//////floating city//////

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.

 

 

 

 

January/Artist/Inspiration

ADRIAN DADICH

BRUNO BIAZOTTO

MIKHAIL RAKHMATULLIN

JAN WESSBECHER

IGNACIO FERNÁNDEZ RÍOS

JOHN GRELLO

YURI SHWEDOFF

SERGI BROSA

JINWOO SONG

DAVID SEQUEIRA

XUEXIANG ZHANG

RAPH LOMOTAN

JAEMIN KIM

Onto Hourglass World 21.10.2015

Another Tuesday another group switch.. such is life. We’ve been placed this week on Hourglass world, a project I like the look of – the concept at this stage has developed into a world that is teetering on the brink of destruction constantly. The environments are made up of the sand inside the hourglass, from a colour standpoint I’m guessing my environmental concept drawings will range in orange hues, but I would like to try painting the desert by night – blues working in a traditionally orange desert setting. The sky is another question – is it reflective of the sand below, being made of glass, or do the external colours outside the hourglass carry through?

I’ve been looking at a selection of films to inform my work in order to chose the correct colours. The scene below is from the Cohen Brothers’ “Oh Brother Where Art Thou”, the first film to use digital colour grading in order to give an orange overtone to the picture. The entire film was scanned into a computer through a process called “Digital Intermediary” and the colourists could tweak the look of the fim.

However Hollywood has fallen under criticism for using this technique to enhance films – in that their looks have seemingly become limited to two main colours, orange and teal, warm and cold respectively, depending on the tone of the movie. This trend has carried through to videogames as well as they become progressively more cinematic.

The wasteland from Mad Max:Fury Road provides an excellent reference for a post apocalyptic desert environment on the brink of destruction. The colour of the sand ranges from a pale white, in scenes where the environment is calm and not the focus of the shot, but when it takes a turn, such as the case of sandstorms and during canyon chase scenes, the sand is changed to a striking series of oranges and reds. The Citadel is a particular point of inspiration. It’s design is very relevant to our own world because it feels like a civilisation that is relatively new and patched together from the ruins of a pre existing world. The colour selection is particularly significant, green is absent from virtually the entire film (aside from the potted plant towards the ending) and it’s contrasting effect indicates where all the wealth in this civilization lies, atop the citadel, while the crowds of peasants gather underneath, well out of reach.

Below is a series of environmental studies  done in order to look at the colour variations throughout desert landscapes. it was mostly done to explore the affects of saturation and tonality – as objects get further away in the distance they become more faded, mountains take on a blue hue the further away in distance they get. The more saturated and deeper the colour of an object is, the more attention it will get from the viewer. To make attention focus more on an object in the distance, deepen the colour compared to those around it.

After looking at the work from the previous team’s tonal environmental studies our group came to a unanimous decision that we wanted to build industrial cityscapes combined with the desert environment. These are Niamh’s thumbnails to the left which we hope to reference. The goal is to build on the ideas of the previous team rather than change them to suit our own preferences.

“Create A Look” World Research 14.10.15

So our group has switched again and we have been asked to develop a “look” (tonal scenes and depictions of environments in black and white) for a world to fit characters designed by a previous group. We were given the world which combines a raindrop with a Dyson sphere – the world is a water based structure built around a “sun” which we have decided is a dying star. The heat source for this world is internal, and it is a world that is permanently lit and constant in it’s seasons because it does not rotate around a light/heat source like Earth would.

Therefore, the planet structure compared to Earth is reversed, the inhabitants live on the external sections of the planet, closest to the atmosphere and farthest from the heat source. In this habitable zone we have brainstormed ice based structures, aquatic plants turned full ecosystem and air bubbles that house floating rocks and provide the amphibious inhabitants with pockets of air. We have to build our planet around the “mechanical ecosystem” left in the previous character designs; we have explained this with the planet suffering frequent meteor showers, and in these meteors there is the presence of alien metals.

