Tunnels Moodboard, Research and Initial Ideas

Above is my moodboard, at first glance looks a bit random but it covers lighting references, VFX, style variations, materials and most importantly, tunnels and cave structures. So here's what I'm thinking for each...

Tunnel Structure

The first question I asked myself was, "How did these fictional Tunnels get here?" I believe they would have existed before any human, immortal or god walked in the Everneath. The Everneath trilogy is based around the Hades and Persephone myth, so looking in my Greek Mythology book at world creation I found this. Gaia is Earth and Tartarus means the Underworld. I imagine the Everneath would have appeared the same time as these did since it is a world between Earth and Hell, I also imagine it's location would be reflected in the world's design by being a blend of the natural Earth, and preternatural underworld. The tunnels wouldn't be an exception to that, even if it is the deepest, darkest, unnatural part.

Here's a map from the second book Everbound, the tunnels I think run underneath the world's centre like the underground tube system in Central London.

Because of its nature and purpose, I think it would look like an ethereal hellscape - an unholy divinity. I looked at several different types of caves and tunnels and decided the best one to base this piece on would be a lava tunnel especially after researching how they are formed. The walls in the books are described as coal, coal also looks like lava rock and both are used for burning.

VFX

The tunnels is a place of power and energy, a place of transfer so I will use VFX - more specifically animated materials in unreal engine to achieve this. My initial thought was to imitate electricity using a colour to reflect human souls, at first I thought blue, white or green, maybe even a mix in a chromatic aberration kind of way. Then I came across a tutorial on creating a cosmic material with a limited colour palette in different variations. I felt brought me closer to what I wanted even though I didn't know exactly what that was yet. The material used caustics, stars and what I'm calling a main vein. When someone dies some say a new star appears in the sky, including this subtly felt right. Now I was getting somewhere, however energy surges - I needed to add a pulse to make it come alive. With what I have, it needs more detail in the vein, it needs to look like there was something being carried inside the vein.

A iridescent colour like a bubble would be a perfect colour representation of souls, but now I'm going off track because it's not so much souls that are being drained, the Everneath isn't interested in souls - that's for Hell and Heaven. It's concerned with emotional energy, so how could I convey negative emotional energy and with which colours? I still believe iridescent is what I'm looking for because of how it changes colour when viewed at different angles so I'm going to experiment with making a dark iridescent material. On a final note, I will need to all the VFX I do look look embedded in the wall, not projected onto it, the light is coming from inside the wall.

Lighting

Lighting is going to be a challenge because it's underground - there is no light source. The VFX is what I intend on being the main light source. I know I want some fog and some shadows to create an unnerving sense for my audience - but what would give off a shadow? Well, the Everneath have inhabitants called shades, they're a floating figureless mounds of oil. Their sole purpose is to serve and protect the Everneath, they have access to hidden places and can go through materials - Everlivings become shades when they miss a feed. The game Torchlight II gave me the idea to include this.

When is comes to warm and cool coloured lighting, I struggled to make a decision because cool reflects the eeriness and goes with a coal colour and theme of death. However, warm lighting goes with the theme of hellscape and lava. After doing some research both can be done! So this is my intention.

Style

Art direction is hard to pin point exactly right now but I know it's NOT going to be super realistic or super stylised either. I'm thinking somewhere between realistic and over-exaggerated stylised as defined by this article: Realistic vs. Stylized: Technique Overview (80.lv)

Another great article I found was: Building Underground Environments With UE4 (80.lv)

A Time Apart: New Art Direction

Taking a break from pre viz as I feel like I'm struggling a lot with it I am spending the weekend returning to my art direction and art of, Art direction is becoming a problem as I haven't fully sussed it out yet. My animation is set in Yorkshire, this morning I watched Song of the Sea and took some inspiration from it which, hopefully is clear to see.

A few weeks ago I spoke to Justin about art direction and making my world more animation-esque, below are the points I am going to bear in mind whilst painting:

• Texture is impactful
• The world of the animation has to be believable and contribute to the story which means the characters have to fit in the world - I think Song of the Sea comes close to my characters' look.
• Yorkshire is very green and where there is green means a lot of grey rainy skies.
• To make buildings more animation-esque I need to look at their shapes and push them and exaggerate but not too much and my previous concept art the building were too real and straight.
• The composition needs to have curves, I don't need to keep everything straight and organised.
• Not too grim

Premise: Finding an Art Direction (Influence Map and Video)

Now that I have as much information as I can get about my Grandad's evacuee experience, I want to find the right art direction to tell this story. I want the characters to resemble their photos. I was looking into graphic novels and war posters for art design, Canada at War would be a good influence for the London setting. For the country settings I'd like to take influence from the Pax book cover as I think it would be suitable for my animation to be in colour but not bright or too colourful - I just need to be able to merge their qualities into one art direction to look as if it's all in the same world. 

