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Contents
Ideation
Character Design
Tonal, Lighting And Colour
Ideation
This week is the World Ideation stage of the process where we come up with concepts of potential worlds
Day 1 – The initial ideation took place upon our whiteboard. As a group, we fired out as many ideas as we could within about half an hour or so.
We worked off each others ideas in an attempt to link, improve upon or else completely change them entirely. The initial ideas weren’t great, creative or special in any way (as expected)… However, they definitely were improving as time went on.
Then once we had split up, I began coming up with new ideas. I tried to make more creative, intuitive and imaginative ideas for a world. The majority of the first 30-40 odd had been done before in films, games or other things that I had watched and played throughout my lifetime. However, the next 30 or so were getting a bit more interesting and unique.
The following day, after meeting up with one of my team members to discuss further ideas and more complex concepts, I started to draft my own more detailed and honed-in ideas to pitch to the group.
I contemplated many ideas and tried to think of it both logically and imaginatively. For each of my ideas I tried to come up with a structure/design for the concept. I thought about areas like:
How does it sustain itself? What sort of inhabitants roam the planet? How big is it to be? What is going on in the planet? Does it have other planets close by? What are the relationships between its inhabitants and between it and other planets? Or even, is it a planet?
My concepts were worlds such as, a man-made (Sci-Fi) world, prison world, astral beings, a banished world of complete darkness and even a world being built inside a world. Below, is an example of one of my concepts.
Collectively, we finished up with around 20 different concepts designs and ideas for our World. Leaving the next group to follow on with our top 5 concepts.
I didn’t really have much influence from any other sources for the first three concepts.
For my man-made world I took influence from Elysium and a TV series called The 100.
I was influenced by films such as Priest, Mad Max and Elysium for my “Banished World”.
Character Design
The teams were switched up this week and now I am designing characters with another group for “Mushroom World”.
To start the week off, our groups were mixed up, providing me with both a new world concept to work on as well as a new team to work with.
Initially, we struggled to limit the potential world concepts that were given down to one. As a group we decided it would be one of two concepts. It was either going to be the civilization living in a hologram on the back of a giant bio-mechanical space squid like creature, or else a gaseous sponge-like mushroom world.
Initial research led me to these sort of designs –
The colours and shapes of this piece of art leave it open to interpretation on good and evil, safe and dangerous etc. I think this needs to be an aspect of the new world and characters that I am working on this week.
I found these mushroom-like creatures while surfing the internet. I found them to be very interesting, unique and relevant to the potential “gaseous” and infectious life that the planet could inhabit. I like the form and shape of these creatures as they don’t look intimidating. Meanwhile, at the same time they look almost infected/dead. These are key characteristics that I imagine when I picture the inhabitants of the sponge-like planet.
Today we discussed how the planet reacts to other planets and/or lifeforms… We discussed the possibility of the planet consuming other planets, alongside the idea that it infects them (causing them to mutate into a planet similar to the “host” planet). I feel that the infection could cause transformations/mutations within creatures that it comes into contact with also, something along the lines of this (image below).
Below are some of my character designs:
These were some of my favourite designs that I had drew out. Two of which were used as our main characters.
These were some of my other designs which I didn’t like as much…
Tonal, Lighting And Colour
The teams were mixed up again. However, I didn’t move as I am the remaining member of the group, left to explain the idea of “Mushroom World” to the new group who are taking it on.
As a group we discussed different ways of lighting our world. We talked about chiaroscuro lighting and how that would impact the world. We felt that this would be suitable for a “Mushroom Planet” due to the fact that a mushroom is a fungus and doesn’t require light to grow or survive in most cases.
Fungus definition found on Dictionary.Com – “A diverse group of eukaryotic single-celled or multinucleate organisms that live by decomposing and absorbing the organic material in which they grow, comprising the mushrooms, molds, mildews,smuts, rusts, and yeasts”. It is further described as “a spongy, abnormal growth”.
Below is painting by Rembrandt in chiaroscuro lighting. This piece is very intriguing and unique. The painter himself is world renowned and is known as the “Master of Shadow and Light” by many sources. Therefore, who’s art would be better to examine? I feel that this style of lighting, with the deep dark shadows and the piercing light would be very viable for the environment of the mushroom-like world that I am working on currently.
Below is an example of a deserted mushroom wasteland which I drew up on Photoshop this week.
My design of a Deserted Mushroom Wasteland
I decided to focus upon the tones rather than introducing any form of colour. This was difficult for me to create an entirely tonal piece. The lighter and darker areas create a clear contrast, although they don’t necessarily follow all the rules of chiaroscuro lighting. As you can see there is also a thick fog throughout the piece, this is to reflect the gaseous spore-like environment alongside the mystery that surrounds the uncharted lands.
Pen sketch by the previous weeks team
I designed this piece based upon a rough pen sketch drawn by the previous weeks team (which I was also part off). However, it was an attempt to build a more detailed picture of the type of environments the characters could/would be subjected to. Within the pen sketch a few of the “Spore Towers” were placed to give them an initial purpose, belonging or location to associate them with. The basis and structure still remains within my Photoshop illustrated piece.
