The Dark Tower

Hey Guys!
So this is now my about my second or third attempt at creating an environment in blender, so I’ll start this whip thread off with a concept art I made and an early block in in blender for a scene containing a dark wizard tower levitating in the sky and the knight / hero coming to destroy it.


Be back soon with another update :slight_smile:
Any comments suggestions welcome!
Hugo

Blender cycles with basic lighting:
Ignore second picture related to post further down :slight_smile:

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Very cool concept, I like the knight’s “wake” of light. Good luck on your blender adaptation!

Good luck :smiley: I’m interested to see how your concept would translate to a 3d render

Thanks guys for your replies,
Heres the next wip shot from blender cyclesI’ve got in some volumetric on the beam holding the tower, changed the elevation of theCliff the knight stands on added an old spooky tree some compositional spikes that point inwards, rocks, details etc. More soon!


Any comments / suggestions welcome!
Hugo

make sure you have a foreground mid-ground and background

Thanks,
i hadn’t really noticed that! I kinda need to figure out how or what to fill the space, maybe move the tower more to the left (rule of thirds?)
Hugo

I second the idea of using rule of thirds. From what I can tell from your image I think you can accomplish this just by moving the camera. I think something that can help connect the foreground to the background is a road of some sort, winding its way from somewhere underneath this outcropping to the tower. Maybe a burned out city of some sort along the road? Keep going, I like this piece so far.

Java, I already tried using a road to connect the two, but it just broke the composition. However I love the idea of a burning city, I’ll start work on that as soon as I can! (School started again)

Hugo

Hi guys, another quick update with a basic town addition, re-orientated the camera, added a hand painted texture mixed with a gravel texture I had, some mountains in the background like in the original concept. Next up giving those spikes some magic look, smoke stacks from the town and textures for the tree.

Enjoy :slight_smile: (Definitely click for hi res)


Any comments / suggestions welcome.
Hugo

Hi guys,
New update since I got time to do some stuff this morning. I rooted through my photo library for some tree and created a tile-able texture, which I then applied to the tree in the foreground. Next up there are new trees surrounding the town, which are actually the same tree as in the foreground but rendered out to 2d plane to save on render times. Adjusted the composition for more rule of thirds stuff and lowered the camera down in the scene for a better angle. Using the trees to lead your eye like Java suggested (roads).

(Click for much better quality)



Any Comments or suggestions welcome!
Hugo

False Advertisement!!! lol jk. by the title I was thinking Stephen King’s Dark Tower. I gotta say this is coming along nicely. It’s looking better with each update.

Thanks antorius, its kinda surprising me as well, its kinda the first large project were it hasn’t become overwhelming. Never heard of dark tower by Steven King, looked it up, sorry but this concept isn’t a western :slight_smile:

Hugo

Hi guys,
So I’ve learnt a few things in blender out of doing this, so even though its not finished I’m happy enough with the outcome, for now I’m going to translate what i’ve learnt onto a smaller modelling project so I can take it through to completion. Anyway final screenshot for the moment unless I revisit this in a couple of months (adding flames to the burning town). They could still do with some tweaking but I pretty much imporvised them from scratch experimenting with cycles volumetrics. Enjoy and see you in the next whip thread.

Hugo


Hi.

What I notice is that if you ever were wanting to go to something akin to a ‘pastel’ look, then you’re right on target as far as the center of the scene is concerned (but in that case the styling becomes inconsistent once you take into account the detailed texture in the tree).

I would rework the texture of the tree for starters depending on what you will go for (if you go the stylistic route then the texture is too detailed and too bold in terms if color).

What is the style of painting that you did in the concept? (Sorry for the noobiness)

I really dig the concept art. To get the right sense of scale and distance, you’ll need a lot of atmospheric haze between the viewer/knight and the tower/town, plus reduced color contrast and possibly a slightly more bluish tint. I like where the piece is going and hope you revisit it at some point.

Thanks, lhumungus and sokrates.
The concept art style was kind of based on some fantasy style paintings I saw on google images :slight_smile: I’m not exactly an illustrator or concept artists, pretty much an amateur at the moment teaching myself all aspects of game design. I think I probably will revisit this in the future, but it’s a large scale project which I reckon should be tackled as lots of smaller ones for a quality finish. I might do some focused 3d models based on this, perhaps a knight or a small fortification or those massive spikes.

At the moment taking a bit of a blender break and focusing on programming and rapid prototyping of a game idea I have.

Hope to see you guys again soon!
Hugo