Taking a break: Eating Demon - Angel Season 4

As mentioned on Monday I am 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 I have for you the Eating Demon from Angel season 4.

For this monster of the week I was the lead on the design, did some of the painting on the makeup, went to set with it to help out, and did some of the puppeteered on the dangly bits in the mouth which I don't think ever showed up on camera as even moving. All the other aspects of production... sculpting, lead paint, casting, seaming, application were all handled by the other skilled artists at Almost Human back in 2002.

Enough talk, here is the Eating Demon...

Eating Demon on set - RAWR!

My crappy original sketched for the design.

(somebody on the writing / creative team for the show saw Blade 2 that summer and wanted to have one of those super vampires with the opening mouth on Angel... so we had to make one)

Digital makeup concept #1

Digital makeup concept #2

Digital makeup concept #3 (and the winner)

Makeup sculpture prior to molding.

Makeup application on set.

Makeup applied and now we wait to go to set.

Eating Demon on set.

Eating Demon on set.

All images © Christopher Burdett / Work © Almost Human

That is all for another exciting Wednesday on the blog, see you hopefully 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

Taking a break...

I need a vacation, a break, a pause, a respite, a lull in the chaos... but I just don't have the time.

For the next couple of weeks to ease my workload where I can I am going to ramp things down here on the blog. I am going to keep up posting on my usual schedule as much as I can... but I am going to be pulling content from my achieves of things never shared from my distant art past. Of course, if current work is released or spoiled I will be sure to share it... but for the next couple weeks I need to take a break.

To that end, here is a picture of James Marsters and myself suited up as the Beast at the Angel Posting Board party in 2003. See, James Marsters makes everything better...

James Marsters and myself suited up as the Beast (circa 2003)

Images © Christopher Burdett

I just need to get through the next couple deadlines and have a little break and then things will be back to normal. In the mean time you will get to enjoy images and work from my days in the makeup effect business. RAWR!

That is all for another exciting Monday on the blog, see you back here hopefully 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

Star Wars toned paper adventures - Bucking Ronto

Concluding a very Star Wars week on the blog I have for you a new toned paper drawing. This time around I revisited the Enraged Ronto that I did for the Star Wars RPG supplement Suns of Fortune. Not sure what else to say... so here is now the final drawing turned out...

Bucking Ronto

9 x 12

colored pencil on toned paper

Original "Enraged Ronto" © 2014 Fantasy Flight Games

That Ronto is so wonderfully "derpy" and was a ton of fun to work up on the toned paper. It is always nice to be able to work off of really nice creature designs. A good foundation offers so much more room to play with it and bring some of my own esthetic to the final product. Here are some images of the piece coming together... as captured in different cities and in different lighting situations...

All images © 2014 Christopher Burdett

That is all for another exciting week 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

Hidden Cache - Star Wars: Edge of Darkness - Process

Back in December I first shared with you the Star Wars piece, Hidden Cache. While this piece was released at the end of 2013, it was in fact painted WAAAAAY back at the end of 2011. This piece was actually the second Star Wars card that I painted for Fantasy Flight Games. This piece is so old that it was created in my previous layer structure and methods. The rest of the steps are the same to create the image. To get things started, here is the final piece so that everyone is up to date...

Hidden Cache

© 2013 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

I have never been silent about the alien species I want to paint in my Star Wars assignments. Zoe at FFG has been more than gracious to get me the aliens I want or provide me the opportunities to pick which aliens I want. Even at this stage in working on the license, I was enjoying that freedom... which is why this piece features a Mon Calamari. The illustration called for a "Rebel Smuggler," and to me, that means Mon Calamari. They are one of my two favorite aliens, the other being of course Trandoshans. Now that I had the alien I wanted, it is time to make a pretty image, and that starts with thumbnails...

Hidden Cache - Thumbnails

© 2013 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

I am not sure I had a favorite at the time, I was just trying to do something interesting and different. Up until this point, 99% of my work had been high fantasy, so the interior of a space ship was strange and exciting new territory. I also wanted to tell a little more of a story, not just a Mon Cal with a gun... but, in the end, that what this piece is and what it is about.

At this point in the game, there was a lot that was still in flux, including the shape and amount of chrome on the cards and the size of the art. All of these thumbnails were based on the card template at the time... which is very different then it turned out to be in the final game. Production selected a thumbnail and sent it back to me in the card template so that I could get a feel for how the final will look and so that I am aware of context...

