Final Major Project - Developed Concept

Final Major Project - Developed Concept

I decided I needed to put all the critique feedback, suggestions, recommendations and research to use by producing some developed concept art. For these developed concepts I would utilize all the recommendations and see what the outcome would be. Focusing on still executing a visual style I like, I would take into consideration each critique point and research factor for these concepts.

I started out looking at my primary research (photos) and asset research pages to see what asset I would first place into the canvas. Firstly I blocked out all major buildings, brickwork and major obstacles first. This consisted of an overpass, two main buildings and the floor. Assets and details I would later add had not been decided on as of yet. Having that said, this was the early stages.

Here is the 'layering' or progress screenshots of the basic main layout of the concept. As mentioned there is no detail or fully finished assets in this composition at all. That will be added later. I did this layering method as it was recommended during our group critique by Adam and Brandon James. 

I knew that this needed something more to it. I needed to block-out more of the excess space underneath the overpass, but I wasn't entirely sure on what to do. What I did was refer to my feedback sheets and look at video games as recommended by Conor Rabone, Brandon Leigh and Connor Beddoes. These video games specifically were The Division, Fallout and Borderlands. This was beyond helpful. All of these games have makeshift shack-like structures which is something I knew suited not only the post apocalyptic theme but fits my back story as well. So I added one. 

Here is what it looked like...

 I was starting to see the concept come to life. I needed to start adding smaller details and features of which I found from primary research and asset research I had done. Not only this but more importantly was my artist research. Both artists (Olly Moss and Kris Piotrowski) manage to execute detail even while doing such a bare, basic and flat art style such as minimalism. So I began adding small assets.

I did this whilst following the same piece by piece build-up workflow. Here is the progress of me adding the small assets such as (windows, a bus, bottles, a street light, and a dumpster).

The final stages to completing this developed (draft-final) concept was the added effects I saw in-use by Kris Piotrowski from my artist research. The dark, grungy mood that he manages to create in areas of his artwork through the use of subtle overlaying effects is what creates that atmosphere in his work.

I wanted to achieve the same look so through texture, particle and effect research I overlayed these using the blend mode settings in Photoshop and dropping the opacity on them so that they wouldn't ruin or be too harsh on the finished piece. I managed to follow the workflow of Kris Piotrowski pretty well.

 Here is the concept with dust motes/particles overlaying the composition.

Here is the concept with added rusted metal textures overlaying the composition.

Here is the concept with added 'dark' grunge textures overlaying the composition.

Here are the screenshots of each 'effect' layers blend options and opacity levels. 

For the dust motes/particles I set the blend mode to 'screen' and the opacity to 40% visibility.

 For the simple grunge textures I set the blend mode to 'soft light' and the opacity to 50% visibility.

For the metal rust textures I set the blend mode to 'soft light' and the opacity to 20% visibility.

Overall I felt that these overlaying effects blended into the flat, minimalistic polygon art style really, really well. There are a few things I would change which is what I shall work on for my next developed concept. For the next development and the final concept I would change the colours. 

As mentioned the art style is very colour specific. I may need to do further research on the colour schemes of minimalistic art to find the right colour spectrum that is suited to this style.