Yuan-ti Anathema - Dungeons and Dragons

Only one post this week while I wrap things up for the year and recoup from the holidays. ...and the ravages of Beatles Rockband is taking a toll on my productivity.

Today I bring you the Yuan-ti Anathema. This was another creature redesign for Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition as well as a miniature turnaround for the Against the Giants miniature expansion. It is always an honor to have a chance to add my voice to the legacy of Dungeons and Dragons. One of the coolest aspects of this design was the fact it was slated to be a 72 mm "huge" scale miniature. Bigger is always better in my book when it comes to miniatures.

This creature was changing a bit from it's earlier incarnations and it's changes were at first causing me some headache. The body mass had to be a huge swirling mass of little snakes. The problem was I was concentrating on the "little snakes" aspect and not the "huge mass" aspect of the design. Once again I was fretting about the details and forgetting to address the bigger picture. I had some rather horrifying false starts before I got my act together on this one. I remembered a piece I had done previously that involved a creature of twisting tentacles and allowed me to move forward in the right direction.

RAWR! I'm a monster! ...with tentacles...
© 2006 Christopher Burdett

Now with a better outlook on how to proceed I moved forward with the official first pass on the Yuan-ti Anathema and come up with this...

First pass at snaky monster goodness...
© 2007 Wizards of the Coast LLC

Not bad for a first pass but there was something that was not quite right. My art director suggested trying the head a bit bigger and lengthening the body...

Giant headed snaky monster goodness...
© 2007 Wizards of the Coast LLC

Hurm... the body is working but the head... yeah... Onto another revision. Moving back to the smaller head with the elongated body but this time a bit of a neck...

Proper snaky monster goodness
© 2007 Wizards of the Coast LLC

There we go! Much better. This version is approved and I moved forward with the complete turnaround.

© 2007 Wizards of the Coast LLC

You can see how the Yuan-ti Anathema turned out in it's final production miniature form, HERE. That's all for this week. See you next week for a fresh start in a new year!

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

Happy Holidays!

Happiest of Holidays to one and all. Here's to hoping for a exciting and prosperous 2010!

Holiday card 2009
© 2008 Christopher Burdett

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

Monster Car

I am knee deep in holiday cheer... or at least that is what I hope I am knee deep in... which is why today's post is a little later then normal. That is my story and I am sticking to it.

Anyway, today I bring you some of my "other work" that I recently completed. It is for the Florida Department of Transportation. My talents were needed on a video piece and so I rose to the challenge and really went out on a limb to try something new... no, actually they needed a monster car. So I made them a monster car...

RAWR! Evil and scary, the monster car will get you.
© 2009 Florida Department of Transportation

The other elements that were required for the segment were a child and a background. The elements are all based on video and stills that were taken for the project. If you are asking what this all mean, apparently children have difficulty understanding things like cars and do not know the danger that they pose. Fantasy and reality are blurred for young children and so extra caution needs to be taken when children and cars can together.

Car, child and background all together.
© 2009 Florida Department of Transportation

These three elements were handed off to my cohort in crime, Lee Bretschneider. I have mentioned Lee before, he and I were the guests at Geek Night. Lee took my elements and made with the movie graphics in After Effects to create the required seven seconds of video that will be part of a larger education project. This is how the video turned out:

Monster Car in all it's glory. RAWR!
* After posting this I notice that the video does something weird at the beginning and goes back to normal... not sure what is up with that, but just ignore it. Thanks!*
© 2009 Florida Department of Transportation

That is all for today. Family is heading into town as I write this and will be here soon. I guess I should have mentioned this is post #150 for the year, a number I am shocked to have reached. I never imagined I would have gotten this far and stuck with it this long. Yays to me! ;)

If all goes well, I should have a couple more post before the end of the year. Until then...

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

Ghosts of Christmas' Past

By now most of us are knee deep in some variety of winter holiday. I myself just finished celebrating Wookiee Life Day over the weekend (yes, I know I was early). For the last eight years or so I have made my own holiday cards to send out to friends and family. Today I am bringing you the art for 2006 - 2008. I will share 2009 later in the week.

Holiday card 2006
Fun fact about 2006... When I worked in LA in the makeup effects industry I designed the shop's holiday card each year. I suggested this idea one year and was shot down, so I was able to revive it and use it for myself.
© 2006 Christopher Burdett

Holiday card 2007
I like drawing tentacles. The more the merrier. Ho ho ho!
© 2007 Christopher Burdett

Holiday card 2008
What was that about tentacles? Are the tentacles taking the presents or giving the presents? I had one of them in mind when I drew this. I always find people's take on this drawing interesting.
© 2008 Christopher Burdett

I finished up the last of my work for 2009 this past Friday. I am just awaiting approval and feedback. Fingers crossed! I will try to have some posts for you later in the week, but I have family arriving mid week and then all the hubbub and goings on at the end of the week will be taking up a lot of time. Until then...

