Crimson Daggers — Art forum

Hey guys!
Was wondering if i could get a hand with the early stages of the concept im working on at the moment- its a very near future slum in a western country, I wanted it to have a rainy, damp kind of environment.
Architecture really isnt my strong point and this has been one of the hardest pieces ive done so any help would be awesome- i want the buildings to made out of corrugated iron and some plaster bits like http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Envi...ra-009.jpg

That is the feel im going for- this will be a multiplayer map so i will have some bridges i think intersecting between the buildings.
NOTE: This is very much a WIP, about 40 mins in or so.
Any help would be awesome!
Thanks

If you are insecure concerning architecture, I'd suggest doing this the hard way and start out with a line drawing... establish all the perspective you need, and draw all those buildings as detailed as you need to get a clear vision of what you want. You could also step back even further and start with some rough and small thumbnails to make sure you are working on the strongest concept/composition of all you can think of.
So far I like the subdued mood of it and the wet ground, but can't really tell a lot of what is going on otherwise.

Yeah thats what i ended up doing before but everything got so confused. im not a very line-drawing person, though i need to practice it i think. Great advice though, that is what i think i will keep forcing myself to do in the future!
Update:

update

Yo man, did I see somewhere you got accepted into a school somewhere? If so congrats man! Fire it up!

I guess I could talk about some issues with this image with things like, thumbs to play with more interesting perspective, adding more foreground to add depth, having more transitions from one depth level to another again to add depth, really working with subtler values transitions and identifying light sources and rendering everything accordingly, thinking about colour schemes so that things are less gray overall. But I won't.

Instead I'm going to start up on the why? Yeah totally new level of crit. As a designer, you have a brief, you have something you want to portray. The thing to remember is while creating an engaging image you also have to be as blunt and clear about what you are trying to portray as possible. Looking at this image..is it a slum? Yeah probably. It's definitely decrepit. Is it a "western" city (what exactly is that anyway?) Ummm who knows? It kinda looks favela or shanty like...could be Jamaica, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg... There is no hint to give us a clue.

Environments and cityscapes aren't just about building and architecture design. Lighting, people, signage, weather, animal life, vehicles, infrastructure type, activity...all these things can give us hints as to where/when we are. I think besides the technical image making stuff, this is what you need to really start thinking about before/during the initial stages of your design. There is nothing at all going on in this image. It is a shell. If you have read the Langoliers by Stephen King, it is like the world of a particular instant in time that is completely devoid of life that they eat up. This feels like their world.

You seem stuck to mostly level 1 point or shallow 2 point perspectives. Really try to mix it up more. Study other enviroment artists...what do they do. James Paick, Robh Ruppel and Eduardo Pena (Chino Rino) are good examples of using perspective well. Check out Eduardo's ca.org thread. I look to him for beautiful value control and interesting but simple perspective and composition ideas ideas. http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthr...p?t=271890
It may also help to think cinematically in order to create a bit of narrative.

Also consider using 3D programs to help you come up with some base plates that you can build your environments on to make this easier for you to visualise

Ok that's enough gold for one crit. Hop to it. :)

(02-05-2014, 08:56 PM)monkeybread Wrote: [ -> ]Yo man, did I see somewhere you got accepted into a school somewhere? If so congrats man! Fire it up!

Hey! Yeah i got an unconditional to London College of Communication for a foundation in art and design- gonna learn some graphic and product design and basic architecture with an emphasis on 3D and the actual technical design aspects. So basically im gonna tailor the course so that I can learn some back up trades as a plan B, as well as learn a load of great skills for my concept stuff! Thats the plan at least (apparently its meant to be amongst the top design colleges in the UK and internationally, so stoked to get in!).

Oh god I know! Nearly every single one of those cropped into my head as ive been painting, i struggle a hell of a lot with man made stuff though, i can never work out the right colour schemes, everything starts to get cluttered and fuse together- like the arch on the top left with the pillar- it just molds into the midground and looks out of place because i didnt want to slap it anywhere central... I dunno I really hate this one but I'm actually quite happy with how its come on, comparing my attempts at it about a month ago to today.
The design language is very indian slum style which i recognised (albeit belatedly) is a big fault, but I really couldnt find any references for slums that would be made in a post apocalyptic style UK setting. I should have gone with more corrugated iron and maybe big plaster boards or something but then everything is grey which I hate.

