Planning and Concept Design
3/10/23
I really struggled coming up with the concept sketches, 2D isn’t really my strong suit so it was difficult to come up with any concept ideas as I couldn’t really play around with the placements like I could in 3D. I definitely had ideas that I wanted in the final design but I just couldn’t figure what I wanted overall. I spent a lot of time looking at different designs from artists and pictures from real life. There were definitely elements that I quite liked from my research, but in the end, it was still difficult to create an environment in my head.
I started off with the gazebo. As it is one of my main focuses, I wanted it to be out in the water with a stone pathway leading up to it, being on an island on its own, kind of like a lookout point. As it is the main focus, I thought a double-tiered roof would look better than a single, As for the colours, I thought the classic red and black would be perfect .
One of my ideas was based on Wuliting, a big pavilion in the middle of a lake with a long, straight connection to it located in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. I went there last summer and was reminded of it when working on this project, I liked the idea of the long path but it’s not exactly what I had in mind for my design
In my head, I knew I wanted the scene to include a gazebo, bridge, tree, waterfall and maybe a statue. As the story behind this garden is a secret place for the two lovers to meet, I thought maybe I could add a statue of the warrior too, hinting at the fact that she might no longer be alive?
The statue really grew on me, and I came up with many shots, like having the warrior lover look over the statue or having the statue be surrounded by flowers for the dead. I knew it would be ambitious to try and create the scene as well as the statue so I kept that idea as something I could make if I had enough time.
I wasn’t very impressed with how my concept design turned out, not being able to draw out what I had imagined in my head was definitely frustrating and a bit off putting. I didn’t really think I would stick to my design because I didn’t really like it that much. All I wanted was to get started on the modelling, in particular the gazebo.
I knew I was being ambitious with the statue, but I got very into the story and started the character design for the warrior.