Environment Design Rocks!

[Adam Lina]

Finished just in time XD

[vlada]

I DID IT. The forum ate my post twice so I had to rewrite it but the assignment should have been uploaded on time.

So I'm actually really excited for this project because this is the first time in a while that I feel like I am just doing *me*. Unfiltered and fun and pushing my influences and design buttons to the limit. 

All pencil, had to crouch on busses and between lectures; not as clean as I would have liked but I think I actually make more interesting shapes when I work on paper (and weirdly, work faster). 

THE TRAVELLING MARKET
Moodboard: https://www.pinterest.com/paracoma/market-square/

The world is heavily influenced by Venice and other water-locked cities, like St. Petersburg and Istanbul. I have not been to Venice, but I have been to the latter two, and this spring I have spent several weeks on an island in New England. We had to get everywhere by boat, no matter where you looked you saw water, and things had a very interesting vibe I really fell in love with. So that's where I drew inspiration for this not-yet-named city. 

LOCATION: city
TIME OF DAY: night/late evening
MOOD/THEME/EMOTION: bustling, hustling, magical, weird, spooky
WEATHER: misty
GENRE: fantasy
PERIOD: vaguely 16th century
OBSTACLES: water, floating docks
FOCAL POINTS: ferry entryway, event square, main docks
ACTIVITIES: shopping, carnival, magic
PURPOSE: classic RPG vibe; animation

The city is ran by witches and warlocks, and its main exports are magic and the occult. Everyone and their mother has secretly made pacts with demons; some even suspect that demons disguise themselves as performers and vendors during the night of the Market. Think Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere meets Zelda and Assassin's Creed. 

The authorities know about the market and quietly tolerate it. They cannot prevent the boats invading random ports, and it is a major attraction for tourists -- as a result, a lot of unregulated goods make their way under the tables.




Moving forward, I'd like to develop more of the specific stalls/boats and the patrons of the market; the kinds of characters and the kinds of goods that pass through it.


Mind map and closeup of the top-down plan (please pardon my writing D:):

Spoiler

[Broadway]

Here's mine - it's a horror game set on a Texas ranch. I spent a bunch of time in these types of ranch houses with my family as a kid and they can be super creepy. And being out in the woods at night it's of course really easy to get creeped out. Every time I visit a ranch I think how there should really be a scary game set on one.

I don't have much really figured out, IP wise - I don't know really what the plot is, or what the gameplay would really be like. I did illustrate one idea I had (my favorite comp, but I didn't get around to coloring it!) of a mechanic where you bowhunt the monster, which of course requires that you be hidden and set up, probably with bait (a deer carcass in the comp) before you have a hope of shooting it.

I was trying to figure out what a good creepy country-type monster would be, and found the Wiki page for skin-walkers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin-walker - creepy shit! I haven't actually done any design on the creature(s), but it DOES appear in all the comps except the first "road to the house" one - going for that "WHEN U SEE IT YOULL SHIT BRIX" meme effect :)

Included the notans in my image here, I also had a few pages of pencil thumbs that preceded the notans, with many more "failures" that I didn't bother to notan :)

Side note, my monitor is still calibrated all wonky, I'm getting a new one this week but these might have some weird color shifts / saturation issues :(

[yog joshi]

wow awesome work everyone! Broadway you are killin it! Love it.

-Here is my submission for week 4. I really dont have any story behind these pieces. I should have established a story/blue print before hand, would have made my life a lot easier. Maybe I will start to develop a story this upcoming week. Cheers

[Amit Dutta]

Wow, you guys pulled it all out! Was thinking I'd only have a dozen submissions this week but no...FANTASTIC work everyone. :)
My brother was peeking over my shoulder (not an art guy) and was saying how professional he thought everyone's presentations were, so you get his seal of approval too :P
Enjoy your rest...but keep those minds working.

[KurtJeremy]

Ahh im still having difficulties with coming up comps, i swear this took me a lot of time than it looked like.

[wasgodx]

Congratulations everybody, fantastic and amazing work.

Y'all are the type of artists that inspire beginners like me on their discipline.

[tmldraws]

Hey Amit, 
First of all, i'd like to thank you so much for your Amazing Critique and this whole mentorship programme.
After missing Last weeks assignment, finally i have done this one (not properly though).Glad not to miss this week 4 assignment (narrowly made it).The past few weeks had been so hard for me.Hope to continue properly from now on.
And after watching other classmates Awesome work, it would be real shame for me to miss any more assignments in the coming weeks.I forgot to add my notans and thumbnail iterations with the original submission, so i added those here.Please accept my apology Amit.I rushed it to meet the deadline :(

Project outline : An outcast man trying to reclaim his honor by saving the human race.
(While doing this week assignment i realized how hard it is to tell convincing story through Image.But it is one of the most fascinating part for me on this project as it is super super fun to think different aspects of a story on my own!!Have to learn a lot in the coming weeks)

Plot:
Set in an medieval time period when human civilization is attacked brutally by a alien race for a object of great power.
A vagabond/hunter/outcast named Zeeshu  (hero of this story) is exploring different world/locations through time machine/portal (I added the time machine /portal aspect to show different locations both ancient and futuristic || fantasy/sci-fi) to find an ancient object.This object is a very powerful ancient stone which was hidden by an ancient alien civilization to protect the universe from the evil Lord Vargas.Zeeshu must have to find the object before lord Vargas's army and provide it to his master Shazaam.
(still have lots and lots of work to do to shape the story.Couldn't able to figure it out yet.)

