Submission Disc Artwork - Invisible Cities: Despina

Here is my submission disc artwork. When I make disc covers, like this, I always try to make it look as realistic as possible, but I still have a little bit of fun with it, for example, the fact that I included little fake reviews by newspapers. I quite like this design though, because it has a consistent colour style and design.

Invisible Cities- Final Presentation

Invisible Cities - Final Presenation by dreason23

Interior Establishing Shot - Despina

This is my final interior establishing shot. As you can see, it isn't the interior of a building but rather than the interior of a cave, where all the ships go to stop. I used a lot of blue in this, but by using different shades and pressures, I think the cave and the sea turned out very well. The boats are well detailed and at a good size. I really like how I used the candle's glow,as it shines onto different parts of the rocks and water, and I think it looks quite good. I am very pleased with this as it is a step up from the thumbnail that I based it off.

Exterior Low Angle Shot - Despina

This is my final exterior low angle shot thumbnail. As you can see, I added a lot of colour to this one. I wanted each building to look completely different and be able to stand out. There may be too much colour, however, which is why I added some grey tones in the background to cancel some of the bright colours out. I think it works quite well with regards to the perspective, and the drawing has a weird abstract style, I think, which gives the city a bit more style. I am relatively happy with the as it is well drawn, but I think a bit more tone could have been added.

Exterior Establishing Shot - Despina

This is my final exterior establishing shot for Despina. I decided not to use colour for this one because I felt that it being black and white makes it look more misty as I wanted the city to be amongst the fog in the background. This is mainly based on my first establishing shot thumbnail that I did, but this time I added a lot more detail. I felt the detail is very important for this because it makes it look more believable. I wanted the ship to be the main focus of attention, so I didn't add much tone or mist to ship. I think the sea looks a bit rough, which gives it the impression that it's in a storm. I am quite pleased with this overall, because it looks good and is well positioned. I also think I added a suitable amount of detail.

Interior Establishing Shot Thumbnails - Despina

These are my thumbnails for my interior establishing shot. For these thumbnails, I tried to get influence for Jan Urschel's Assassins creed work.  I tried to vary the locations, and so I have made a cave entrance for the boat's, a barn and rooms in a house. My favourite is number 5 because it has a good use of tone and light. I think it would be quite a good idea to work on this one as it can be improved a lot by more detail and more things going on.

Exterior Establishing Shot Thumbnails - Despina

These are my 7 thumbnails that I did that are based on number 4, that I did on Photoshop in black and white. I really like the idea behind this one as the ship is the main focus of attention, but it still has the desert in the background. As you can see fro, these thumbnails, I have included the city in them. The city is either quite close to the ship or is quite far away. I think the overall composition of these look great. I also tried out a few tools I haven't really used for my thumbnails. In 4 and 5, I used the lasso tool, and coloured into them. I still need to practise with the lasso tool, which is why I haven't really used it, but having said that, I think the thumbnails look quite good as they are well layed out and the colours used are suitable. My favourite is number 1. It's my favourite because I like how the ship looks like it's only just fully come into view, and the light from the sky is in the middle of the ship and the city, and it shines onto the sea, which I think can look very good with more work.

I am still coming to grips with the tools of Photoshop on my computer, which is why the colouring is a bit weird in places.

Exterior Low Angle Shot Thumbnails - Despina

I decided to continue working with my 20th original thumbnail for Despina, that I did in my sketchbook, for the Exterior low angle shot. as you can see from these 6 thumbnails, it has a one point perspective and so can look quite good if completed to a good standard. I tried, mainly, to experiment with the tones, whether in colour or black and white. I think that with this thumbnail, tone and light is very important. I quite like number 3 because even though it uses one point perspective, it is at a slight angle, shown through the tower in the background, and t gives it quite a interesting look, I think.

Who's Who? - Jan Urschel Influence Map

As I said in my last post, I did an influence map showing some of the work of Jan Urschel. He is a free lance art director, who has done concept art for both feature films and video games. During his career he has worked for the likes of Warner Bros. and Marvel. His work is very detailed and he uses a range of colours in his work to show create tone and depth. Some of his work has a slightly abstract feel. Most of his work has a consistent foggy look to them as some areas are shrouded in smoke, and so this makes his work more realistic. His "Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag" work will be a good source of inspiration for my Invisible cities project as he has drawn ships and boats travelling on the sea in different weathers, and this can help me design the city of Despina as that is accessable by sea as well as by land.

Bibliography:
Urschel, Jan (2014) Hendrix Design - http://janurschel.tumblr.com/ (Accessed 19/10/2014)

Concept Artist - Who's Who?