Currently I am gaining inspiration from looking at underwater photography. Above is a “Continental Trench” in Iceland, taken by photographer Magnus Lundgren – I am picturing structures housing the underwater ecosystem, built from ice and crystalline formations. The coral formation to the bottom left in “Women Profile” by Adriano Morettin is a reference for perhaps a seaweed or coral based ‘jungle’ we could design.. The bottom right photograph shows how the atmosphere (which from an outside perspective is made up on glacial peaks and expanses of water) works with the world. It is Jonas Hormer’s “Leopard on Ice.”

To the left and centre are images of crashed Allied aircrafts from World War II (images from the Daily Mail) and how they had become embedded in the sea itself, and how the ecosystems are forming over them. We have already played with ideas of alien metals crashing into the world, it is another concept that could be worked with that remnants of other civilisations are present in the setting of our world.

I began painting scenes in frames to try and piece my ideas together. My underwater settings focus heavily on ice/rock formations, and I want to create some more based on organic plant life, the civilisation/habitat and the mechanical elements of the world. I like the grandiose undersea structures, as gravitational pressure lowers underwater the possibility of great swooping rock formations is made more believable. We have brainstormed as a group that these rock formations have been introduced to the world due to it’s high likelihood of meteor showers.

Here is the selection of scenes, painted with ink. For my next series I hope to use my gray pro markers to experiment with media;

I’m also looking at work from environmental concept artists in order to develop more of an understanding of how other artists tackle representing these fantastical elements. The pieces below are from Jakub Rozalski, a concept artist and illustrator, who draws a reimagining of post-revolution Communist Russia only with the presence of gigantic mechas. His style of painting is beautiful and the concepts behind the drawings are so fascinating. I’m using these as a reference for how we’re going to add the “mechanical ecosystem” to our world…

 

This artwork from freelance concept artist Dmitry Vishnevsky  below is similar to how I imagine our world as a whole interacts with meteor showers and the galaxy around it. Because it is water based the surface is delicate compared to Earth.

And finally, below is a scene from fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film, which depicts the lost “Fountain of Youth” – I want to try something vine and similar for our plant based environments…we can work with seaweed and create interesting plant based settings out of underwater flora. All the possibilities!

Design Discourse – Essay Ideas 9.10.2015

Our first lecture on the history of animation linked in well with my own personal interests in terms of art history. Last year in Foundation we were asked to write a personal investigation and analysis of an artwork based on a selection of ambiguous words to choose from, I had chosen the topic “Innovation” to explore. Anyway, my research linked into the movement of Expressionist painting following the invention of the camera. My essay explored the evolution from static painting (that had been rendered obsolete as it’s role had been taken over with cameras) to art capturing those aspects of life that could not be captured statically. My essay was specifically focusing on the work by Gustav Klimt, an Austrian painter pioneering the highly decorative art-noveau moment of the 1920s, and how his work went beyond what could be expressed in a camera, or even a static classical painting, by the abstract elements surrounding the figures – communicating a criticism of society with its complex imagery.

The early animators were considered avantgarde modern artists, experimenting with a medium discredited by those contemporary scholars of art. Art in Europe at that time highly revered compared to what it has become accepted as today. Art was culture itself, used as propaganda and held in high regard as something necessary to maintain an idea to the public of what their country could aspire to be. This is because art was the major visual medium of this era, and the focus on art in the modern day has diminished because of the range of consumable media available. However, this meant that pre-media expansion, art was a highly sensitive area to cross, and this is why the progressive experimentation of the modernists – who sought shape, form, movement, emotion and ideas – was so controversial. It challenged all ideas of what art was and what it could be.

Seeing the early works of the pioneering European animators was very interesting to me, I was surprised but understood the focus on movement based on music, rather than narrative. Narrative is something that requires a larger team to move forward on, and in these experimental motion pictures it may not have been desired. These films are based solely on motion.

While interesting, I feel like I have already studied this period in art history quite recently, and for the purposes of this essay I intend to broaden my horizons.

