September 6, 2012

LoTR Battle of Lake-Town

A while back I was tasked with designing and illustrating the great old red dragon Smaug for Fantasy Flight's Lord of the Rings card game. This was something I was very excited about and knew there was a long line of artist before me that have depicted this most iconic dragon. After creating the first couple illustrations I thought I was done... turns out FFG had bigger things in mind for Smaug and for me. FFG was putting together a Gen Con 2012 LotR adventure deck and they wanted me back to make with some more Smaugs. I was really happy to have a chance to flesh out my original designs and to have a chance to work on something unique like the con deck. Here are how the pieces for the Gen Con 2012 deck turned out...

The Burning of Lake-Town #1 (Smaug the Terrible)
© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games

 The Burning of Lake-Town #2 (Smaug the Magnificent)
© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games 
 The Burning of Lake-Town #3 (Smaug the Mighty)
© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games 
These were actually the first pieces that I tried out a new method of building up my paintings. I have been using this method ever since and I am really happy with the affect it is having on the finished pieces. I plan to go into more detail over on my personal blog at a later date, but I am sharing a step by step progression image here first! If you are familiar with similar images I have posted before you will see some marked differences in the first 5 steps...
 The Burning of Lake-Town #1 - Process
© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games 
Since this is a card game there is a tangible end product. Going into this project and several other similar projects I have been designing the art to serve two purposes... One: provide art the client needs, Two: provide art that I want to make and have. You will notice that the final cards crop a lot off of the originals, but they were designed for that. I like a much wider rectangular compositions that a square just won't provide. Also, by creating an image that I am much happier with I am more likely to give it that extra effort to make both the client and myself something really nice. Enough blathering... here are those cards...



RAWR!
Posted by Christopher Burdett at 5:46 AM
Labels: , , , , ,

4 comments:

  1. Craig J SpearingSeptember 9, 2012 at 7:20 PM

    The idjits on DeviantArt who wouldn't let you join their little dragon group obviously have a few screws loose. Really great work man! All three are cool, but I particularly like the head on the third one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Christopher BurdettSeptember 15, 2012 at 12:37 PM

      Thanks, Craig! :) The close up is by far my favorite too. Yeah, silly Deviant Art... I am sure they would tell me I didn't use any reference... :P

      Delete
  2. Chris RahnSeptember 12, 2012 at 7:57 PM

    Great take on Smaug! I dig them all but that close-up is killer, kinda makes me think of Godzilla.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Christopher BurdettSeptember 15, 2012 at 12:34 PM

      Thanks, Chris! The close up was my favorite to work on by a long shot. Something different and really fun.

      Delete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)