Week 1
After receiving the brief from the client, we as a group decided to study the brief together, we first worked out that to achieve this task equally as a group then each person would complete two illustrative backdrops, this kept the work amount fair. We each picked two scenes which we wanted to do, I was given the dungeon wall and the town hall.
Once we had decided on our scenes, we then booked out the lecture theatre to watch robin hood as not everyone had seen it and it was a crucial thing for us to create accurate depictions of the scenes. After watching robin hood in the lecture theatre, we sat down and decided to have some early-stage sketches and visual research ready to share in two weeks’ time.
I began with creating a series of mood boards, when we were initially briefed on the project, we were told that the client would like a watercolour aesthetic to the pieces, so I created a series of mood boards first looking at different stylisations of water colour. I then looked at watercolour scenes of medieval villages and dungeons relating to the themes I was given. These helped me visualise my scenes which I then began sketching into my sketchbook.
Week 3
We began this week with meeting up and sharing our ideas and research, although we are creating our own individual scenes sharing our ideas allowed us to help each other and suggest alternative ideas. This was a successful meet as we also had an online meeting with the client in which we received some basic sketches from them depicting how they visualised each scene. I was quite close to his original idea, the only difference was that he wanted the dungeon to have a window at the top of the dungeon wall whereas I had drawn mine in the bottom, however this is a simple mend as I hadn’t began digitally illustrating the scenes just yet.
We then helped each other amend our sketches so they were truer to the client’s visualisation before agreeing to meet in another 2 weeks’ time with a start on our digital scenes.
I began with the dungeon wall as that seemed the simpler of the two scenes, I began with illustrating some of the bricks for the stone wall. It took me several attempts until I got it how I wanted, this took majority of the time I put aside for this task, so I only had variations of the stone wall for the next meeting, however from the variations I was happy with the final design of the stone wall, all I needed to do next was add the details on the wall and create some depth to turn the wall into a dungeon.
Week 5
After meeting with the rest of the group again I received lots of positive feedback on the design of the stone wall. Everyone agreed that due to the set I was working on being quite dull in colour and shape that I should add some depth to the piece. I was a little unsire how I would achieve this as at the time I just had a flat stone wall, however I decided I would make some pillars.
I took the middle segment of the call and cut it out then copied and pasted it separate, using the camera raw filter to decrease exposure on the sides before using the warp transform tool to round off the sides to give a rounded pillar look. I then pasted these over the sides of the wall which turned a flat wall into more of a room, in turn giving the dungeon scene depth, I was really happy with this and proceeded to add torches to the wall and again using camera raw filter I added a tint of orange behind the torch before adding the window at the top. I then. Illustrated a cloudy sky outside of the window too. To add the finishing touches I added a dry brush effect with the largest size brush to remove most detail which created the most authentic water colour effect. This meant the first of my two scenes was complete.
Week 7
At the beginning of this week, I had a meeting with the client in which I presented my stone wall scene to them, I received very positive feedback with no improvements to be made. This not only meant my first scene was complete but that the style of my scene was perfect for the client which would make the next more advanced scene easier.
I then looked over the sketch that the client had given me for my next scene, after going over the scene I started mapping it out on illustrator. I used the stone wall as the cobblestone floor for the town wall, I warped the size, so each stone block gets smaller the further up it goes so it gives a realistic floor perspective. I then mapped out where the houses of the town centre would be.
Week 9
I was beginning to get closer to the deadline date and so I attempted to illustrate the houses but quickly determined they would they too long to create in time for the production, I began looking for free digital assets for medieval housing a found two houses created by the same artist ad both free to use. I took them into photoshop before editing the colours to increase the vividness as well adding the dry brush effect, this removed the finer details which made it fit into my stone flooring. I used the warp tall making the top of the houses slightly smaller in size to make the whole buildings look taller. I then revered both the houses and pasted them around the edge of the flooring creating a town square look.
Week 11
This was the final stage before the production. I needed to add a well and some market stalls to finish my scene. Using some of the images from my mood boards as reference I illustrated the well and market stalls before adding them onto my town hall scene. The colour palate was rather dull and so I decided to take an image of a bright blue sky and add the same dry brush effect to give it a watercolour look, this was then used to brighten the town hall which I believe overall was very successful. I included all the assets the client wanted and created an authentic watercolour colour stylisation; I would perhaps go back and add some colour to the houses such as flags or curtains but overall I’m happy with the outcome. I need only to export these scenes in the right size before sending them to the client next week.