2024 Convention Annoucment!

I am thrilled to annouce that I will be returning to Gen Con in 2024! I will see you Indianapolis for the best four days in gaming August 1-4, 2024. Gen Con is one of my main events of the year and has been for over a decade. It is a lot of work, and now that I know I am in the show, planning begins NOW.

Gen Con calls and we will answer that call.

My Gen Con booth in 2023.

It will not be this grand this year (I will be back to a normal 4 panel booth), but I will have all the monsters with me!

That is all for another Thursday 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

Fomorian Deep Crawler - Dungeons & Dragons - Process

Today, I am happy to share the process and steps for one of my contributions to the Dungeons & Dragons supplement, Bigby Presents: Glory of Giants. This is the last of four contributions to the book. Bigby Presents: Glory of Giants focuses on all things giants, including misshapen and horrible giants. Here is the final painting for the Fomorian Deep Crawler, a twisted and evil monster that dwells below the ground.

Fomorian Deep Crawler

Bigby Presents: Glory of Giants

11 x 14 - Digital

Art Director - Emi Tamji

© 2023 Wizards of the Coast LLC

I was asked to design and illustrate the Fomorian Deep Crawler after discovering that the original image created for the book was not entirely created by a human and needed to be replaced. I had an EXTREMELY tight turnaround for this one and threw everything I had at it. The Fomorian Deep Crawler was described as:

This illustration depicts a MALE FOMORIAN DEEP CRAWLER. The fomorian has spent his life crawling and has become very adept at moving that way. His limbs are stretched out and sinuous, and he is as flexible as a contortionist. His movement looks unnatural and disturbing. He could have one of his legs swinging over his head and kicking himself forward. There could be curves to his movement mimicking a centipede or serpent.

The fomorian is in a charging pose, rushing towards something or someone offscreen. There is an urgency to his movement, and he has a depraved look in his eyes.

This all sounds like a fun thing to work on - but it would be nice to not have to remake it in a few hours. I knew the body posistion and composistion for this one would be tricky, so I made sure I could provide a few variations to see what would work best. We shot some reference of me doing my best Fomorian Deep Crawler impression and started scribbling. Here are the thumbnails that I submitted.  

Fomorian Deep Crawler - Thumbnails

 © 2023 Wizards of the Coast LLC

 

These were well recieved and they chose to move forward with a horizontal composistion, which I was happy with. They wanted to see some of the elements from 'A' and 'B' combined and given a little more twist, which I was more than happy to do. Here is the updated thumbnail that I submitted.

 

Fomorian Deep Crawler - Revised thumbnail

 © 2023 Wizards of the Coast LLC

 

The updated thumbnail was approved without additional notes and revisions. I was now approved to take it to the next process phase. I always create a final traditional drawing for every project to work out the details and to give myself a tangible product from the assignment. Here is the Fomorian Deep Crawler drawing.

 

Fomorian Deep Crawler

Bigby Presents: Glory of Giants

11 x 14 -Colored pencil on paper

Original - SOLD

Art Director - Emi Tamji

© 2023 Wizards of the Coast LLC

The drawing was approved without comment, and it was time to start on the final painting. Here is the painting of the Fomorian Deep Crawler taking shape.

Fomorian Deep Crawler - Process

 © 2023 Wizards of the Coast LLC

 

As I mentioned, I had a VERY short deadline on this one. Basically - get it done as fast as you can. So, when it came to the painting, that is what I did. I think in the end, the painting took less than five hours to complete. I sat down, and I painted it. There was no time to do anything else. In there end there was one revision request, and that was to desatuate the giant a little bit. This was an easy change and with that it was completed. Not bad for less that a days work. Here, again, is the final painting of the Fomorian Deep Crawler.

 

Fomorian Deep Crawler

Bigby Presents: Glory of Giants

© 2023 Wizards of the Coast LLC

That's 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

2023 Art vs Artist & Instragram Top Nine

Today, I am ending and beginning. 2023 is now over and 2024 is starting and with that comes some unfinished posts from the end of 2023 - namely, my 2023 Art vs Artist and my top nine images of the year on Instagram. I'm not sure I have much more to say about any of this. To be honest, I am debating if I will do a 2023 review post here on the blog. If I do one, it will likely be short and to the point. But until that happens, here are some images to look back on as we think about 2023.

2023 Art vs Artist

I did create many of these small portraits this year.

Instagram Top Nine

A mix of things this year. A surprising amount of older work showing up.

Well, I guess we are back at it now. Time to start 2024 and to see where it takes us.

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

Spectator 2D Miniature

Today, I have another recently released 2D miniature based on one of my Dungeons & Dragons concepts. As with the others, this is a monster that already received a 3D mini, so now we have more minis, and that is a truly wonderful thing. This time around, it is the Spectator that I designed during the concept push for 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. Here is how the final concept design for the Spectator turned out.

Spectator (originally Gauth during the concept push)

5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons Monster concept

© 2014 Wizards of the Coast

 

If you want to seek out the set this miniature is in, here is an image of the packaging. The 2D Spectator can be found in the Beholder Hive set of the D&D Idols of the Realms line of miniatures.  

