Space and Environment Final Crit Presentation

Space and Environment Final Crit Presentation by Livi Wilmore

Last Two Final Pieces

These are my last two final pieces

Forest Depths (94 - 98)

Here I experimented with some more composition and colour for my second key scene.

Stepping out into Pellucidar

This is my first piece of concept art as it stands, might mess around with the colour a little more. Feedback welcome!

Beach Scene Colour Scheme (83 - 93)

I decided to change my design concept for the beach scene for a more dream like approach, as if looking the characters are just first stepping out and opening their eyes to this new, never seen before land. I drew inspiration from this concept art for Pixar's Wreck it Ralph, and this image of a pastel sunset. Using these for inspiration I created a colour scheme on Online Colour Scheme Designer

I created the thumbnails below based on this colour scheme, and developed some of them with a blur around the edge and a de-focused, light shining effect to give the impression of a first look out.

Although I like the new colour scheme I felt it was going more down a candy land line than de saturated pastel. I combated this by desaturating some thumbnails- I like this effect much more.

Brave Concept Art Copy

This is a copy I did of some concept art for Pixar's Brave. I did it to practice my use of colour and foreground fading into background. I also liked the way the tree frames the shot.

Thumbnails 65 - 82/ Colour and Perspective Practice

I was inspired by "The Caves of Drach" in Majorca for the last section of my extract when the characters are in a deep underground section of the temple. I immediately went and had a look at some of the photos i'd taken there.

I traced the images on photoshop and rendered them to make them look more like full scenes rather than parts of rocks. I then added more components and depths to the scenes and tried adding different colours to create a more eerie underground atmosphere.

I used this images as inspiration to create a new image using what i'd learnt about perspective- using one point to draw attention to a part of the image. I also tried out three point perspective on a treehouse temple scene- I like the intimidating angle of (80).

Thumbnails 42 - 64

      

                  

Here is my next batch of thumbnail sketches and the research supporting them. The next section of the book describes a town high up the trees, I wanted to create the atmosphere of a place that was hidden and difficult to get to, surrounded by other unknowns. 

Inspirational Artist - Rex Whistler

(Rex Whistler mural at Plas Newydd)

Although not conventionally linked to CG, I have chosen Rex Whistler as my inspirational artist. Rex Whistler was a british painter, graphic artist and illustrator active in the early 20th century but famous for his work boasting styles from the 18th century. I am particularly inspired by the mural above. I find the composition impressive - considering how many images, idea and messages it has, it does not feel too overcrowded or busy. Theres is always something new to took at when you see this painting, I like the idea of having multiple stories or ideas stemming out of one image. I like to look at his work close up as, unlike some artists, it is easy to tell the breakdown of the brushstrokes- which I find useful to study.

Thumbnails 16 - 41

The next part of the passage was about the view of the land they had arrived at, I focused in on the description of the clear sky with no horizon, islands dotted around and the comparison to the West Indies. I liked the idea of the formations being slightly unnatural and unusual, as the idea of the place is that there is something unearthly about it. This made me think of Hatachi park in Japan (pictured on mood board bottom left) where their is fields and fields of this round vegetation- i't's beautifully unsettling. 

I looked up photos of the west indies and created some colour swatches based on the colours I saw most often. In image 33 I sketched up a basic idea for one of the islands, with inspiration from Hatachi park on top.

The next passage of the book mentions going into the forest, with vegetation hanging from trees to trees, I incorporated  this into a few of my thumbnails, I like these ones particularly as I think it really helps the composition.

Getting deeper into the forest using images of plants from the West Indies I researched.

For the next few thumbnails I tried using photoshop to create light in different ways using different brushes. I took inspiration from a photo I took one morning with the light shining through the trees.

Research and First Thumbnails 1 - 15

 These are my first thumbnail sketches I completed after researching the first part of the extract. When I first read through this part, where the characters are on the ship and break through the earths core, I was intrigued by the word "ice stratum" having not heard of it before. This research is what brought me to the picture at the top left- I found out that a stratum was made up of layers of rock which I then used as inspiration on my first thumbnails, and the icy colour ones at the end. My initial thought  when I read about exploring the unknown in a large machine was the push in curiosity in the 19th century that came with industrialisation, and then naturally onto steampunk. I thought this would also give a lot of scope for some of the items described such as the chronometer and the door they escape from. I found out the book was written in 1914- the year the first world war broke out. This led me to conjure up many metaphors behind the idea of large industrials machines unwelcome in foreign lands, i wanted to reflect this in my thumbnails so looked up WW1 tanks.

Space and Environment- At The Earth's Core

Yesterday we were given the beginnings of our first assignment, to do a series of sketches based on excerpts from a classic book. I was given "At The Earth's Core",  which after some research I discovered was a fantasy novel written in 1914 by Edgar Rice Burroughs about a world inside of a hollow earth. My first thought was that any book written by someone called Edgar was going to be pretty good (What happend to names like that?). I went through the excerpts and highlighted all the bits I think might help me later- anything describing the setting/ environment.