ISIW - The End of Imagined Worlds

The Concept

The concept art went rather well, I'd say. The idea behind it is that someone, maybe a travelling swordsman or swordswoman, investigates some smoke, discovering a wrecked aircraft of some kind. More importantly, they discover the problem that is an extreme climate variation - desert immediately transitioning to an icy tundra.

The concept art without additional effects.

I did rather well with the shadows in this piece, which normally isn't something I do incredibly well due to a lack of proper perspective and light location. I was able to get it pretty well this time, though. I could improve it by making it more obvious that this is a desert and icy tundra as well as adding more animation potential other than the mysterious person in front and the sky in the back.

The soundscape went pretty bad due to a real lack of potential. It only contained wind, which isn't fully indicative of the environment. There could at least have been some sand floating in the wind, hitting the sword. Even as a first attempt, it isn't anything to write home about. It was also my first time using Adobe Audition, so that also didn't help that much.

After animating it in After Effects and combining it with the "soundscape" in Premiere, the end result is a full concept. The animation is rather limited, which is fine for this project, but there really could've been more. The soundscape, as previously mentioned, had little potential. I could've at least added some kind of music in the background to spruce up the atmosphere. Still, it's mediocre. It works, but it really isn't the best I could've done.

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Analysis of Another Artist

Our final task is to analyse the work of an existing concept artist by illustrating something in their style, which can also include redrawing a segment of one of their existing works. For this task, I looked to Mikhail Rakhmatullin, concept artist at Moon Studios, and his work on Ori and the Will of the Wisps. Prior to his work at Moon, he worked freelance as a concept artist.

Out of his numerous concept arts on the game, six have a tile aesthetic, which I decided to try. The end result I came up with is a redraw of a portion of the first image.

The redraw I made, which is my attempt at the style demonstrated in the artwork.

Environment

From the images, I'd say the environment depicted would be an ancient civilisation or prophecy. I haven't played the game yet, so I can't really give a true answer. For starters, the tiles on some images are worn, probably due to age. In the final image, the mural is destroyed, either due to age or some sort of attack.

Tone

The tone of the images seems sombre or melancholy with a tinge of awe. I don't know if these appear one after another in the game, but it would make sense if they did.

In order, the following themes are evoked: first is "ancient", due to the excessiveness of the dirt colours and muted tile colours; second "relaxed", due to the many hues of greens and blues; third and fourth are "evil" and "death", due to the darker purples, darkened sky, and the tree wilting; "hope" is fifth, due to the colours being bright like light; finally, despite the broken mural, "peace" due to the colours being even brighter than seen in image two, presumably as a result of image five.

Application