Beholder Hive

The 2D minis are very high quality, and the printing is excellent. There are bases for all miniatures, which are arranged by size. Here is the 2D miniature of the Spectator.

 

Spectator 2D Miniature

I mentioned that this particular monster already has a 3D miniature. I always liked how the original miniature turned out, but this new 2D mini has a ton of detail and look awesome. Here is the 3D mini for the Spectator.

The Spectator miniature in all its glory.

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

Quab Portrait - The Grand Bazaar of Ethra VanDalia

I am thrilled to share another new piece from The Grand Bazaar of Ethra VanDalia. This illustration is for Book Two: The Completed Circle. This will be a character portrait accompanying one of the short blurbs at the beginning of a chapter. I shared more about these with the first post focused on these portraits. With most of these, I have an idea regarding their voice and placement in the book, but the fun part is that it is not set in stone and may turn into something very different from what I first planned. I present you with a Quab (name to come later); just make sure you don't get any on you.

Quab
The Grand Bazaar of Ethra Dalia - The Completed Circle
5 x 5 - Pencil, ink, and acrylic paint on paper
Original - AVAILABLE!
© 2023 Christopher Burdett

Quab - Drawing 

5 x 5 - Pencil on paper
© 2023 Christopher Burdett

 

These are the smallest pieces created for the books. There is something charming about a 5 x 5 image, and I have already framed them up. Here is a look at the sketch for the Quab to show where it started.

Quab - Sketch 

 Digital 

© 2023 Christopher Burdett

 

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

2024 Convention Annoucment!

I am thrilled to announce what will hopefully be one of several events that I will be attending in 2024! Notices went out a couple days ago, and I will be returning to the main show of Illuxcon in Reading, PA, in October 2024. We love IX, and after the bumpy journey this year with all the car trouble and craziness, we are doubly pleased to have a nice long trip next year - hopefully with 1000% less chaos. I will share more once we get closer to October; I am sure I will have a surprise or two planned.

Come see me an many other amazing artists at Illuscon 2024!

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

Monstrous Fauna: Before Woodbane’s Journal of Beings came from The Grand Bazaar of Ethra VanDalia

Over a year ago I mentioned a project I created in college, a book of monster research called, Monstrous Fauna. I had every intention to share this with you sooner (I was completely done with all the scanning and archiving back in June!), but it has been a busy, crazy, weird year. But, here we are at the end of 2023, and I am sharing with you something I made in 1998. You can guarantee I am anything but punctual. While I talked a lot about the history in my previous post, this post is completely dedicated to getting the Monstrous Fauna into your hands! A .pdf of the uncompleted book is NOW AVAILABLE!

Monstrous Fauna

19.5x13.5

Mixed media hand-made book featuring drawings, etchings, and handwritten text

© 1998-2023 Christopher Burdett

Now, you can enjoy something that I wrote and illustrated in college without the worry of checking my spelling or grammar. Why I decided to write it all by hand, I haven't a clue. I suppose I thought it was how it needed to be done. I am glad I did things differently when the Grand Bazaar rolled around. 

As a reminder, this book is in many ways a precurser to what I did with the Grand Bazaar, and that the charactor of Woodbane has been around with me for a long time. While Woodbane was once very important to me he has lived on as an author and researcher in my world, having made many books about monsters of his own. I feel that it is best that he was no longer a warrior and is now a being of scholarly pursuits, even though they are a hunter and trapper as well. Needless to say, in the fullness of time, we will see Woodbane make an appearance in the Grand Bazaar. 

For those that has chosen not to download the .pdf of Monstrous Fauna I have some page spread images that you can enjoy. The consists of a many etchings, drawings, and hand written text. It follows a group of Geakkoon through a section of the Leon County sinks as they encounter other creatures, friend and foe.

All images © 1998-2023 Christopher Burdett

As an added bonus, here is something that is not in the book, an image of me, as Woodbane, holding the book in a camp instalation that I made at the Leon County sinks for the group show that the book was created for. Okay, that may have been a lot and a little confusing. While at college, I took an art class that took place at the sinks, and we would walk the trails each class and make notes, sketch, take photos, and commune with nature. During the sememeter we were expected to have completed art that was enfluenced by the sinks and our time there. For the class, the book was my project. At the end of the sememster the class put on a show out at the sinks. I built a campsite with props and a tent. I built a Woodbane costume and spoke with those that attended the show about the book and the research I was doing. I would hand the book over to people and then discuss the many monster species that can be found at the sinks. I also made a giant insect monster that I placed elsewhere at the sinks. Unfortunately, I can not find any photos of the giant insect currently. Maybe one day, they will surface. The best moment of the show was when a very excited child came running to tell me they saw a giant monster bug.

Woodbane in all his, uh... majesty.

Be sure to check out Monstrous Fauna!

That is all for another exciting week on the blog. From here until the end of the year, my regular posting my be a little irregular with travel, the holidays, and needing to get a ton of things done. So, hopefully, I will be posting again before the new year, but if not, see you in 2024! Until then...

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