WORLDS | 3D | Tokened | Belfryo

[Belfryo]

• Vladimir Karin
• belfry.orphan@gmail.com
• ArtStation
• www.twitch.tv/belfryo — I will occasionally stream my process;
• Facebook

Hello everyone! My name is Vladimir, I am a graphic designer and illustrator with some 3D background, currently trying to get into concept art and video-game production. Hope to get to my best productivity potential during this challenge, and I want it really to be a challenge.

So I had spent a couple of days on research and preparatory work to present you my project:

The antecedent world was long gone, all but forgotten, the remains of population scattered across the world, living the life of scavengers, retrieving old yet somehow working tech scrap of the Old Times. The dispersed tribes lacking even the most basic infrastructure or anything somewhat resembling civilization keep spreading across the world, as new spoils came scarcely. Since the world's ecosphere was on the brink of extinction and stories of other living creatures had long become a doubtful fables, so there was not much use for bow and arrows.

And so it was, until a group of scouts traveled across the mountains found a land of towering heaven-piercing poles. Carvings threaded on that pylons depicted unimaginable for deprived minds of scavengers creatures, their features were so familiar and natural, yet being almost like belongings of another realm. Those totemic structures have become a cornerstones for gathering in a pilgrimage tribes of scavengers. The Totems weren't just a source of inspiration and uplift. They were bearers of something tangible. A token of spiritual power, harmony, progress, everything an incipient civilization would need. A power available to be studied, harvested, and put into development of their newborn civilization

Civilization build upon the ancient "Mayan" Totems, with the unknown spiritual energy withing them.
Even economy is based on some sort of spiritual "cryptocurrency", mined from those totems.

The final result would be an environment build in Unreal Engine 4. You can walk around 2 interconnected locations, one of them representing neighboring slums, and another being observation deck which gives good view on city in all its magnificence.

After decision to go with totemic, spiritualistic theme, next step was to find an artistic direction. Being fan of Bioshock aesthetics, I have started with Art Deco style, which could emphasize on ethnic and totemic nature of society, as well as its prosperity and leaning toward technological progress. In addition, Art Deco is linked to Mayan culture in form of Mayan Revival architecture (architectural movement that took inspiration from pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures), which suits the theme of this challenge perfectly. Eclecticism is a crucial point of project, mixing different cultures and visual languages could bring fresh look to simple ideas.

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My progress so far:

Done some thumbnails. Not to depict something really important, just got some interesting shapes and directions (quite generic though). Thumb also serves as some sort of storyboard about wandering tribes, finding totems, etc. The actual mood of world should be much brighter, not that "moody".

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My work plan so far:

1. Some basic thumbnails, research and mood board
2. Develop buildings silhouettes.
3. Sketching some props.
4. Model/bake/texture/material work for simple props to establish most
   effective pipeline.
5. Designing 2D layout of locations.
6. Detailed concepts and ideas for environments.
7. ...

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Really looking forward for your feedback guys, hope you'll find my stuff at least somewhat interesting.

Starting thumbnails:

Research and References:

[fullerhill_art]

Loving your process so far, really well thought out and structured

[Goat]

Great contrast in your shapes and colour in the thumbnails, looking forward to seeing more!

[Belfryo]

Not that much of a progress, tried some shapes for buildings (my favorites are 1, 8, 12 and 16) and got some inspiration from PREY's Talos station concepts and made some art for a building.

@casperfh Thanks, perks of being a graphic designer.

@Goat Thank you, hope to deliver.

[Goat]

I'll just say my favourite is 16 for obvious reasons of course! Again, your silhouette's are lovely and if you can translate them strongly over into the 3D piece it's going to be very powerful.

[hebronppg]

really like how you make a presentation. First, about your silhouette, i really like no 7, now i could imagine there a new city at the back side, and there are some old ruined structures from the old time

The last, about your silhouette, i also agree with Goat, number 16 is cool, and looks not too far from your thumbnail (number 8). However, your design solution, base on number 1, also provide a good design solution

[Belfryo]

Not that much of a progress in terms of quantity, but it is a huge step for me in studying all the software I need and wrapping my head around asset creation pipeline. So here is the result: some kind of sci-fi retro-futuristic computer terminal, which probably will be present in my final scene.

Maya > UVLayout > Zbrush > Substance Painter > Substance Designer > Unreal Engine 4.

The only software I was familiar with at the beginning was Zbrush.
So I think those 5 days were well spent.

Marmoset Viewer < Artstation Link

Terminal Prop Model

Next step will be sketching some constructions, panels, simple scene layout (top-down).

@Goat Oh you!
@hebronppg Thanks for checking my stuff and feedback.

Think I'll go with goat head at some point.

[hebronppg]

nice progress @Belfryo
I can't wait to see your city. I hope it would be awesome