Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Lawrence: House Ideations


Hey Guys, here are some ideations for the houses that the devil creatures could live in. Now I had an idea that the ships that they crashed landed here could be the used as a house because it's not going to be used as a mode of transportation any time soon. After a bunch of scribbling and silhouette studies I chose some shapes that were interesting and decided to do some ideations of them. I like the space ship idea but it started to look too sci-fi. Then I started looking for influences to help my design and I looked at a lot of asian architecture since my character's costumes were influenced by that asian style (and also to give the design a "true" feel rather than made up). I also tried some designs where it looks a little more primitave because they used materials that they found to make these homes. I like the idea of maybe merging the spaceship and the home together so I might do more ideations for that. I like the spaceship idea because it gives the homes a lil bit of story to them and a lot of character. Is there any particular design anyone likes? Any comments would help, so I can begin to finalize the idea.

3 comments:

Leo Braz said...

Lawrence, I like how your shape explorations are going. The ones that seem to be working the best right now are the ones that have the asymetrical designs. The others are looking a little too generic, with the tipical pitched roofs and whatnot. Think about what the nature of your species are. Are they friendly demons? The shapes you have right now are all appearing to be so, even with the little spikey roof tiles.

All of these designs are looking kind of flat. I think that if you want to use these as ideations, then you're gonna want to draw them out more in perspective, even in this thumbnail stage. I like the one with the tall spires. Maybe you could work them in as some form of crude communication towers or something. I'm not getting any sense of what the materials used to build these structures are (exept for the thatch-roofed teepee), maybe you could indicate that more with a close-up sketch on the side.

I didn't really see a spaceship in any one of these, which is kinda good seeing as how in the story we were given to work from the characters fazed in kinda like they teleported to this world. I would rather think that they came here with intention, rather than the more cliche'd crash-landing.

One last thought is, who's home is this? is it the hunter, mage, or rogue's home? I would give some indication of such and design the house to fit the character. Would they own a home that looks designed by Frank Loyd-Wright? That one with the spires I liked so much does appear to be one of his creations...

oooh, one more thing. SCALE! Put a little sillouette character in it to show the dimentions (kinda like the golf-coarse).

Hope that helps.

bfa07 said...

Thanks Leo. That does help. I know the idea of them crash landing is a little cliche but I figured that if I wanted the spaceships to be part of the homes that that story would be appropriate otherwise they wouldn't use the spaceships as part of the design. But I'll do some more ideations for different ideas. I was thinking more of the design rather than the perspective (eventhough in the back of my mind I was thinking how these things are three dimensionally). I figured the interior would show who's home it is since we're looking for one base design for the whole race. It's in the back of my mind though leo. Thanks for the feedback it's helping to get more ideas going through.

nino navarra said...

I agree with everything Leo is saying, and just to add to that, I believe you need to really push your shapes. They are looking too ordinary and plain. Choose one that you think is working best, and try playing around with proportions, and shapes further.

Also remember what these buildings are made out of. You’re trying to go for a “ship crash” look, so your architecture should reflect that. I would expect a lot of individual pieces that been broken from the ship crash modified to fit together to form the current architecture. That would lead to visible seams, and pieces that might not fit together perfectly. Think “puzzle pieces.” Also, how is it put together? Wouldn’t I see lots of screws and bolts to hold pieces together, etc.? Also as a viewer, I would expect certain pieces to retain their original shape from the ship and remind me that this “piece” was part of something else at some other point in time. How about if the pieces still have torn edges, burnt marks, etc.? Remember, to tell a story through your design.
Another point, remember the characteristics that make up a normal house, a common Inn, and a market place (size, entrance locations, windows, path ways, etc.). Even if it’s an alien architecture, you should carry some of those elements in your design so that the player still has some sort of recognizable characteristics to identify the building with.

I hope you remember to design the interior and keep that in mind as you’re doing the exterior.

One last thing, label these ideations. It’s hard to tell which building is what.

-Nino