Lake Giant Process

Gathering visual information on existing Asiatic architecture, using analysed imagery composed from Avatar and Pandaria studies, as well as further analysis into Han Dynasty architecture.

These allowed me to visualize the structures within the compositions, and further understand how this information can be utilized to enhance the concept art being created.

Using these designs allowed the foreground of the rough thumbnail to be composed, and adding the Asiatic motifs to the background structure design made the piece more uniform in terms of cultural influence. I tried to create a composition which fitted within the realm of the fantasy-Asiatic visuals I had researched in the case studies previously.

Iterations were made, and the scale of the giant figure was thought over at length. As I began to detail the higher-rendered piece, I realised the characters had lost scale, and I re-shuffled the composition in order to regain the feel of the first variant. The colours used here are mostly muted greens, blues and reds, hues which commonly occur in stylized Asian landscapes. For the giant design, I used one of the previously made costume studies from the Avatar case study, manipulating it to create a strong silhouette against the background. 

I am fairly happy with the finished concept. As each piece was created, I became more comfortable with my own painting techniques whilst considering the use of cultural influence, and I feel that my work reflects this as the project continues. I tried to achieve a painterly-yet believable look, detailing the most important areas of the piece whilst allowing for imagination and the rest of the piece to speak for itself. The buildings in the background were referenced using the previously generated architectural concepts, utilizing the tall spires and sloping rooftops of Asiatic architecture. The flora used in the piece were referenced from the tree/nature moodboards made previously in the project. With this I was trying to replicate the rolling landscapes portrayed in Pandaria, whilst pushing my own ideas and concepts. 

The piece was cropped for use in business cards and portfolio display, mostly due to the unusually wide canvas size used. This wasn't a failing, more just an inconvenience for certain formats. I feel as though this crop still stands pretty strong as a standalone concept.