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

Two-Faced Freak Custom by Byleui

I got an early Christmas gift this week, photos of a custom miniature based off of one of my unreleased Dreamblade designs. Custom miniature extraordinaire and blog follower Byleui, also know to the world as David Thies, has been hard at work again! You may remember some of David's other customs, the Blob with Body and the Flagbearer. This time out he tackled the Two-Faced Freak and I really like how it turned out.

Here is my turnaround for comparison

Here is David's work in all its' glory!

Here are some thoughts about the miniature that David shared on Flickr:

"I started with the two faces of Freakazoid, altered them and attached them to a sculpture of polymer clay. "

As always, great work David! He told me that he should be moving onto the Executioner next. I will be sure to post images as soon as he completes it. To see more of David's custom work be sure to check out his gallery on Flickr.

I should have some holiday themed posts for you next week. As a heads up, I most likely will be taking the following week off. I need the break and some time to get my thoughts together. I hope to bring you all something special for the beginning of the New Year. Until then...

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

Galeb Duhr - Dungeons and Dragons

I realized as I was getting these drawings together this morning that I have been sharing work on the this blog lately that I promised myself I would never post. I wonder what that says about me?

Moving back to topic, I have for you today the Galeb Duhr that I redesigned for Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition and for the Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures. The Galeb Duhr has been around in D&D for a very long time and it was my privilege to be chosen to update it for 4th Edition. In honor of this opportunity I apparently took some crazy pills and got to work on the first version of my redesign...

Yeah... I think my art director's feedback to this first version was, "YIKES!" (I can't believe I am showing anyone that drawing)
© 2007 Wizards of the Coast LLC

Once the crazy pills wore off I got back to work and tried to come up with some a little bit... not crappy. The second version was received a little bit better.

Closer, but there are still some areas that need some additional rock man love.
© 2007 Wizards of the Coast LLC

After a bit more spit and polish and more drawing I think we are getting there. The third version seemed up to the challenge and made it through and was approved.

Much better! Now onto the full turnaround.
© 2007 Wizards of the Coast LLC

Here is the final approved Galeb Duhr turnaround is all it's glory. As a side not my wife was quite found of the rock butt. Not sure why, I think she just like the idea of it having a butt. I didn't nessecerily see it as a butt, it did need to be spherical and bolder like. Or... it could have a rock butt.

© 2007 Wizards of the Coast LLC

You can see how the Galeb Duhr turned out in it's final production miniature form, HERE. Not sure I will have anything for you tomorrow but I will be back on Friday with something. I am on the home stretch on a project and need to stay focused on it. What project you ask? Well, a project involving miniature designs! Maybe that is why I have been posting so many lately...

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

MORE Genasi Armor Sketches

If you missed any of my post on the Genasi armor that I designed for the Dungeons and Dragons Character Visualizer, fear naught! Ever though the posts were spread over 3 months you will be able to relive them all here: Female Armor part 1, Female Armor part 2, Male Armor part 1, Male Armor part 2. You may also remember my first post about the numerous sketches I did for the Genasi armor. I thought I would pull some more of these sketches out to show you some of the early directions for some of the other types of armor. Today I bring you variations on male chain, hide, leather and scale armors.

Genasi Male Chain Armor variations.
© 2008 Wizards of the Coast LLC

Genasi Male Hide Armor variations.
© 2008 Wizards of the Coast LLC

Genasi Male Leather Armor variations.
© 2008 Wizards of the Coast LLC

Genasi Male Scale Armor variations.
© 2008 Wizards of the Coast LLC

Of course looking back now I can see some of these may be a bit over the top, but you never know till you try. A lot of these would rather inept suits of armor but made for interesting shapes. What ultimately became the final designs, though simplistic in form for my taste, did prove to be more realistic for the purposes of armor.

Did someone say chain maille? No, I guess they didn't... anyway, I thought I would mention it here since I was showing off armor. Here is a sheet of chain maille I made in photoshop for use in the Genasi and Warforged armor designs. This replaces the first sheet I made for the Tiefling armor which was harder to read when the designs were shrunk down. It all came together pretty quickly and all starts with a circle with a bevel & emboss filter and and a shadow and before long you have chain mail.

Chain maille 'sheet'

Here is the same sheet at 100% so you can get a better look at all my mistakes. Which there are plenty...

Chain maille at 100%

I think that is enough for today... so much to do... so little time. I should be back tomorrow with something, don't know what yet... but SOMETHING! Until then...

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