My initial idea was to research and analyze the quirky stop motion film Fantastic Mr. Fox by eccentric filmmaker Wes Anderson. The composition of each shot creates a vivid and unique setting for the characters which simultaneously pays homage to the illustrations seen in the source material in Roald Dahl’s novel yet maintains a very original style of it’s own. What I love most about this film is the sharp distinctly Wes Anderson style editing combined with the rough-ness achieved with stop motion animation. The end product is one that is like no other, an original experience achieved with a range of cinematic techniques.

I am thinking also of providing an essay based off the 1995 film Ghost in the Shell from director Mamuro Oshii. The film has gained cult classic status and is one of the few successful anime franchises to market itself towards an adult demographic and to have a positive commercial reception. The anatomy and the animation is beautiful, using pioneering techniques in computer rotoscoping, it provides a hyper realistic depiction of cyborg militants in a futuristic cyber punk setting. The film itself was a direct inspiration for The Matrix – it’s influence has carried through to Western cinema post-2000.

If I was to use this film as the topic of my film I would like to explore how the central themes of the film are represented visually throughout the film. Especially the idea of “Identity” (which is questioned as a key concern of the cyborg protagonist) and how idea is challenged through the character design and animation of the protagonist.

What I’m thinking will be the topic of my essay, however, is a detailed analysis of the animated sequence in Quentin Tarantion’s Kill Bill Volume 1 which provides a background to the antagonistic character O’ren Ishii. The sequence is highly stylized,but while it may appear like a simple anime portion thrown in to draw a cultural reference – Tarantino makes it his own. I want to explore the scene transitions in the section, which flow more like a manga panel – taking time to delve into scenic expansion from the child’s limited perspective combined with slick flowing action. The combination of Western direction on a Japanese style animation is so striking, and I want to analyze each element of the sequence in context of the entire film. Further research will be required before I decide exactly on my essay question, but I will get a head start on this.

Treachery x Heresy 10/11.10.2015

I have progressed my design for the Treachery demon and started a new design for the Heresy demon.

This design was developed from my earlier dinosaur-fusing-with-environment sketches from earlier. Still much of the influence for Treachery is taken from Final Fantasy X’s Ifrit/Demonolith designs – with the focus on hunched over backs, big claws and horns. I drew inspiration from Alien’s Xenomorph (bottom left) and Scyther (bottom right) from Pokemon in creating a dinosaur that had insectoid elements, this mostly was to break down the body into segments. But after looking into God of War III concept art and seeing the Manticore (top) design pages I had to include elements directly from it. This explains the inclusion of the intimidating scorpion tail and the scaled “mane”.

Heresy, we decided, was to be based off of a Cat-Human fusion. Heresy is a sin associated with non-believers of the Judaeo-Christian God, which includes followers of other religions such as Pagans. Therefore the black cat was chosen, because of it’s cultural link to witchcraft, as the identity species of those cursed to the Heresy ring of Hell. There are a lot of Human-Cat characters in media, popularized by furries, which honestly not a road I particularly wanted to go down for reasons of my own sanity.

Final Fantasy X’s furry species “The Ronso” however made an inspirational contribution, but only because of sentimental attachment to these designs. I swear. I. Am. Not. A. Furry.

Onwards;

The idea was that the Cat’s head (referenced from a black panther) was a headdress fitted over the head of a regular human, except it’s not a headdress that can be removed. The idea behind this derived from the Forsworn armour design (bottom right) from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Other aspects from the Forsworn design such as the toothy necklace and belt of human skulls made it’s way into my design also. I have to cite Disney’s Hercules as a source of inspiration also because it was the first example I thought of when I was trying to think of a dead cat fitted over a face. Maybe an obscure scene to reference, but it’s what came to mind.

Harpy 09.2015

Been working on and off on this as side project outside of university. As an ethical vegan I have very negative feelings towards zoos and captive wild animals, especially those placed in inadequate enclosures (though this implies that any enclosure can simulate a wild habitat.) The planned narrative for this project was based upon a human/scenic perspective on the ethics of captivity/performance/entertainment in a fantasy setting.