Hidden Cache - Mockup of approved thumbnail

© 2013 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

Time for the drawing! The thumbnails were kinda loose... especially in that Mon Calamari's face... and a little silly. I was asked to make sure that no one thought this Mon Cal was Ackbar, so I made him all scared up and blind in one eye and it was fun working up some of those aspects in the drawing. The drawing was a lot of fun to work on and came together very quickly and was approved without a note...

Hidden Cache - Drawing
12 x 9 - Pencil on paper
Original - SOLD

© 2013 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

Now... we PAINT. Well, we paint in a fashion that I have not painted in for close to two years. I do have some unreleased pieces that may or may not ever see the light of day that was painted in the old fashion, this might be the last I will be sharing on the blog for the foreseeable future. This is the last of dying breed. So in six easy steps, you too can have a Mon Calamari gun runner...

Hidden Cache - Process steps

© 2013 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

Not a lot to say about the process... most of the work is done between steps 2 and 3, and there is no value build up under the color. I just would jump in and hope for the best and get down and dirty with the pixels. The rest of the steps were only adjustments to brightness and contrast to help the image read better.

Again, here is how the final piece turned out. You can compare it with the final card as well (below) and see how the game and orientation changed in the two years since I originally created it. The huge amount of possible change is one of the interesting aspects of working on a new game. It can also backfire when your early art just no longer works for the game and is scrapped. So far everything I did in those early stages has survived and in some cases shown up in several places!

Hidden Cache

© 2013 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

Hidden Cache in handy card form

Last month I shared with you my toned paper re-imagining of this piece. Since I can not produce traditional final products due to the contractual limitations, I can at least explore something more finished after the fact...

Hidden Cache - Toned drawing

14 x 11 - Pencil on paper
Original - SOLD

© 2013 Lucasfilm, Ltd. TM Lucasfilm, Ltd. Under license to Fantasy Flight Games

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

Thanks, Google+ Auto Awesome... I think...

Yesterday I shared with you my little acrylic portrait of Barada. Our new digital overlord Google+ has been keeping an eye on me (and everyone else) apparently. After yesterday's post was published I got a notification that Google+ made an animated gif for me (I wonder when it will starting making my art for me?). Here is the animated gif progression of the process of painting Barada...

Slightly modified "'Google+ Auto Awesome' Barada"

  5 x 7

acrylic on board

© 2014 Christopher Burdett

The "Auto Awesome" felt that some of my steps were not awesome enough and left them out. I took the file that Google+ provided me and added them to it to get the image you see above. This all means that I now have one MORE thing that I can obsess over and add to the blog. Expect to see more animated progressions here on the blog now... You can thank our digital overlord Google+.

That is all for a special Tuesday post on the blog, see you back here tomorrow! Until then...

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

Barada

Back in December I shared with you a drawing based off of some of the alien monsters seen in Jabba's palace from the Return of the Jedi. Today I have for you a small acrylic painting based of the Barada in the drawing. Here is how the finished piece turned out...

"Barada"

  5 x 7 - Acrylic, pencil, and gouache on board
Original available for sale on my Web Store!

© 2014 Christopher Burdett

I have been really wanting to do more traditional paintings, and to that end I need to practice and work on my traditional skill set. As previously mentioned, I have also been focusing on making images that pay tribute to the things that influenced me. Hopefully this is the first of a series of small studies that will based off my Star Wars work. ...and I hope this will be well received at conventions this year.

I am happy with how it turned out and I am looking forward to the next one. As an added bonus, here is a bunch of images of this piece taking shape. I tried to document a lot of the steps so you can see how I fumbled and stumbled through this piece...

All images © 2014 Christopher Burdett

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

Florida Museum of Natural History

Recently I found myself in Gainesville, Florida. While there I spent some time at the Florida Museum of Natural History. The museum has a really nice collection of extinct mega fauna that was once found in Florida as well as a small collection of Charles R. Knight paintings. The museum has a lot of other exhibits to offer including an amazing butterfly enclosure and research area, an in depth look at the first people of Florida, and even exhibits featuring Florida's nature environment in which they are recreated many times larger their original size...  but I was there for the fossils.

I found the whole exhibit to be a treasure trove of reference. They had specimens of mastodon, mammoth, tapir, camel, horse, giant sloth, terror bird, bear, bear dog, rhino, saber-toothed cat, and MANY others. Here are some of the images that I took at the museum...

 All images © 2013 Christopher Burdett

The work of Charles R. Knight are of course his own and not mine.

If you find yourself in central Florida for any reason and some time to kill I highly recommend paying a visit to the Florida Museum of Natural History and taking in all they have to offer!

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