Influence Map for Character and Environment design/potential art direction.

Looking at animated war shorts, I found this one called "Chosin: Baptized by Fire!" which I like, it's adapted from the graphic novel "HOLD THE LINE".

Character Design: Environment Influence Map and Thumbnails

Character Design: Creating Story

Thinking about the story I'm going to tell, I have a nervous knight who uses his weapon in a last minute escape so I got to think what's the story behind the nervousness why are they nervous, what are they escaping from and how is the weapon used to do that?

My world is the Medieval England (aka Middle Ages) which with a Knight makes me think of England's Patron Saint, St George. The folk tale's popularity was at its peak during the late middle ages. It's about a village who had a dragon living in their lake in the forest that would poison their waters, the village gave everything to appease the dragon and make him leave: food, animals, money, children but it was not enough. The King himself even gave his own daughter to the dragon however our Patron Saint was riding through the forest and had seen the girl in danger - he fought the dragon and won.

In my story I have a nervous Knight fighting a

• Minotaur 

OR

• Giant snake that has all the sacrificed village children inside it 

who has wiped out a neighbouring village and it won't be long before it attacks the town, both are part of this Kingdom's empire.

He is nervous because as the King's son and eldest child, it is his duty to protect his Kingdom, the King is ill and weak (plague) - if the King goes he's dead for sure and the Prince wishes to go, the Queen must remain in the castle to take care of the King. Although the Prince has fairly well-trained Knighthood skills, he has never actually been on the battlefield and now he is about to venture into the unknown by himself.

Last minute escape - the Knight is struggling to defeat the beast and knows he cannot win so he has to make a choice die here and now or attempt a last minute escape with his life to where he can come back with the bravest/strongest soldiers and stand more of a chance. He chooses to save his life and escape.

To put the stakes up, it's no longer just his own life he has to save…

• He finds a young village child survivor hiding 

OR

• He has a sister (archer) who shows up last minute to help 

My Knight wields a spear and shield, when he sees his sister pierce an eye with her arrow, he uses his spear to completely blind the creature by throwing/lunging it into his other eye, allowing just enough time for a last minute escape saving him and his sister.

Collaboration: Robot Chicken

For example in the That's Bane clip (below) they've nitpicked that Batman talks a lot before he takes any action giving Bane plenty enough time to break Batman's back very dramatically multiple times - plus they've made a joke out of the Rule of Three concept which we are using in the Harry Potter skit - we return to it three times to exaggerate time.

This skit makes fun of Darth Vader's parenting skills - not exactly the best Dad going, holding his daughter prisoner and threatening her.

This skit they make fun of the possibilities the Terminator could create by changing the past altering the future.

Video on how Robot Chicken makes their animations

Collaboration: Art Direction and 3D

This one was made by Polly earlier on in the project.

Dr Seuss Rules

Seuss's rules: Uses restricted colours per illustration, white is a dominant colour, uses black linework. His compositions are mainly white or plain colors, or tidily sectioned.

Influence Maps

I've thrown in a South Park image just to remind myself of that vector/simplistic use of colour.

Science + Game + 3D Influence Map

Style Research

These have a general audience but particularly youth.

2.5D - Grayscale Colour Scheme

Dr Seuss Style - Rhyming Narration, solid colours and pen art.

More modern Dr Seuss has a comic feel but not quite a comic and strong surrealism.
I also like the surreal environments this will work well when designing a scientific environment.
This could work well with the vector styled illustrations I experimented with in the last project.

If I decide to go with a completely 3D style and go with a gaming format I'd go with something like Lego Universe (the trees are somewhat similar to that in Cat in the Hat).

Looking at Minecraft although it is popular the pixelated blurry blocky style wouldn't work too well for me but the simplicity/animation-movement is inspiring.



Or if I go completely 2D maybe something like the Mr Men



More rhymes used to narrate a story to make it more effective.

Workshop Reference Images - Designing Junk

      

Cellar Influence Map

Since I'm not going with steampunk theme anymore and because my story takes place in present time I've created a new influence map. This cellar is going to be my roboticist's workshop below that is an influence map of things I'd find in a workshop.

Production Design Influence Maps

Cellar

Park

Steampunk

Inception (2010) Concept Art Influence Images

After talking to Phil, I'm going to start focusing on low angle shots of Merveille than establishing shots, suggesting that I look at Inception for surreal cities, I found some concept art I like and am inspired by in terms of composition and layout.

Definitive Influence Map

After talking to Jordan about how I'm supposed to collaborate with Cornell, I have created a new influence map of influential antique objects and victorian buildings I could use to think like Cornell would rather than create an influence map of Cornell's work.

What If? Metropolis OGR Part 1

Joseph Cornell/Merveille Influence Maps

Supporting Artist/Designer Research - Joseph Cornell

More Influence Maps

@Phil: Armilla 2