burdett

Now that I have the completed line work drawing done I have scanned it and will now proceed with the rendering of the entire image with black and white pencil to build up the values and complete the drawing. This will easily take two to three times the time it took to work up the line drawing. I will do my best to document the entire rendering process.

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

Screen Capture Time Lapse Videos

I have for you today two time lapse screen capture videos that I recently put together. I needed to do a lengthy screen capture of myself working for a project and I figured a couple small tests would be in order. If I had know taking screen captures of myself working was so easy I would have done this long ago. For these tests I picked two alien portraits that were in need of inking and worked them up with some digital ink. Eventually, these two pieces will get some color, maybe I will record that as well at a later date. For now I have these two videos to share...

Digital Inking Time Lapse Test #1

© 2013 Christopher Burdett 

Digital Inking Time Lapse Test #2 

© 2013 Christopher Burdett 

It has only taken me over a year to make another time lapse video of myself working. Hopefully now that I know how easy it is to record myself working digitally there will be more of these. Still trying to figure out how best to record myself while drawing traditionally... one of these days I will get it right...

That is all for another exciting Monday, see you back here tomorrow for a very special extra blog monster... and some big news! Until then...

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

Sahrvin Demon drawing time lapse test

Friend and fellow artist Justin Peterson recently posted a time lapse video of him drawing on a cover of one of his trade paperbacks. I thought that it looked a fun and interesting way to share his process with everyone and was instantly interested in doing one too. I was able to get some time together over the weekend to do a test to see how it would turn out and what it would involve to make time lapse videos of my drawings. This is how that test turned out...



This video is 21 minutes of drawing time sped up 850%. I started with a light sketch to map out placement and to make the video more interesting. The creature is a Sahrvin, a demon I designed for the 5th season of Angel which I will be sharing with you in its entirety on Friday.

I am really happy with how this turned out and how easy it will be to make more of them. Due to file size limitations I will most likely have to record in 30 minute blocks and then move them from my phone to the computer and begin again. Once Gen Con is behind me I hope to be able to record an entire drawing start to finish. I hope you find this as interesting as I do, it has definitely given me some insight on how I draw! I can't wait to do more of these!

That is all for another exciting Wednesday on the blog, see you back here on Friday for more of the Sahrvin demon! Until then...

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