The Art of Despina

I am tired now.

Looking forward to talk about this stuff tomorrow....wait...today. Yeah, looking forward to talking about this in a few hours :)

Despina, Resolved high angle shot.

I'm really glad I took the advice given about this piece, it's my favorite out of the three that I have attempted.

Despina, Low angle exterior shot.

I am suffering from a bit of a mad rush. But there's still a lot of merit to this composition. I like how it adds to the mythos of Despina, showing it's trading roots, eclipsed by the mega structures of the shard buildings. 

Despina, Interior shot development

Despina always felt a little bit shady to me, a place to make connections. A vertical Mos Eisley reaching towards the stars.

I'm quite happy with the composition as a whole, though I do feel as though the right side could do with some work as it's looking a bit flat. I also think it could look busier, hopefully I can achieve that before tomorrow!

Despina, High exterior shot development

So I think it time to share my take on Despina.

After reflecting on the critique gained from the OGR, I thought hard about what Despina should look and feel like, trying to use the text in a more faithful way than I had previously.

Phil mentioned the windjammer like quality of Despina is at odds with it's almost industrial, chimney adorned description. So I have tried to capitalise on that, and I hope I have!

At first I began to experiment with the placement of the chimney's, at one point certifying that they would form a ring around Despina, covering the lower levels in smog and soot. This immediately brought forth ideas of fresh air being a commodity; Notions of higher and lower classes vying for clean air within the desert city of Despina.

I took quite a shine to the shape of #3, feeling as though it was a craft about to take off. Using that notion I played around with the shape a bit, and ultimately laid the shape down, so as to act as a floor plan for a city.

This is when I began experimenting...

Image #4 became the basis for my side view, I really tried to hint at the form of a ship,even going so far as to add a giant solar sail in the middle of the city.

I took these images as sacrosanct and went into Maya to model Despina, in order to achieve a greater sense of perspective for my helicopter shot.

Then I thought, it's do or die! so I threw myself into the painting process, experimenting with colour, to achieve an earthy and desolate appearance, as well as to impact some sense of scale on the piece, without having any human element present. (If that's a good idea, remains to be seen.)

Here's what I've got so far. I'm at the stage where I'm just toying with the minutiae rather than laying broad strokes down.

Any comments are appreciated, as I sometimes feel as though in the haze of Despina myself.

Ciao.

Invisible Cities OGR 08/10/15

Invisible Cities
http://tromacorp.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=invisible+cities

Maya Tutorials
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Concept artists who's who
http://tromacorp.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/concept-artist-whos-who-jean-giraud.html

Film reviews
http://tromacorp.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=review

Photoshop tutorials
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Concept artist who's who: Jean Giraud.

Jean Giraud is one of the artists who've had the most impact on me during childhood, and subsequently shaping my mind, along with Chris Foss and Frank Frazetta. It was tremendously rewarding to learn that Giraud had also had a creative presence in some of my most treasured films.

Those who're unfamiliar with any of those names should definitely check them out! :)

"Invisible Cities", thumbnails 24- 31

 I'm in love with Despina.

That is all.

Despina - Influence maps

I took particular care when cultivating a definitive 'look' for Despina. Upon reading I had these evocations of this somewhat beautiful, desert jewel, that glimmered on the horizon. It brought up images from Neverending Story and Star Wars, and then as I pondered even further I started to think about ships and ruins which I think heavily influences the direction the thumbnails for Despina eventually went. 

The evolution of the interior design is particularly affirming in that I feel like the fusion of shanty-esque roughness with the organic shapes presented in a middle eastern bazaar are quite compelling. 

"Invisible Cities", thumbnails 9-23

This is the continuation of the Anastasia thumbnails, where I have looked at the implied class difference within the text. 

It struck me with Armilla that I could go two ways, play it very straight and look into this gargantuan city of pipework and porcelain, creating a paradise amidst an arid, almost dead landscape...

OR,

I could go in a different direction and look at an almost organic, subterranean landscape, even.

I am particularly fond of the little creature I developed to sit atop on of these pools, which were actually the Naiads, who I figured would lure travellers to an acidic bath atop the pipes in their pool, or maw.

Baucis was very reminiscent of Endor or Yavin from the star wars universe, and going back even further, Arboria from Flash Gordon.

I really liked the idea of having the structure above the clouds, as this supermassive but kind of bland shape.

Here I played with the culture of Baucis, here is a clergyman praising the sun.

I really liked the idea of having most of Baucis obscured in order to emphasise its scale, but also the unknowable within Baucis. I figured any surface dwellers viewing Baucis from afar would be afeared from the general lack of any shape save for its stalk legs and immense shadow.

"Invisible Cities", Thumbnails 6-8

I began to look at the fantastical, particularly taking interest in the kites and their significance to Anastasia.

Here, I have thought of the Kites as a means of transportation. I like the iconography of this rather precarious looking craft viewing the city for unknown reasons. I feel this embodies the dangerous side to Anastasia, but balances it with the sublime and grandiosity that the passage implies.

"Invisible Cities", Thumbnails 1-5

Here's a few thumbnails focusing on the city of Anastasia.

I couldn't quite get the imagery of Meereen or King's Landing from Game of Thrones washed out of my mind when thinking about Anastasia. A place that seems to offer as much as it can take away.

In the initial sketches I stuck to more mundane aspects of the place to get a sense of perspective, and the realistic aspects of the place before moving on to more fantastical ideas, which you'll likely see in my next post.

These sketches are only notable in that they are the seed of later ideas to come.