The first task of this module challenges us as a team to invent a “floating city” and to fully develop a functioning civilisation within our concept. The limitations of our city’s functionality is that it is linked to Roman statistics, as this was the city our team was assigned to base our project on. These statistics could include population, founding, GDP, unemployment percentages, imports and exports etc. Basically we have to get the run-down on happenings in Rome and create a fictional city once we get the facts straight. We then have to model this city in Maya, though the level of detail expected is negotiable.
This seems like a good opportunity to research different architectural styles and get a chance to let art history influence my work and shape my ideas.
The statistics we use for Rome have not been set to a particular time period, so it is open to artistic interpretation. This allows us some flexibility in which direction we decide to go down, though an idea from Jakub may work – a combination of sci-fi and Ancient Roman elements fused into a steampunk civilisation. My mind immediately went to Leonardo DaVinci’s Early Renaissance contraptions in his sketchbooks after seeing them in an exhibition of the Italian artist’s life this past summer. Below are a series of his contraptions based around flight;
I’m gathering a visual library from the floating city concept used across various media in order to use as a drawing reference and a source of inspiration. Treasure planet is a sci-fi Space Pirate story, cashing in on the “steampunk” style which combines futuristic concepts such as spaceships and ray guns with Victorian era design, creating a grounded yet still otherworldly aesthetic value. Below are concept images of the docks, the art and style of this project was directed by Andy Gaskill, who had been the artistic director for Disney’s Hercules.
Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2 also venture down the route of space pirate “airships” (associated with the machine using race the Al-Bhed.) These ships vary wildly in design and a common theme in FFX machinery designs is their visible link to organic inspirational sources. Square Enix concept artist Yusuke Naora alongside game director Yoshinori Kitase spearheaded the bio-mechanical design style for these machines.
A major antagonist in this game is a colossal reptilian flying creature known simply as “Sin”. Sin is a monster that draws inspiration from the biblical behemoth, a world eater, and the latter portions of the game take place on the monsters back and then inside the monster, destroying the spirit controlling it from the inside. This monster is so huge that it supports a ruined city within itself. Thus, there is the possibility that our floating city could be organic.
Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli production Laputa: Castle in the Sky depicts a very literal idea of a floating city, while I would like our approach to be less linear I like the idea of a citadel and separate levels that we could use to reflect the divided class structure of ancient Rome i.e. Plebeien underclass and Patrician upperclass.
Running along the idea of “Steampunk” I have been looking again at the environment design from Developer FromSoftware’s Bloodborne. The design is inspire to be a Jekyll and Hyde style Victorian gothic setting, which is littered with dark disturbing imagery in order to establish a threatening ambience to keep the player on edge. Every aspect of the city is met to create this effect which is a design choice we need to implement in our own city; every design choice must be made to build towards a collective concept.
My initial response to the idea of a floating city was one that was suspended at unnatural gravity defying angles, upon research the closest protrayal of this concept was the “Distortion World” portion from Pokemon Platinum by Gamefreak. Multiple platforms hosting the city suspended at different angles is an idea I’d like to pursue, which would be interesting to work around the statistics.
1st. yr Animation // Dervla Hillan 