Haha i have missed your poetically brutal critique (and thats genuine, I love it :D), yes it is a shell I completely agree. I was stumped at what i could do to make it more alive and less... awkward and cliche and out of place. What would you reccomend to build into it? Your ideas about vehicles and signs are good pointers but I'm not sure if there would be signs, or vehicles really as its a slum. I dont know how to say 'UK post apocalyptic slum' well, because its hard to imagine a less developed UK!

As for perspective, you hit the nail on the head. All my stuff turns out looking like the same sh*t and it really bugs me, and I've tried 3 point perspective but everything seems to get bunched up and I struggle a lot with it. Which means, as i have just told myself sternly, I need to do it more. Honestly I'm sick of looking at this heap of poop, I'm going to do another shot of a different important part of the map and actually get off my arse and do some thumbs using 3 point perspective, and actually bring it alive if I can. Any pointers to improve the narrative itself would be awesome because I have no clue. That artist you linked to is insane! Tutors at FZD by the look of it, i love his cityscapes- another example where i kick myself thinking 'god damn that second image is exactly what i want to paint and hes done it already!!'. Such epic angles. As for 3D, thats a whole scary new world I dont think im quite ready for yet, will be learning that at LCC so for the meantime i think i will hold off (I have nightmares about google sketchup occasionally...)

Ok what I really need help with is- colour pallette and design features. I cant think of a colour pallette for an overcast day with grey plaster and corrugated iron that isnt well... grey. Any tips? Your crit is always very insightful and appreciated, I need to start thinking about what im painting not just doodling. All the best man :)

Started over. I hate the one before and its just not a well thought through design.
So, im trying to make it firstly: more british and less indian
secondly: more dynamic
thirdly: a better colour scheme.

So here are my thumbs, i dont really know if they will make much sense to you guys but if you have any favourites please go ahead.
Included the colour one i was originally going to roll ahead with to show my colour scheme that im planning.

Also realised that as usual i got carried away and made it a sci fi slum with huge pillars of slum housing which is jut not realistic straight after an apocalypse. So yeah.

(02-07-2014, 04:44 AM)Ward217 Wrote: [ -> ]Started over. I hate the one before and its just not a well thought through design.
So, im trying to make it firstly: more british and less indian
secondly: more dynamic
thirdly: a better colour scheme.

So here are my thumbs, i dont really know if they will make much sense to you guys but if you have any favourites please go ahead.
Included the colour one i was originally going to roll ahead with to show my colour scheme that im planning.

Also realised that as usual i got carried away and made it a sci fi slum with huge pillars of slum housing which is jut not realistic straight after an apocalypse. So yeah.

I like number 3 best, it has an opening up to the light and sky, so feels more hopeful than that one with the bridge. The color themes all look the same though, with number 3 on the bluish side.

After much deliberation i went with 4 in the end, sorry I have considered your opinion meat its just i felt that 3 leaned to much into sci fi- ive recently been told it should be an american shopping style street with some modifications for survival which of course has changed everything AGAIN. No resentment there at all...
So here is what I've compromised with.
Just some texture overlays and blocking out.
Let me know what you think :)

4 appealed to me the most, so I'm glad you chose that one! I'm no expert on environments at all, so my critique probably doesn't count for much and I don't have much to say, but I hope it helps a bit regardless!

I think that you should maybe try and work on making the forms a bit more solid. While the messy style works pretty well for the post apocalyptic stuff it's still a bit hard to figure out what everthing is supposed to be, it makes the textures seem like they've been applied a bit randomly. I do really like the colours you used, but maybe you could try to experiment with a couple of different schemes aswell, to see what you can get out of the picture!

Again I really like where you're going with the picture, just looking to give a bit of feedback ^^ I hope it was useful!

update for y'all.
made it more of a cinematic ratio, composition still sucks, may have a dude or a few barrels in the near foreground.