Final Structure Turnaround

Here is my final structure turnaround! I'm really happy with the outcome especially as it is not something that I would normally draw but I really enjoyed creating it.


As I have yet to finish my lifeform I haven't decided on a colour for it's 'molten matter' but to represent it in this turnaround I thought of colours I associate with evil but that also went well with the cold metal colour. I decided in the end for an ice type blue as some other colours I associated with evil just didn't seem to fit the scene and I thought the classic evil red would misinterpret as lava. However, this could well change depending on how my creature takes form.

Structure Development (2)

Today I started playing around in Photoshop with how my structure's texture and colour would look. I had already decided I wanted my structure to be made of some sort of metal so had to think about how I would bring this across. I also had to show the effects the environmental (creature) had had on it through the cracks that had started forming in the metal.

Below are colour swatches I made for a main part of my structure to help me determine the final look. I really like the more neutral swatches such as 1, 2 and 5 as I think these would blend better into the environment and would be good colours for the creature's molten matter to show up against. I also kind of like 4 as it has a sort of stoney tone to it. However, I think the colours in 3 and 6 are a too artifical metal palette. I will have to have a good think about the structure's surroundings before choosing my final colour palette



Structure Development

When the time came to decide which structure I would take further I looked about putting a storyline/background to each on and see where that would take me. There was one in particular that I liked which would also combine my favourite lifeform and machine to form a world for all three.

It revolved around the existence of an evil lifeform that would eat away at anything it could through the use of some sort of molten matter to get to its favourite prey..the human. The humans had to try and survive around this creature and carry on with their daily lives as whenever they had tried to escape this land they had just made matters worse. The best solution was to build their lives around it.

I started off developing my structure by writing down some keywords I wanted to come across through it and figuring out how everything connected including how the material it was made of would affect it's existence.
I think now I need to look into the texture and colour scheme of it to lead me to my final design.



Summer Project: More Silhouettes

After reading the comments and tips I received I decided to carry on with some more initial concepts using these tips before moving onto developing my final three. I felt this would get my creativity flowing some more and make me less nervous about moving onto the next part of the brief. I focused especially on silhouettes as I felt that previously I had been more concerned with detail without noticing at first that I was doing this, rather than saving this for later development.

I really feel this has helped me loosen up and see my sketches in another way. Hopefully this will make me more confident with the next stage!

Summer Project: Creativity 101

Well my first post on the blogosphere and I will say I'm both excited and nervous! I thought I'ld start off by sharing my summer task so far; managed to fill up my A1 sheet with lots of ideas and there is now roughly 101! However, me being excited to sketch everything out I lost count of how many exactly doh! Feel free to give me a virtual slap on the wrist. Well here goes...

Above is an overview of my full A1 sheet of inital concepts to show how I worked through this part of the project.
Throughout I drew my concepts wherever I saw fit on the page to help me quickly take note of my ideas rather than worrying about life forms, structures, and machines being separated into their categories as I felt this would restrict my flow on the page and limit my experimentation.

I started off my sketching out the ideas that sat in my head from the off and experimented with pencil and biro to see the different types of effects I could create.

I then printed off some extra copies of the inspiration sheets and cut them up to enable me to closely put each object side by side and see what else I could create. This also enabled me to put mulitples of the same object alongside each other and see if the symmetry or pattern led to other ideas.

I then tried out gluing the objects to my sheet and using them as a type of silhouette and base which I worked over defining and extending the lines I wanted to keep as part of my concept.

The use of tracing paper let me use the objects' focal lines and rotate, flip, repeat and extend into more ideas.

Along with the inspiration sheets I looked at some concept books I have to see how different artists lay out their work. One book called 'The Skillful Huntsman' especially helped me with its different techniques including lots of silhouettes!
When thinking of life forms I started by limiting myself to animals but then thought about about life forms more and it led me to plants! I looked through some books to help me develop my ideas as this was the category I found the hardest.
With machines and structures I started off picturing some sci-fi/fantasy world especially after seeing the shoe and thinking of the fairy tales with the old woman who lived in a shoe mixed with the Burrow from Harry Potter. I also was reminded of the video game Mass Effect so used these sources as well as some others to inspire me.

The next step will be picking out my final life form, structure and machine and seeing how I can develop them into turnarounds.