I started my environment concept by looking at river banks, thinking that they could be Incorporated in to an interesting setting for my character. To start, i drew an extremely rough sketch of details that i could see fitting in with the river bank setting. I wanted to have something fairly large and natural which could cover a large portion of the drawing without becoming overwhelming or looking out of place.
For this, i decided on using a tree as this could easily be propped up against the river bank and i could ad some interesting shapes such as roots to add more to the image. As it is a river bank setting, i through that the ground probably would not be too even and generally be covered by both moss and dirt. This left me with a very basic idea so i sat down and thought about what would merge in with the natural environment whilst also adding a civilised or 'lived in' feel.
For this, i then looked at a lot of ancient stone ruins on the Internet and found that partially destroyed/ knocked down stone walls could probably merge in with the dirt fairly well. Alongside this, it allowed me to make the ground far more interesting by drawing more, basic bricks that could have easily spread out due to overflowing water.
A few river bank images i looked at had low, wooden fences surrounding them if cattle was present. Using this idea, i drew a far more primitive variation, sunk fairly low in to the world and positioned one plan resting in the water, showing that the entire scene is old and maintained.
Once i was happy with the overall shapes, i begin to add a bi more definition to the image, using darker lines and adding a bit more detail to areas such as the wooden barrier and stone ruins. Trying to make a realistic wood outline proved troublesome and overall did not go very well. On top of this, the scene only covered half of the total drawing size so in future iterations, i would have to work on both the perspective and proportions to make it look even mildly realistic.
As the previous drawings were all completed using a graphics tablet due to its ease of rubbing out and tweaking with the addition of layers, i began drawing a more defined and detailed variation on my Sketchpad. I started using a very soft pencil and sketched out the basic shapes within the image whilst looking at the previous digital drawing attempt as a reference.
I followed the exact same concept with the key features such as; the stone ruins, tree, scattered rocks and wooden barrier but changed their appearance slightly and spread them out, removing the need for un-necersary features such as the failed attempt at drawing a pile of roots to the centre right. After toying with the image a few times, i decided to move the dirt bank further back and placed another bed of water, under the horizon line.
This gave me the idea of turning it in to a once flooded ruins where rising water had previously forced the owners of the now ruined house out elsewhere in to the world.
This is still far from done as the ruins on the left side are too clean and angled, very little to no shading is used and i would like to make the skies extremely cloudy with a variety of reflections across both sections of water but it should be suitable to provide an insight to my environment idea and what i wish it to be in the final iteration.
Perspective was extremely difficult with this image and i realistically did not want a single straight line. Even the wooden barrier would be warped or generally disfigured in the case of flooding or long term abandonment and for a more natural look, i would like each stone within the ruins to look entirely different in shape.
No comments:
Post a Comment