Minor Project: Room Thumbnails

Here are some quick drafts of the interior of the house I want to create and trying to really think about how anxiety will come through with the house aesthetics. I want to house to really feel like anxiety and this includes: 

• Imprisonment
• Harsh angles
• Exaggerated perspectives
• Dark/Dull 
• Angular

Fantastic Voyage: Thumbnail Ideas

From these thumbnails I will experimenting on how to get a painterly watercolour background without it looking messy but still trying to to work quite quickly and keeping it loose. I am still experimenting on how to achieve this within Photoshop. I want the spores to contrast with the overall scene so they stand out in the animation. With my previous concept art I felt the background did not stand out as much so I decided to darken to background for these paintings, I feel they work better but it has given it a very dark atmosphere turning it almost Gothic, I feel like it needs to be uplifted so my animation does not feel dark. 

Fantastic Voyage: Thumbnails and colour experimentation

I chose to go with the blue colour as it will complement the colour of the spores when they appear on the animation, I think I am going more towards the style of ''The silence beneath the bark'' with the painterly backgrounds. I want the white the symbolise the forestry background of the ferns habitat. The idea that I am going with is to have all the silhouettes in white apart from the main fern that I am focusing on for the animation and then to introduce colours for the spores.

Script to Screen: Character design Silhouettes Magician

Secret Lairs: Colour comps

Some colour comps experimenting with colour and helping my scene stand out, the original seemed a bit muddy and grey, therefore I wanted to bring in a complementary colour such as blue and a bit of purple in shadows, as blue is a colour of power, this will help the audience to understand that this room is for a queen.

Composition Thumbnails: Secret Lair

Thinking of different compositions that can work with my lair with the hero prop being the main focus. I want my hero prop to be a holy water font that is formed on a stone structure (the one you see in the thumbnails). The font will be apart of the stone structure itself. I was thinking to having the stone font structure having a mirror up the top where the sun shines down into the scene leaving an encryption on the floor - a message from the gods. Or perhaps having the encryption light up on the font rather than a projection. I want the lair to be a place of solitude, restoration, holiness, calmness and royalty. I don't want the scene to feel busy, therefore having the encryption on the font light up on would be a better approach.

Secret Lairs: Thumbnails (28-31)

After watching Feng Zhu's most recent video it had inspire me to go back to the line drawing approach when designing my lair. Therefore I started these series of thumbnails with a line drawing then onto value range in black and white using four values and then applying colour on top of them. I worked on three simultaneously so I wasn't too precious with my paintings and approached them as designs rather than finished paintings.

After completing the three designs I turned off the line work to see if they are working as a painting and as to a surprise they were starting to take shape, I especially like the portrait painting and the blue landscape. Following from these I will do an environment prop sheet, and a hero prop sheet so I can finalize the design on the shrine/grave tomb of the king and the surrounding area.

I felt as though I had more control over the whole scene when designing with the perspective grids and drawing lines as compared to blocking out environments, it's an approach which I shall use in  the future, although I need to work on my draftsmanship and line quality for it to really benefit me later on.

Colour Thumbnails Lair Designs 1

Starting to incorporate colour within my thumbnails now to set the mood of the scene. This exercise was quick 30min-45min studies focusing on colour and atmosphere. Design wise I was thinking , tall pillars inside of the cave to give it more of a cathedral structure. The lair is still going to be a holy place, but with the shrine of the queens husband as the place of worship. I chose this  because I have decided to change the narrative being:  ''king Phruox, has given his soul to mountain and it is believed that his spirit is what is stopping the walls around them from caving in''.

I think I will have the shrine lit up with candles by its feet, and to have some other lights hanging from the pillars to help light up the scene. I'm having a bit of trouble with the background of the piece and still unsure how to paint that into the scene but by doing these more I think it will help my design development  and it will help especially with the use colour :).

