BA3b - Week 6 Summary

This week I wanted to focus on the environment for the cat character. I decided to try out a water themed room for him, as I felt it would be an interesting challenge and also ironic as cats often hate water. I started again using SketchUp to create the 3D base for the room. 

Below are the results, with different angles so that I could find a good one to use to draw over.

I decided to use the last one, as it had a good angle where you could see almost all of the furniture/room. I decided, instead of colouring over and trying to figure out what I was creating as I was going, to create a sketch over the 3D room and use that for a more polished lineart.

Sketches

Lineart over 3D room

Lineart

I want it to be a rococo inspired room, to connect with the characters design. I also wanted the water to be a prominent feature in the room, almost over the top, something that only someone with a lot of money could achieve and keep up. I decided to have most of the ground be water, and have stepping stones etc to get around. I am proud of the design so far, especially as I am very unfamiliar with environment design and this is all new to me. I think I may have however messed up with the sizing of different elements, as the bed is supposed to be overly large but it seems to be very average as I seem to have made other elements relatively big. I think for the next drawing I make for this, I may try to use perspective grids.

Below are some of the furniture reference images I took inspiration from to draw and create the general shape of my designs.

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I then started to colour the environment, thinking about the how the colours would compliment the watery aesthetic of the room, and how I would later add plants too. I wanted the furniture to be relatively dark, as I will be having gold accents similarly to the characters colour scheme and those are more prominent against a darker background. Below are some images from the process behind the first coloured design.

Trying the pillars with blue and black, thinking 

about each colours consistency in the room

I chose blue for the bed originally because of the characters colour scheme, blue and gold, however it seems to not connect well with the other colours, and in general this colour scheme feels somewhat thrown together. I tried to adjust the colours scheme to create a more connected aesthetic, seen below.

For these I thought more about the room as a whole, and how the colours felt against one another. The rooms still felt somewhat bland, and didn't bring across the aesthetic I wanted, so I found some water inspired colour palettes and made some thumbnails.

I also tried the ones that worked with the actual room design I had made, and put them together to compare.

Some I found worked well, despite being different from what I had originally planned. I started working further with some of them by adding plants and more details. I wanted to have a giant weeping willow, or other tree that hung down into the water, and I wanted lily pads and other life around too.

Blue weeping willow tree and green lilypads and reeds

Green weeping willow tree 

No reeds

This colour scheme I found pleasing, and although the original palette did not include the darker greens, it did have the very light shade of green used for the water areas so I used darker shades of that green and I think it worked well. However I think the very light water against the blue for the rocks can create confusion about what the ground is, so if I do go further with this colour scheme I will have to be clear with the rocks and water so that it is easy to comprehend what is happening in the scene immediately. I tried it with both a blue tree and green tree, and without reeds as they may clutter the scene. I found the green tree helped bring the green of the other plants across better than the blue, which seemed to fade with the rocks.

I tried with a very different colour scheme too.

Pink tree and plants

No reeds

Green tree and plants

This colour scheme I chose due to its royal appearance, deep and rich purples and reds/pinks. I enjoy how it came out, and it helps the scene pop out more. Due to the water being this deep pink/red, I thought that it would be as if the prince wanted it to be continuously dyed so that it would remain that colour. After all, he is rich. I tried with the plants being green and pink, and found that I liked both for the different aesthetics they brought.

I want to continue experimenting with the colour schemes I have made, and I want to add more details to the designs, as well as fish and other elements. 

We were also told about a presentation so I made one, showcasing what I have made so far.