And Awesome work mates.It's been a real pleasure to have worked with you.So much to learn from you. :D

[Olooriel]

Finished assignment 2, the one I missed due to to my vacation... I tried to fix the ones I got feedback for on the forum earlier, more or less successfully... second one was supposed to be the 3-point perspective, but I messed that up. This one was the assignment I struggled the most on so far, I really don't have values and perspective down yet :(

[IrishWhiskey]

The improvement by everyone on this is astonishing, you guys are awesome!!!

If it wasn't clear before it is now! Amit is a gent and a scholar ಠ_ರೃ

[TwilightExplode]

Wow! Everyone's work is looking amazing! Hoping I have a bit more time for this next assignment. Looking forward to receiving my crit. I've pretty much only had the time to work in my sketchbook at work, so most of my ideation process was taken care of in pen. It was kind of nice because once you lay down a line, you have to roll with it.

[vossgraphite]

Another late submission.

I'm always super interested in ways that we can, or may survive in the future, especially with environmental issues and over population. So I wanted turn this assignment into something that would satisfy that interest. Pretty much a world where rooftop gardens are taken to the extreme.

Definitely think I need more development, and I want to do some 3D models which should speed things up.

Apology for the two photos, I formatted everything WAY too big and the size was two big for one :)

[ZombieChinchilla]

Hey, guys. Man, this thread is bursting with amazing creative juices, really really awesome stuff!! I can't wait to get started on mine now that I'm home.

Man, I went on a long trip with some friends to Ireland and Paris and I gotta say, although I was initially disappointed in missing out this week I think it's for the best. The world is a beautiful place, so I thought I'd share some inspiring places and artwork I saw while on my travels.

[KurtJeremy]

wow stunning places indeed. nothing beats being there though.
im pretty sure you can take in a lot of pointers when going into those actual places, so yeah , that will totally benefit you into your work. keep it up man !

[monkeybit29]

Thanks a lot for the critique amit!!
I thought I was happy with my value study, but then I saw how much further I would be able to push it when you painted over it hahaha
Definitely helps out a ton, I have a lot of work to do

[Amit Dutta]

@monkeybit: My pleasure man! Glad it was useful. :)
@Zombie: thanks for sharing..Great stuff!

SO, yet again another horrendously busy week..really has been the worst timing possible to run this, Hopefully in two weeks I will free up a little bit more.

Anyway, so as you can tell the crits are dribbling out...and I expect them to remain dribbling out this week because I don't have a lot of time. Unfortunately, this craps on the previous arrangement of giving everyone the same amount of time to progress each week.

SO, as we are all working on different projects and doing different things, I am going to build in your own "assignments" directly into your crits. When you get your crit you will get some tasks and things to work on to develop and take your ideas further.  There will not be common "assignments" besides working up your projects.

I will set some "show me what you got so far" deadlines to keep you accountable. So whatever you have you have to post at that time. 

I think this will work a bit better. I will still want to show you guys some photobashing and detailing techniques as we go, but perhaps these will be demonstrated within various critiques instead, in order to be more efficient with my time. Yet to be seen.

Bear with me peeps!

[Cyprinus]

Thanks so much for the crit, Amit! It was really helpful. I already started working on some more stuff for the project, but it's not that much yet...>_<
Where will you announce the deadlines? I just had a look at the google calender but I'm not sure if it's up to date. I'm sorry if you haven't posted anything about it yet and I'm kind of hasty, I just don't want to miss it >_<

I also understand your feelings about the timing. I also thought I would have more time now, and I'm also so busy all of a sudden. I hope you get trough the busy phase well!! Thanks for still managing to give those crits and assignments...! :>

[Amit Dutta]

Caro, No problems! Don't worry too much about next deadlines...I will announce them when I can, definitely not before next Friday I think!

So an update. I have basically been taken out of action completely this week.

I think I can get a bit of time on Sunday (NZ time) to finish the remaining critiques. I think from now on instead of recording them individually I will do a livestream and bang them all out in one go. I have come to the conclusion that this is the better more efficient way to do it.

I will announce the time and date at least a day in advance if I can and update the calendar. If you can make it come along and ask me questions directly about your crits. Also there will no longer be "assignments". You will just be working on your project and getting/implementing feedback :)

[monkeybit29]

So here are my revisions from the last critique, I had some issues with getting the faraway rainy cloud effect. It is super helpful when you mention specific artist and locations, I'm in love with Eytan Zana's work. It also really helps to see how you and him break up shapes, especially with rocks.

Anywho, I have two questions regarding the new direction of teaching.
1. When we submit our assignments, do we still keep them in 1200 width?
2. Will these livestreams be available to watch again at a later time? I usually can never find the time to attend one :^C

Thanks again! :^)

[Amit Dutta]

Great stuff monkeybit. I think you've done well with the rain effect, with a tiny bit of pushing this will be a really nice moody piece! While I'm getting ready for the crit stream on Sunday, why don't you take the time to start to iterate the architecture design of the castle/rock. Gather some ref and then you can do separate line sketches or silhouettes to try out different ideas, so when we get to detailing you will really know what is going to happen! To answer your questions:

1. I will still implement the uploader for people to use and submit stuff before I do a crit stream so you can submit full res there. I don't see a problem uploading slightly larger files into the thread...just not 3-4000px files!

2. The livestreams are all recorded on my channel, so will be available afterwards.