Imaginary Worlds Concept Art
This is a piece of concept art I have produced for an 'Imaginary Worlds' project. This involved creating a concept for a universe where a game or film would take place.
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I decided to create an underground civilization of dwarves based around mining. It would have a mostly industrial theme, with elements like minecart tracks, pipes and machinery. A magical crystal would be an important part of the world, and the dwarves are the main producers of it, using it for magic to power their machinery and trading it with the outside world. I produced some simple thumbnail images to showcase this:
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I used these images as inspiration to produce my concept art. I would focus on the minecart as a starting point. I could also have chosen a scene of an industrial building or mining site, but I wanted to experiment with the perspective of a minecart leaving the cave. You can see that my artwork was based around one of the thumbnails in the bottom row.
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As a starting point, I drew the outline of the cave. Creating a convincing perspective would be difficult and I wasn't sure how to approach it. I decided to use a rock overhang to communicate that the cave was not a huge expanse but rather a confined space and I think the effect does the job. Then, I filled in the spaces with different sizes and textures of brushes, to create a varied rock texture.
For the overhang, I created a solid brown layer behind the brushwork and used the eraser tool to create organic shapes that conveyed a jagged, rocky look. It is not perfect, I found it difficult to make the rocks look realistic and convincing. To improve this I could have created more individual rocks and experimented with their interaction with the light coming from the cave entrance, but I struggled to make this look convincing.
Adding onto this, I tidied up the lines, removing white spots and planning lines. I attempted to create an effect of light shining into the cave using an opaque white brush. I liked how this effect looks, it is not perfect and looks a bit unrealistic, but it makes the cave interact with the outdoors a bit more and makes the two look more connected, rather than having a jarring transition between the rock wall and outside.
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I also added a blue sky and clouds to the outdoor scene. I tried to use a number of similar colours and brushes in the sky and clouds to try and make them look more convincing. While I am happy with how they turned out, especially the cloud on the right, they do look a bit cartoony. I wasn't sure how to remedy this, as the image looked off with just one or no clouds.
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I also touched up the grass a bit, adding more subtle colours and brushes, similar to the sky. I like how the texture looks, but I think the positioning of the grass and sky is what makes it look a bit unrealistic. I was not sure how to successfully create the effect of perspective I was going for. I experimented with making the grass more curved - like a hill - but that looked worse. I settled on the flat plain, but I think there is room for improvement. I had a look at some images of cave entrances, and I think having the scene take place up a mountain, with the terrain much more in the distance would have been a better effect, or one where the ground from the cave continues into the outdoors, but I was not sure how to replicate that effect either and I had already put a lot of work into the grassy scene, so I stuck with it.
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After settling with the outdoor scene I moved on to the railway. I initially planned to use the brush tool to simply draw a railway out of the cave. This turned out to be very difficult and I could not create a convincing perspective or shape. After trying to draw this for a while I asked my tutor for help, and he suggested sourcing a stamp from online to draw the railway. This was much more successful, using Photoshop's perspective settings and a drawing tablet made it easy to create this railway. I am happy with how it looks, but it could be a bit more detailed, which I could fix by adding a 3D effect to the rails and adding supports of some kind.
To finish off, I added a minecart to the scene. This would serve to connect the scene to my conceptualized universe while also adding a subject for the viewer's eyes to be drawn to. I started with the cart itself, using the brush tool to draw it out with the railway serving as a perspective reference. I then filled the cart with blue crystals. To create this effect I made various shapes of blobs in a light blue colour. I then used a smaller brush to add a darker interior to them, and a small white dot to make them look shiny and reflective. This is one of my favourite parts of the image and I think it works really well. The cart's position on the rails creates a lot of visual movement that makes the image feel more alive. Before finishing, I added a natural crystal embedded in the rock to add some visual storytelling and as a detail to make the rock wall more interesting.
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Looking back, I am quite happy with how this turned out. I think I have successfully created the perspective effects and elements like the minecart and crystals look quite convincing in my opinion. I do have a few issues with it, however. I think that the rock wall and overhang could use some more detail and the railway could use some work to fit it into the scene more convincingly. As mentioned before I had issues with making the outdoors scene look realistic, and this has taught me a lesson about using reference images. Had I used reference images from the start I could have come up with a more effective solution to this issue. I will keep this in mind for any future art projects.