Woodland Predator

Here's my latest piece in my ongoing series I'm calling "Why You Should Hire Mike Burns". I have a habit of avoiding environments in my illustration work so for this piece I wanted to focus on establishing an environment to place my star creature in. I originally just wanted to showcase a creature (like usual) but instead I wound up giving him some prey to go after, thus creating some story, and adding to the drama of the piece and adding some story. Later on I decided to add the doe in the foreground to emphasis the story and drama even further, not to mention adding some depth to the piece.

I'm pretty happy with this piece for a lot of reasons. I think it's a lot different from the work I usually produce. I also got a very pleasing amount of useful feedback and advice from several fellow artists who really helped me push this piece to it's limits. A special tip of the hat goes to renowned creature monster illustrator Christopher Burdett. Chris gave me a lot of really helpful feedback regarding some anatomy and perspective mistakes. As an artist, there are many mistakes we get so used to making that we don't even notice that they're there. Chris noticed some problems with me piece that he struggled with in the past as well, so he knew what he was talking about. Check out his work at the above link, some killer creatures are on display.

I hope you like the new piece!

I'd also like to remind everyone (or announce for the first time in case I hadn't done so already) that I will be attending Illuxcon V, 2012. Keep an eye out for more info in a later post, right now just wanted to make sure everyone knows I'll totally be in attendance. Hope to see some of you there!

Sanbone Trio Portraits: COMPLETE

I just finished up the last of the 3 Sanbone Trio portraits (from Gitaroo Man) and I've compiled them into a single image.

Pine, Carrot & Soda

 It's been fun working on the portraits and I'm really happy with how each one turned out. For anyone who's interested in Gitaroo Man I've added a clip from the game, featuring the battle with Pine, Carrot, and Soda.

  Thanks for checking them out!

Extreme Makeover: White Walker Edition

First, I need to gush a little bit. I love Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice & Fire. I've watched both seasons of the show and I've started reading the the 3rd book, A Storm of Swords. It's an amazing story and I love all of the richly detailed characters. Even the characters I hate as people I still love as characters. Anyone who likes fantasy settings and great characters should check out the books and the show. Each version of the story has aspects that I prefer over the other and in the end I'm really happy that both versions exist. Anyways onto the artwork...

This piece started off with me wanting to do a portrait of myself as an icy, undead wight, and in the end I decided to add in some of my close friends. They know who they are. Thanks for stopping by!