Epic City

Week 7 means the last three week project before setting to work on FMP which is a pretty scary thought but we've got some good ideas going so far.

I've chosen to do the Epic City brief for the final project of the Style Matrix. I'm really not confident designing and painting environments and that is why I chose this project in particular. I want a broad portfolio and I hardly ever paint environments and landscapes so this project will be great practice for me and I think it's really good to push myself.

So for Epic City I have to create and iterate at least 4 epic cities including 3 final paintings for each city. The project is semi sylised so I want to really push my style through on this one and make it illustrative.

I started off with moodboards and trying to come up with some original and unique designs.

I made a moodboard for general inspiration which I found on Pinterest then started to refine my ideas into a city that lives on the back of an animal, a desert city, flying city, sci fi city and a city made out of nature.

I did some initial idea sketches to start thinking of different types of cities.

Here are my inital sketches of the flying city. I liked a lot of these designs and created one into a more finalised painting but I didn't think it was epic enough.

Finally I decided on the city that I liked, a flying ship which is massive and made out of rock. The city is built out onto the rock which they make into a moving city.

I have only just gotten to the stage were I sketch out a more iterated design which I will finish over the weekend.

For the city on the back of an animal I sketched out some different designs however I think the whale is the most effective and I painted some more finalised designs.

This final painting is more refined and closer to the final design in my mind. I made the city as buildings in mountains on the back of the whale. Having a city on the back of whale which is submerged partly is unrealistic because what would happen to the city underwater? So I decided on the mountain design however referring back to my original idea of having a flying whale.

For the desert I want a a futuristic feel although it's in the middle of a desert so I created these buildings. After some feedback I realised I needed to create some signs of life like shops and market areas as I don't want it to look abandoned.

These are some inital sketches exploring a city made out of nature or embedded into it. It's hard to make such organic shapes into cities and they are basically opposites however I think my final design is going to be a city encased by leaves in a busy forest.

Here I have some inital sketches for the sci fi city I was exploring a cirular theme and trying to create cities in circular shapes or inside black holes.

Finally I chose the ring design which hold the city and hold together using artificial gravity.

This painting shows the city in a more earthlike environment like a cold desolate scene.

And finally here is the city in space, which I think is more fitting for the style.

The next stage is to refine and iterate each design some more. I plan to get onto making blockouts so I can get the correct perspective for the final paintings for each city.