April 23rd Update

Apologies for the lack of update last week, things are pretty hectic right now, I got the concept done, I got the concept done, I just couldn’t get around to posting an update. But luckily that means two concepts this week:

TheSmokeStack.png

First up is the landmark of the Factory sector, the Smoke stack, the idea behind this one is that its at least twice the height of every other factory in the area, the smoke being pumped out by it will do well to help the mood in other areas too anytime I want things to look overcast.

 

TruthClub.png

The second is the Truth club in the Upper district, its owned by Indigo and this influenced a lot of the colours of this building, its a pretty important set piece so I wanted to make sure it looked lavish.

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:6/15
    • Exteriors:39/39

April 11th Update

This one took a bit longer than the others, but its something a little different this week:

GraveWall.png

This is a more general concept for an area, the Garden of remembrance, its an entire district onto itself, almost like a part, but all the walls are lined with Gravestones like this, each one will have a name and date on it, but I just ran out of time this week.

20190412_161353

There is a wall next to the Jervis center in Dublin that was a big inspiration for this, the area used to be part of a church and the graveyard attached to it, but as the city grew the church was turned into a restaurant and the graves were cleared. But instead of disposing of the stones, they were propped against a wall as a kind of memorial, which looks very cool.

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:4/15
    • Exteriors:39/39

March 25th Update

This was a tricky one to figure out, so many lines:

SpireIndrustiesTower.png

Figuring out how to draw this building was the biggest obstacle, as good as I’ve gotten with perspective, this has several grids warping, so in the end I used a 3D model again, but used the wire frame of the model for the windows.

I had a really clear idea of this building, its for the Human business district, I wanted to find a different way to make this one stand out without messing with the colour scheme like I did with last weeks concept. So I went with making it a unique shape, the buildings all around it are sharp edges, so adding curves in and making it higher than all the other buildings should draw the eye nicely.

As for the company it belongs to, I named them after the Spire in Dublin and since is sounds like spiral I thought it was a good name for the building, I don’t have any plans for them yet, but all I know is I’m planning on having a fight in an elevator in this district, and this building is a good stop for that.

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:2/15
    • Exteriors:39/39

March 19th Update

Ok, first of the landmarks, this week its the Argrows Shopping center:

ArgrowsShoppingCenter

For the most part I’m happy with this design, its an important location, there are a few things I need to tweak, for example it needs to show it can transform into a bomb shelter for civilians, but the shape and colour scheme I’m pretty happy with, I chose to use a blue-purple colour to make it stand out from the other buildings and a Red for the Logo to show a warning of the conflict which will happen there, luckily Red is a pretty common colour for Logos so it shouldn’t look too forbidding.

A huge inspiration for the protruding segments were based off of the Scottish Parliament of all places:

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I Love this building design, I plan on taking a few different elements from it for different buildings  in the future.

These segments however were a bit awkward, so I decided to experiment with a another method of planning my concept art. I made a rough shape in 3D first and drew over it:

ArgrowsShoppingCenterConstruction

The finally product turned out well, but I’m very  glad I practised a lot doing perspective in 2D first, it made things like the pillars much easier to draw correctly.

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:1/15
    • Exteriors:39/39

 

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 ~~

July 23rd Update

First building of the warehouse District, where the villians of season one hide out:

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While the length of this building is a little too short I’m really happy with the simplicity of this design, I’m planning on having a few warehoused in various states of upkeep for this section, but I decided to start with the newest, cleanest ones first, since I had a lot of non-Fade related things to get done.

Other than that I’m keeping things short this week, 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:13/39

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~~

June 25th Update

Last of the military Sector Buildings this week:

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This was another building I took inspiration from my trip around Dublin, which I based on this building:

20180609_172851

Following the same logic as last week’s concept in making the building defend-able so I added the shutters at the top of the windows, I wasn’t able to convey it with the angle I took, but I picture the glass at the top lowering into the main structure, which I think will be easier to show when I model it in 3D.
I decided to keep this design simpler that last week, mainly because I’ve been quiet busy with non-Fade related things, but hopefully I’ll be free to get more done in the next few weeks.

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: 9/39

That’s all for this week,
Until next time

Marc Out~~