As I previously said in my "Influences from Games - Influence Map", I thought I'd research Jan Urschel. I wanted to look into Jan Urschel because he has done concept art for major video game copanies and his work for "Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag" can be used as inspiration as his work includes drawings of ships and oceans it links to my chosen city, Despina. As you can see, I haven't done much research and have only noted down a few quick points about him. The picture below is a quick 10 minute drawing I did in my journal of one of his pieces of concept art for "Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag". I quite like this drawing because although it was quick it has a fair amount of detail and tone, and doesn't need to look like it exactly.

I will continue my research into Jan Urschel and will create an influence map of his work. 

I will edit the photos at a later time.

Mission Statement - Chosen city - Despina

I have decided to continue working with the idea of Despina as I find the concept of it being both accessable by desert and sea fascinating, and from a personal view, I quite enjoy drawing boats and ships, and cities that are surrounded by water. I believe that Despina will give me the chance to show off the best of my drawing skills. I really liked doing the thumbnails for Despina too, because although some may look similar, there was a lot of information to take from the extract. I will now continue developing my ideas and will look at cities of inspiration. I hope the end results will be a step up from my current work, as I'm not particularly proud of it.

Thin Cities 1 - Isaura

These are my first 16 thumbnails for Isaura. I really liked the idea of Isaura and the windmills reminded me of Amsterdam. I do like how my thumbnails have colour that really jump out at you, and although some of them may be similar to others, they all have a slightly different look in terms of colour or mark making.

OGR - 8th October

https://www.scribd.com/doc/242324173/Online-Greenlight-Review-8th-October

I know it's a little late and it isn't well presented. Sorry.

Continuous Cities 1 - Leonia

These are my first 9 thumbnails for Leonia, that I did in my sketch book. I struggled to come up with ideas behind how the city could look like. I was only able to come up with dumps that were made to look like cities. I do like the actual drawings, but I just found it difficult to envisage the city, even though the "Continuous Cities - 1" passage is quite long.

Also, I know this isn't the best image quality. I'll try to improve it at a later date.

Cities and Despire 3 - Despina - 17-24

As I quite liked Despina, I thought I'd do a few more thumbnails, but this time I did the quickly with a pen in my sketch book. I quite like the actual drawings because they show my quick style and they don't have to be exact or in much detail. However, I think some of these look similar to the previous thumbnails. I think I need to focus on more on the details of the anthology rather than just creating an image of the city and then altering each thumbnail slightly.

So far, out of the cities that I've done, Despina is the one I'm considering taking further. I'll make my final decision once I've done more of the cities.

Also, I know this isn't the best image quality. I'll try to improve it at a later date.

Influence Map - Cities with water

As quite a few of the Invisible Cities that I've done thumbnails for, so far, include water or Seas and Oceans etc. I thought I'd look at existing cities where water is either running through them or beside them. Some cities, like Venice, has the Grand Canal running right through it, so it plays a major role in the city layout and how people get to places. But other cities, like London, have  big rivers, in this case River Thames that doesn't play that big of a part in the City layout. As I mentioned in the last Influence Map post, I really like Italy, so because of this I will look into Venice and similar Italian cities in more detail.

Influence map - Influences from Games

I am a big fan of the Assassins Creed series, not only it's stories (Except Assassins Creed 3), but for it's art style. I especially like the Italian settings as Italy is my favourite country for many reasons. I, therefore, wanted to take my love for gaming and Assassins Creed into this project as the series has been to and been in different periods of time and well known cities, that consist of different styles of architecture and layout. I find all the Assassins Creed concept art incredible as they have a high level of detail, but style contain the style of the artist. One such concept artist is Jan Urschel, who worked on the latest part of the series "Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag". I hope to look into Urschel and his work further.

Trading Cities 5 - Esmeralda

My first 16 thumbnails for Esmeralda have a consist style with regards to the colours used and the overall markings of the brush. I tried to work with perspective, and I think they came out quite well. I like number 5, especially, even though it doesn't work with perspective as much as number 14 or number 1, but it shows a man looking over the city from his balcony and the composition works really well.

Cities & Desire 3 - Despina

These are my first 16 thumbnails for Despina, and the block buildings have made a return. It is clear that I need to come up with more unique ways to create a city instead of continuously using the rectangular skyscrapers. Apart from that, I think the ideas are fairly good, although some are just different versions of each other.  I, personally, like number 4 because it doesn't show the actual cit, but instead focuses on the other details from the anthology.

Cities & Memory 1 - Diomira

Here are my first 16 thumbnails for Diomira. For these, I tried to avoid continuously drawing squares and rectangles as buildings, although this time I think I went a bit over board with the "Sixty silver domes". However, I do think that each thumbnail has a different idea/setting behind them, even though some may look a little similar. I'm happy that my photoshop skills are starting to improve, although still got some way to go.