An example of an influence upon my design was Pixar’s UP. The foggy environment seen within the film and the silhouetted rock formations helped aid me when designing the environment for the deserted mushroom wasteland.
Pixar’s UP – Silhouetted Rock Formations Inspiration
The light source hasn’t yet been fully decided upon. I had initially envisioned spores or orbs of light for the world. A few different lighting techniques/styles of this from within film came to mind, such as, Guardians of the Galaxy, Brave, Avatar.
The way the forest lit itself nocturnally in Avatar was also very inspiring, it may be a viable way of creating light within the world I am working on currently (Mushroom World). This could be a further reasoning to why my Mushroom Wasteland design could be so dark and dreary (due to the lack of living plants to produce light). Below is a piece of fan art by an artist by the name of Ryan Church, I found his work inspiring, and this is an example of the type of artwork that brought me to the idea of bio-luminescent mushrooms, plants and/or wild-life.
Other such artwork would be –
- “Shroom World”, by “Earthbound”. (The image below)
This piece further inspired the bio-luminescent plant idea/concept, I am really beginning to get a better picture of how the world could be lit (without the direct need of a sun or moon). The light originating from the top of the plant creating a dim glow/atmosphere might be a very successful way to light a section of the planet. For example, a mushroom forest. However, I feel a foggier environment would be more suitable to the dense atmosphere that was envisioned. The idea was thrown around of a smokey fog or mist being produced from the mushrooms… This could be the origination for the light spores.
- “Mushroom Fantasy World”, on HDWallpaperDaily.Com.
Unfortunately, I was unable to find out more about the artist. However, it does have bio-luminescent plant life within its canvas and the spore-like lights floating around/glowing. There is a clear similarity to this piece and my other research. However, the most clear similarity would be to Avatar, which I feel will be a key area of aspiration and influence within our world.
Based upon some of this research I began to experiment with light sources. Playing around with the light orbs concept aiming for a similar design as seen in the Guardians of the Galaxy GIF above. In order to experiment further, I made a quick design of one of our characters alongside my initial orb designs, allowing me to test how light would hit the character if it was to be done in this way.
My initial test with light orbs
I found this design to be reasonably successful although the piece is unfinished, the concept is there and seemed to get the general consensus of approval from the group. The light source of our “Mushroom World” is still undecided upon, at this point in time we are thinking of a combination of light sources. However, as a result of my research I would be leaning more towards light spores and bio-luminescent lighting for the light source of “Mushroom World”.
Below is another piece of Avatar concept artwork. This piece was done by Dylan Cole and captures the destruction of the forest of Pandora. The reason I find this piece inspiring is the thickness of the air. The fog, mist and smoke really add to the depth of the piece and create a clear representation of cold and warm light. The initial idea of the lighting within our world would be more of a cold light, although, seeing this piece master them both so well, we may be inclined to dip into warm light for different areas of the world.
Victor Lam is another artist who worked on Avatar fan/concept art. I stumbled across his work when scrolling through the vast amount of amazing artwork on DeviantArt.Com.
Below is a piece of his work called “Mushroom Forest”.
His work with light and colour is absolutely incredible and I find his work extremely relevant to the “Mushroom World” that I am working on currently. I am intending on experimenting further with this concept of bio-luminescence within the plant life of the planet. I intend on making use of a similar colour scheme within my piece as seen in Victor Lams piece above and from within Avatar.
The design of this treehouse is fantastic, I am considering making use of a similar design for the potential houses of our worlds characters. I feel that this would be very suiting to the characters as they are more “tribal” in nature. Therefore, a natural setting would be ideal for them, especially since it is quite dull and dark, making it ideal for fungal growth.
These were only a few pieces out of many which I found useful from Victor Lam’s gallery, if you want to see more, click here.
However, onto another artist, Christian Gerth, another digital fantasy artist had designed this piece called “Swamp”. Although the piece is extremely well lit and coloured, it was more the design that struck me about this piece. The strong root-like structures could be a further way of creating a dark environment for the world or even an area of the world. This would perhaps allow us to stray a bit further away from the typical mushroom and domed-head designs in which we have been illustrating our pieces so far.
I went back and began working further upon the lighting techniques and I designed a mushroom forest to put the small Scout creature into. I experimented with a primarily green colour scheme, similar to the one found in the two pieces I mentioned previously by Victor Lam. Click here for a reminder.
My piece and further experimentation with light orbs and surroundings.
I started with the “Initial Tones” to make a tonal piece, I then added temperatures to it to add a sense of warm and cold to the piece. The colour pallet was then used and I mixed the colours together to create further tones to use. To finish the piece I made use of more warm and cool colour tones to help create lighter and darker areas within the piece.
I didn’t mention this tonal piece (below) which I drew that places our Shaman character into the scene. The character placement gave more meaning to the piece, allowing me to better visualize and understand both the set, and the world more. I used artists and sources such as Victor Lam and Pixar’s UP to help with the design of this piece. However, I have come across another conceptual artist by the name of Michael Kutsche who has helped me to gain a better understanding of composition and light. (Click to view my post on his work).
Tonal Piece – Shaman Venturing Outside The House
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