Tag: Year Two

After a brief feedback session, I quickly came to the conclusion that I have chosen a theme that has been done many times before; thus, I decided to try and develop my idea slightly, just to try and make it both more exciting and more challenging.

I thought I could use the word ‘forgotten’ almost literally and put it in the name – ‘The Forgotten’ Tavern. This then prompted me to think about what exactly ‘forgotten’ means, and quickly realise it could mean hidden, as well as imply death. What if this was a gathering point for the ‘Forgotten’ and lost wandering souls?

This idea is somewhat of a combination between Fantastical and Forgotten, as it could, for example, involve magically floating objects around the tavern to show the ghostly presence around it; another change would be that instead of the building being time-worn and decaying, it would be as if it is growing out of nature, not being sallowed by it (ie. tavern situated in the bark of a tree), as if it were camouflaging from the living’s gaze.

This will still allow me to create a challenging and complex model, but add the additional challenge of potentially animating it to fit this new idea of what seems like magical, empty tavern but is actually a bit more ‘lively’ than expected. It will also allow me to explore and use a sculpting software (ie Mudbox or ZBrush) and refine the project’s entire look.

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When it came to my final composition, I was very set on creating a dynamic scenery through either depth or perspective. I wanted the tavern to stand out yet blend in at the same time; thus, I explored two main ideas I had to do this.

The first idea I really enjoyed was one of the black and white colour studies I created, as I thought the three hills and the trail leading to the tavern framed it very well.

The second idea was to make it much more secluded and deep within the forest, I wanted it to look as if it had almost faded into nature, and was surrounded by it, to give it a sense of mystery.

I struggled with colour value drawings quite a bit during this exercise; my main challenge was keeping to the idea that light colours go to the back and darker ones stay at the front, as some of the colours I needed for the background seemed too strong.

I also struggled with the ‘painting’ aspect of value drawings, as I found it challenging to blend and build up the textures as I would with traditional paint (mainly seen in the top left value drawing), so I tried to build up texture and depth through more clean cut shapes.

To begin with, I looked into real life landscapes to practice value drawing; as I have never done this before, I wanted to get a better grasp on any techniques I could use in the process.

In my first try, I decided to use a more painter-like approach; I found this quite challenging. I was unsure of how to use the paint brushes to get the traditional brushstrokes I seemed, so I experimented with them a lot. However, it allowed me to think a lot more about opacity and density, as the foliage in the reference picture I used had gaps in it that I tried recreating.

The next three drawings are a lot more graphic in style than the first, as I wanted to see if it would be more comfortable to use the ‘cut out’ tool to create my scene. I enjoyed this a lot – it allowed me to concentrate more about the depth and texture of the scene.

Here are some of the references I used:

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I began brainstorming by creating 6 different sillouhettes, all with similar traits yet different structures.

I wanted to create something that has been reclaimed by nature and forgotten by mankind; so, I aimed to try and portray decay and erosion through some of these shapes.

Some of the characteristics I tried to repeat and explore were vines and overgrown grass, as well as visibly chipped or eroded walls and roofs.