Recent graduates from The Animation Workshop/VIA University College broke tradition by crafting an Art Book for their final project, showcasing their creativity and fostering significant growth.
Recent graduates from The Animation Workshop/ VIA University College, including Mads Hendriksen, Wendy Agostinho, Jonas Nathanael, and Valentina Pantaleoni, created new opportunties through their bachelor project. Shifting away from the conventional focus on animation, they created an expansive Art Book, showcasing their creativity and nurturing significant development. In this second article, the team discuss how they brought their concepts to live in 3D.
Wendy Agostinho: The Fish People live in an isolated community by a ship graveyard that they are using as their home. They are a brutal and extreme faction that believe they will be able to live and breathe underwater eventually.
Therefore, they experiment on humans by injecting them with stem cells, radioactive waste and they even experiment with incorporating fish parts into their anatomy. In the image below, they are performing the drowning ritual, where after injecting the prisoner with those products, they hang them by their feet and release them into the water, coming back some days later to check on the results of the experiment.
As this faction is probably the most violent one in this world, I really wanted to push the danger and chaotic feel of their design. A lot of sharpness and fog everywhere and show how they interact with the water - in a very brutal way. The platform at the center is almost a sort of shrine where victims are held and dropped into the water, while the Fish People wait for "results". It is a place of madness.
Jonas Nathanael: Scattered around the Fish People are shipwrecks - a labyrinth of shipwrecks.
The wrecks are interconnected and the piers overlap from different angles; left, right under, and over. All of this makes up a cobweb of shipwrecks that the Fish People call home.
Usually, I draw the thumbnails first, but in this case, I drew several props and tried different compositions with these props. I like to go a bit heavy on the drawing and preliminary sketches to get the clear idea and mood I want to go for. Once I have a clear vision I go in Blender to model the props and play around with the composition and lighting.
An important step of the process when rendering your 3d environment concepts is the render passes. They give you a lot of data you can play around with and can just enhance your renders in general. Usually, I like to use an Ambient Occlusion pass, ID pass, shadow pass, mist pass, and sometimes normal pass.
Before doing a paint-over of the entire render, I like to play around with these first and do a little color grading. Here is a brief explanation of how I use each render pass and why:
Mads Hendriksen: This was the first piece I made for the book, I wanted to show the scale of the Industrialists' dome, with a 300mm lens. My primary design decisions were based around the generator in the middle, which delivers power throughout the faction.
The Industrialists are the most privileged faction in the current world. Years ago, when scientists predicted the onset of the flooding, some of the world’s most powerful individuals and corporations took proactive measures by ordering the construction of massive domes in high-elevation areas.
These structures were intended to serve as protection against the inevitable floods. These enormous domes are capable of accommodating up to 100,000 people, carefully selecting who would be granted entry into these sanctuaries. Within the core of each dome, a colossal generator was installed, equipped with a pumping system designed to purify water and generate electricity. However, this process relies on the consumption of vast quantities of coal and other natural resources.
Today, the domes have become the stuff of legends among other communities, as those who venture out in search of them never return. In truth, many of these individuals are captured by the Industrialists’ and forced to toil in the generator until their death. The Industrialists from this dome provide the Fish People with prisoners and resources for their experiments in exchange for protection from outsiders.
Jonas Nathanael: In this piece, the protagonist enters a massive concrete structure in the heart of the city and it turns out to be a mansion where a family has been living in luxury while others struggled to survive for years.
For this, I was conflicted about whether to make the action close-up or view it from further away. I ended up moving the camera further away because the interior reflects the mindset of the rich families in the dome. To make the architecture intimidating, I chose to make the interior very vertical with the camera not being able to see the ceiling, effectively creating an illusion. Additionally, I made all the materials very rocky & metallic giving off a more masculine vibe that makes it uncomfortable because of the lack of soft materials. I also added organic furniture to make it feel more like a museum.
I thought it could be ironic for the interior to contain an aquarium with exotic fish to create a contrast with the other factions.
Here is a snippet of the story where an extreme wave floods the city. The city is in a state of complete panic. Within a matter of seconds, all the buildings begin collapsing upon themselves and people are running through the streets, desperately trying to save themselves and their families.
It’s important to have the intention of the image in mind when starting a new piece. I knew the 3d could be messy for this one because the motion blur and blurry characters would disguise most of it. With this in mind, I could focus my effort on other places like focusing on the effects of the big wave in Photoshop and explosions. I didn’t use many render passes or even spend that much time in 3D for this one. The majority of the time was spent on making the piece look very cinematic and adding the characters in 2D. You can see in the render passes underneath that I kept it limited and only used the characters as a reference when painting.
Working on the project for a year I learned a lot of things, but I also got refreshed on things you should keep in mind when trying to do concept art.
Here are some pointers that could help:
In the end, we learned a lot in a single year where our sole focus was specialising in concept art. Simultaneously, we became storytellers which in turn made the designs and keyframes more engaging. We hope that our labor of love is evident in the following pieces. We have poured countless hours, dedication, and passion into its creation.
If this project sounds intriguing to you, please take a look at the final PDF where you will learn more about the world.
We hope that you, the reader, will appreciate and enjoy the fruits of our labor, as we invite you to delve into the captivating world we have meticulously crafted. If you haven't yet, read Part 1 of the article here.
Reach out to the team here: Mads Hendriksen | Wendy Agostinho | Valentina Pantaleoni | Jonas Nathanael.