I’ll keep information on the project on the down low in case it doesn’t go anywhere, but I’ll post my initial sketches and inspirations as an archive if anything for future projects.

Major inspiration for the direction of the narrative comes from the section of the story in “The Last Unicorn” based around Mommy Fortuna’s Midnight Carnival – where ordinary creatures are disguised as magical creatures for the entertainment of the public. With the exception of a Harpy, which eventually escapes and murders the sorceress in revenge for being held captive.

Fanart comic page left drawn by Renae De Liz.

I wanted to create very human-like Harpies, these are the sketches are the central character, she is based, surprisingly, off a Harpy Eagle primarily, but with other Raptor influences. There will be four Harpies, each based off a different species of Eagle/Bird of Prey.

Visual Inspiration contributing to the Harpy design; Forest Rogers, Venetian Harpy

Game of Thrones- Sons of the Harpy

Harpy – akreon

Lust – Further Character Design 9.10.2015

After a team discussion, we decided to bring more universal themes into our character designs. This came to a decision that because animals are seen as bestial and as symbols of impurity (or badness, and evil) we wanted to add animal elements to each of our demon type characters.

Religions and folktales often visually depict demons and malevolent spirits as anthropological creatures – that being humanoid beings with distinctly animal features. For instance in Prussian medieval folklore the “Krampus” was a malignant Christmas spirit of which illustrations feature clearly defined animal traits, particularly those of a goat, such as the fur covered body, tail, elongated tongue and horns. Animal-human spirits play roles in religions worldwide. Below right is a Centaur from Greek mythology, while to the left is an Inugami, a dog spirit from Japanese mythology. The connection between the supernatural and otherworldly and human-animal hybrids is one held universally by cultures across the world.

This came to the decision to base the character design each level of Hell around a certain pre selected animal. The levels I was working on include Lust, Heresy and Treachery which we decided would be linked to spiders, large felines and carnivorous dinosaurs or lizards respectively. The animals were selected off the kinds that are culturally frowned upon – for being seen as dirty, for the likes of rats or frogs, or what are seen as generally sly, such as foxes, vultures or snakes.

We then looked at the DC comic book series Constantine which centers around the paranormal and the levels of Hell. We decided we needed an additional character to man the “Vestible” – that is, the gateway to Hell. I came up with a living doorman in the simple form of a human skeleton.

The skeleton fits into the earlier concept of being a victim of the world himself, he has been punished for so long that he has begun to fuse with the world. He takes upon himself the role of being the door, and the doorman simultaneously. The main inspiration for this character was the Skeleton guard from the film adaptation of The Last Unicorn, a sassy cursed alcoholic doomed to guard a gateway the protagonists must pass.

The environment around the gateway was based off the initial concept of the Hell tree. It is not a physical place on earth, nor within the tree, but a dimensional plane between two worlds. It is not overly grandiose, rather simply an unappealing and dank swampy gateway, hinting towards the unpleasantness beyond.

To the right are further drawings of Lust characters before we had developed the initial character-animal connection further. I mainly intended to establish that no character type is limited to one sex. The characters come in both male and female form, though they are both affected by the punishment they face in Hell.

It was time to redesign Lust to fit into a Spider based character. There were a range of initial inspirations for these drawings and the design. I was undoubtedly influenced by Leonardo Davinci’s Vetruvian Man drawing (top left) for my full frontal take on the character. For years as I have developed my drawing technique I would return to the works of Renaissance and post-Renaissance masters, in particular Davinci, Caravaggio and Michelangelo as an all encompassing anatomy reference.

Characters that particularly inspired this design include firstly the ultimate form of the Other Mother, a predatory and spiteful character from Henry Selick’s film adaptation from Neil Gaiman’s graphic Novel “Coraline”. The design features expressionless eyes, long spidery limbs held around a round abdomen of a body and shattered skin. The design is very sharp and precise, screaming “evil” and “run run run run get away run.” The initial roundness of the mother character is transformed as her true intentions are relieved into a truly threatening design. What is interesting is that she maintains her humanity while carrying the spidery characteristics.

