Season 1 Background Buildings

My second biggest milestone after the background characters

I feel this puts me overall past the half way point with the concept art. These milestones are really important to keeping motivation throughout the boring parts.

Anyway until Next time,

Marc Out ~~

August 27th Update

Apologies for the lack of updates last week, Convention season got in the way and I had to skip the update, but my work still progressed, so this week is a double feature of designs:

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Like before I focused on the same colour scheme, and if the feature image on the top of the blog is anything to go by they look pretty good huddled together, I learned a lot about making curved buildings, and I’m looking forward to getting deeper into Alterkin architecture.

But that finishes off the Upper district for now, getting us close to the halfway point for buildings, it was a little tougher to find inspiration for this set but I think it fits pretty well into my vision for the area.

Anyway, here is this week’s list:

  • Character Concepts
    • Background extras:42/42
    • Main Characters: 13/13
    • Main character re-designs: 5/5
    • Secondary Character: 14/14
    • Secondary Character re-designs: 5/5
  • Weapon Concepts
    • Main Characters: 12/12
    • Secondary Characters: 7/7
    • Weapon Redesigns: 4/4
  • Scene Concepts
    • Interiors: 0/24
    • Landmarks:0/15
    • Exteriors:18/39

That’s all for this week,
Until next time

Marc Out~~

August 14th Update

A little late with this update, I was at Comic con in Dublin, so I could only post the concept today, but this week we have the first of the Upper district buildings:

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The upper district is Made up of Otherkin that have accepted human Rule and are rewarded for it, so while the buildings are rounder, they mimic different human buildings, these ones take inspiration from the Human Villas I made before

On a slight side note, I’ve decided to change the Name of the Otherkin to Alterkin, I’ve had to many people express worry that the name has negative associations with it, honestly I’ve only really been using it as a placeholder name as I come up with a better one, and I think I have, Alterkin seems like a more accurate name in the grander scheme of the plot as well. However this presents a few problems with the script that I’m going to have to look over, for example, the organisation the main characters work for is called The human Otherkin joint operation, but now that doesn’t fit the acronym HOJO, which was a nice nod to final fantasy, but now requires rethinking. But its a problem I’m happy to think on for a little bit.

Anyway, here is this week’s list:

  • Character Concepts
    • Background extras:42/42
    • Main Characters: 13/13
    • Main character re-designs: 5/5
    • Secondary Character: 14/14
    • Secondary Character re-designs: 5/5
  • Weapon Concepts
    • Main Characters: 12/12
    • Secondary Characters: 7/7
    • Weapon Redesigns: 4/4
  • Scene Concepts
    • Interiors: 0/24
    • Landmarks:0/15
    • Exteriors:16/39

That’s all for this week,
Until next time

Marc Out~~

July 16th Update

Last Human Residential building this week, honestly I’m glad to be done with these buildings and moving onto some new ones:

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I thought it might be a good idea to vary the skyline of this section of the city by adding not just single family residences but Apartment buildings as well, it is a city after all, plus while unintentional I like how this took on a bunker like look while still matching the previous two buildings.
The building itself is inspired by these two buildings I found on Google:

The key thing I noticed was the balconies on both, so that was the main focus of this building.

The next thing I want to talk about is a bit more abstract, but its been on my mind lately and I feel its important to talk about, I’ve been feeling my motivation for the project waning lately, this doesn’t mean I’m quitting, far from it. I regularly get these blocks of creativity, and I consider myself quite good at getting over them but this one has been particularly bad, which prompted me writing this as a means of both helping anyone that stumbles across it, and a means of visualising the problem.
Now one of the first things I’ll say to anyone suffering from it is that Motivation is a lot like the tide, it comes and goes, so a lot of what I do is wait it out, this leads to a lot of procrastination on my part, which many people believe is laziness, but I see as an essential part of my creative process, which I have found out recently that science is backing me up on that, but its important to identify the differences between productive procrastination and good old fashioned laziness.

I spend a lot of time looking for inspiration, reading looking up references, watching shows similar to Fade, namely Anime and action cartoons, checking out youtube video tutorials and so on, always with Photoshop or a google document open for when I get ideas.

This recent Block has gone through stages, the first one is mental fatigue, I feel tired even though I might be fully rested, I’ll still be drawing or writing, but its tougher than usual, and I usual don’t realise I’m blocked because I’m still creating, the next stage is full on blockage, I don’t want to work and nothing creative is happening in my head, usually for me this lasts a day or two, but this time its lasted about a week. The Third stage I call the incubation stage, I’m motivated but nothing is really clicking, this is easily the most frustrating stage (which is more or less where I’ve been the last few days).
The Fourth and final stage is opening the floodgates where the good ideas have finally come, unfortunately this is the most difficult stage for me to predict, because unlike the others, this stage can interrupt any of the previous stages, or drag out the last stage, which the key is setting myself up to be ready for that floodgate moment.

If anyone reading is suffering from a creative block in anything, be patient, it will pass and some of your best work will come from it. While its far from comprehensive, I hope this helps.

Anyway, the progress list is as follows:

  • Character Concepts
    • Background extras:42/42
    • Main Characters: 13/13
    • Main character re-designs: 5/5
    • Secondary Character: 14/14
    • Secondary Character re-designs: 5/5
  • Weapon Concepts
    • Main Characters: 12/12
    • Secondary Characters: 7/7
    • Weapon Redesigns: 4/4
  • Scene Concepts
    • Interiors: 0/24
    • Landmarks:0/15
    • Exteriors:12/39

That’s all for this week,
Until next time

Marc Out~~

July 9th Update

Ok, second of the Human District buildings this week:

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I’m keeping with the Venetian Theme from last week, but I based this design off of apartments in Venice rather than Villas:


In particular I really liked the Balcony and window boxes which add a lot of character to the building. I also wanted to highlight the Technology of the Human sectors so I added an automated door, which while a last minute addition but its probably my favorite part of the building.

Anyway that’s it for this week, the progress list is as follows:

  • Character Concepts
    • Background extras:42/42
    • Main Characters: 13/13
    • Main character re-designs: 5/5
    • Secondary Character: 14/14
    • Secondary Character re-designs: 5/5
  • Weapon Concepts
    • Main Characters: 12/12
    • Secondary Characters: 7/7
    • Weapon Redesigns: 4/4
  • Scene Concepts
    • Interiors: 0/24
    • Landmarks:0/15
    • Exteriors:11/39

That’s all for this week,
Until next time

Marc Out~~

July 2nd Update

First of the human residential houses, and this was a fun one to design:

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So one of the first things I wanted to show in the human residential area was that it was well off money wise, so I wanted to have a lot of different shapes, while still keeping the square designs of human architecture, paired with lots of bright cheerful colours, the houses should nearly look like holiday homes. which is why one of the main inspiration was Venetian style villas:

venetianvilla_manufacturedstone_shasta_3

I was originally going to add in the stonework to the design, but I want to keep the human locations artificial looking, and I want to keep texturing as simple as I can in 3D, so I think I’ll go for a smooth concrete texture when I’m modelling them.

Anyway that’s it for this week, keeping it short this week, the progress list is as follows:

  • Character Concepts
    • Background extras:42/42
    • Main Characters: 13/13
    • Main character re-designs: 5/5
    • Secondary Character: 14/14
    • Secondary Character re-designs: 5/5
  • Weapon Concepts
    • Main Characters: 12/12
    • Secondary Characters: 7/7
    • Weapon Redesigns: 4/4
  • Scene Concepts
    • Interiors: 0/24
    • Landmarks:0/15
    • Exteriors:10/39

That’s all for this week,
Until next time

Marc Out~~