Seceret Lairs: Thumbnails (19-24)

After speaking with Jordon I had decided to experiment with the idea of the room being the kings burial site where the queen would be buried as well, being one of the most sacred grounds within the mountain. I looked in the tombs in Lord of the Rings, and temple/cathedral architecture to incorporate within my design of the interior of the mountain. I've decided to stay away from the rock idea as the mountains will be full of rocks also. Therefore I can start to explore the designs of the catacombs within the mountain where the royals are buried.

Secret Lair: Thumbnails (10-18)

Exploring to see what inside a mountain would look like, I want this place to be a holy place where the queen would go to seek the elder people who can speak to the gods, much like the scene in 300 when he climbs up the stone structure to speak to the oracles.

Secret Liar: thumbnails (0-9)

I saved them! :), Here are my first 9 thumbnails about my lair. I was thinking about a central tombstone that is huge in the center of the cave/tomb. The light coming from it I was thinking maybe a the sun light coming through the top of the cave, and maybe having some water in the cave to give it a sense of holiness. Also rivers start at the top of mountains  so this could be the area where the river starts from, hence the water inside of the tomb.

Pre Secret Lairs: Thumbnail Practice

In Jordon's Photoshop lesson on Monday we were given a short amount of time around 15 minutes to gather research and do a page of thumbnails for them specific topics that were given, them being: Steam Punk Explorer, Candy Land Huntsman and Gaelic Golem. This was an exercise that I am going to use for my idea to generate my thumbnails when looking at my own Secret lair. I dont think I will work straight into colour as this took the most time and I feel when thinking about colour that requires a whole other day to get the right palate for your scene.

Early Thumbnails for The Pit

The above are the early thumbnails I did for The Pit and the Pendulum at the begging of the project.

Perspective exercises just figuring out how different forms would be in 1, 2 and 3 point perspective.

These were some quick thumbnails for the Wednesday environment that I did :).

Wednesday Environment Thumbnail

 

Wednesday environment thumbnail, I really enjoyed this one. I have been working on Poe recently this gave me a chance to design an environment of which I personally really like. Although it had to be based on one of my photos it was pretty relaxed on how far I could push the environment in terms of imagination which was good. I was thinking about doing this piece traditionally but I really want to hone my skills in Photoshop and digital painting, therefore done it digitally and I'm pretty pleased how it turned out :). I think the colours could do with a bit more work and pushing the values too but I decided I've got too much work to do to so am going to leave it semi finished :). 

Here was the original photo, I took the surrounding boarders as the borders of the cave in the photo and took the bridge from the center of the image and then designed the background for the environment.

Progress 

Pit and The Pendulum Thumbs (74-76)

Further developement on 'The Pit and The Pendulum', I'm not sure yet wether to do three scenes from The House of Usher or to do one from the pit and the pendulum as I am finding it tricky to come up with ideas for this one, although I feel the bottom one may work.

House Of Usher Scene 1? (62-74)

Here is one of my ideas for one of my scenes that I developed today. I though I would show some of the procedure of how I got to the image :).

This scene is not described in the selection of the book that was given to me. But, in the scene I was given it describes how the house is rotting from damp weather and moss and fungi growing all over the exterior of the house, this would suggest that it is in some kind of woods/ over grown environment. So therefore, I have designed a scene that the narrator of the story would of have to traveled through to get to the house before he arrived. I thought the indication of the horseman going into the tree could mean that the house could all be under the tree itself causing all the rotting to happen to the house? Or the route could lead to somewhere deeper into the forest.I decided to use a blue lighting to show some kind of paranormal activity going on rather than a red light source which would indicate danger.

After the initial stages I though the composition did not draw the audience in to the scene enough, so I made the tree root extend to the outside borders to help lead the eye to the entrance in the tree. I lead onto more colour comps playing around with hue and saturation. After these I thought that looking at the last one, I need more warm colours in my shot as it is a bit 'cool', and probably a more variation in colour, but this is something that I will investigate if I decide to take this one forward. Also I was to take this forward I would probably re check the perspective as it looks like some of it may be off.