Secondly the villain Henry J. Waternoose III (directly below) from Pixar’s Monsters Inc. provided a base to work on for a anthropological spider design. Certain characteristics carried through to my design, such as the spider base body (I was drawn towards the traditional “Centaur” approach to this kind of design, that being a top human form upon an animal’s lower body) and multiple eyes. To the bottom, I researched into multiply limbed humans and found the mystical element linked to it in the Hindu religion. The goddess Vishnu is highly revered and always depicted with four arms, she is so revered for this aspect that children who are born with multiple limbs are worshiped as the goddess incarnate.

After creating the 3/4 design page for the Spider-Lady Lust character, we had to face an issue that we have found as a team. My drawings are done in a highly specific semi-realistic style, that I have developed from a range of sources over a number of years. Due to the fact that everybody needs to be able to draw our characters, and I cannot design all the characters on my own I need to adapt my designs into something more based off simple shapes, a change in design that was unanimously agreed on. The above drawings are a step in the right direction, but by no means the final outcome. I was experimenting with drawing my design in different styles by different artists.

The first was in Chuck Jones’ style for “Looney Tunes” – largely because it was one of the first names that came to mind when I thought “cartoon style” but also because of the anthropomorphic nature of the characters. The next two styles were taken for their links to the horror genre – Tim Burton’s instantly recognizable style, particularly referenced from the “Corpse Bride” and the Other Mother from “Coraline”. There is an jerked motion created by the stop-motion used in these animations that would really enhance the design of my Lust spider lady.

World Development – Idea Selection 5.10.2015/6.10.2015

I purposely tried to look at the bigger picture with world building, and tried to imagine the world itself in spacial terms, rather than smaller environments that may only take up a small section of a larger world. (Though I know the word “World” is relative when it comes to size/scale, but I think the nature of this design challenge is to be as limitless as possible.)

I always thought I was more interested in fantasy rather than science-fiction, but after completing a few sketches and researching I realized how much the genres hand to each other. Initially I began looking at uninhabited worlds in our own solar system e.g. Saturn and began imagining the environmental pressures and how they would affect the evolution of what species lived on that world. Then, I began imagining what if the planet itself was alive. This began after a sketch of a broken planet with a visible planet core when I saw that my drawing looked like a hatching egg. I began imagining various water-based animals suspended in space supporting the world upon their backs.

I was influenced by Spyro Dawn of The Dragon’s antagonist “The Destroyer” (shown top, below) which is a rock monster/golem made from fractured earth which carries the ruins of an ancient civilization on it’s shoulders. After researching I realized that my idea of the turtle carrying the world as it’s shell was not wholly original. In fact, the concept of a World bearing animal (In particular turtles, tortoises and snakes) are prominent in the mythologies of Ancient China and the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Despite this being the case, I am still very interested by the idea of a living planet, and think it could be developed to a point in which the civilization worships the world bearing animal as a God and builds a culture around it.

I began delving further into ideas of world concepts. The first being one in which humankind or another race of beings developed technology to be able to survive in the temperatures of the sun (or perhaps a high temperature planet such as Mercury.) Inspiration for this concept comes from the recurring plot point in episodes of Futurama that the crew of the Planet Express are able to visit the Sun and survive high temperatures as long as they take the proper safety precautions.

My next idea was one in which the sun had been blocked out and there was a civilization living in a permanent apocalypse.

The idea was inspired by a plot point in “The Animatrix” in which humanity blocks out the sun in an attempt to fight back against solar-powered robots, disabling society’s ability to function in the process. The quick design of the figures in the drawing was influenced by the Zombies in Call of Duty 5’s minigame “Nazi Zombies”. Though I didn’t envision humanity becoming zombies in a world sans sunlight, they would adapt in such a way where their eyes become highly sensitive to light.. so much so that they evolve to have reflective eyes like a dog because the reflection allows for more light to travel to the retina.

Another idea was simply a post apocalyptic world and what creatures would inhabit it. I like the idea that an abandoned earth was the foundation of another society to evolve from the framework. Originally the leftover cities are populated by integrated wildlife and domestic animals, but they later evolve and a new intelligent dominant society arises studying the remainders of the human culture left behind in an architectural and anthropological fashion. Evolutionist Professor Richard Dawkins theorises in his book “After Man: A Zoology of the Future” that a post-human civilization of rodents will emerge,

“In a period of intense competition, short generations perhaps with radioactivity enhanced mutation-rates boost rapid evolution. Local populations [are] isolated save for occasional lucky raftings: ideal conditions for evolutionary divergence. Within 5 million years, a whole range of new species replace the ones we know.”

Another influence for domestic animals initially dominating the post human cities comes from the novel (and film adaptation of) by Richard Matheson “I Am Legend”.

Our team moved in a science-fiction direction much to my unexpected liking. We began to explore the idea of a large and developed civilization inside something microscopic relative to human scale. There were a number of ideas considered such as living within a larger living creature (parasitic civilization), dust particles, electrons and bacteria. After discussion we decided to move forward with the idea of a world living in sound waves.

We developed the concept to a world that would be able to survive by surfing along the soundwaves. The world itself would be a living organism and would be equipped with limbs or appendages of some description to be able to successfully navigate the soundwaves. After researching the basic physics of soundwaves it seems that the planet must move against the “flow” of the soundwaves towards the source of the sound in order to be sustainable and to survive.

world building initial ideas 28.09.2015 – 30.09.2015

 

The first task we have been given as a group is to “build a world”. It’s such an open ended design prompt because the possibilities and ways it can be taken are limitless. Eventually the world will be developed to such a point where we figure out the intricacies of civilisations that inhabit it (if there are any) based on the limitations of the environment we have designed. e.g. The evolution of creatures living in an world that has a sub-zero temperature environment. However to begin, we had to keep all options open and try and brainstorm as many possibilities as we could.

I find myself questioning what a world is before thinking of possible outcomes. A world can refer to a spacial “world”, or it could be a sub-section of an existing planetary body, such as a particular setting. Sometimes the word “world” only applies to human-populated planets, so a world could be an existing civilisation or city, this civilisation does not necessarily have to span planet-wide to be validated as a world. This prompted a further brainstorm in my sketchbook;

After this brainstorm, I theorised that in creating a believable and authentic world (it could still have nonsensical elements, not to limit myself) we will need to strike a balance between original elements and relatable elements present in our own world. The key is to allow viewers to relate to our world, to be able to picture a functioning world and to create a sense of empathy for the inhabitants of our world. There needs to be a point of comparison between our world, as a foundation, and on top of that original world elements can be built.

From looking at a range of sources that depicted original worlds I appreciate that world can be an alternate dimension, such as heaven or hell, or a dream world. The Last Judgement by  Michelangelo proposes the biblical idea of an alternate world, existing parallel to our own universe. Heaven and hell are religious constructs that picture worlds that are wholly virtuous or wholly evil. Lewis Caroll’s Wonderland in Alice in Wonderland brought about the idea of a chaotic dreamworld, in effect an entire world set in somebody’s mind and imagination. I like the idea of a world simply being one’s perception of the world, there could be worlds that are based around Earth as we know it but warped by a dually warped perception; be that by drug use or dreams.

Thinking of worlds, my mind goes to The Elder Scrolls V’s creation Skyrim which features a fully functioning authentic world backed by an entire culture and lore to support a full civilisation and environment. Personally, I find the entire Skyrim experience as deeply inspiring, especially so the level of detail the team put into the game to allow the player to delve into that world. Another world that lacks human population but maintains it’s validity as a “world” is the abandoned human cities featured in Pixar’s Wall-E. Although uninhabited, it remains a relic of humanity’s destruction and home prior to abandonment. A world can be unpopulated by man, but it still holds a culture and history that is highly visible and adds to it’s authenticity.

Really building a world can go in so many directions from here, and I am excited to decide on an initial concept to be able to build a world around whatever limitations may be attached to the functioning of that idea.