Project Overview
I've been spending alot of time over the last eighteen months working on my fundamental drawing skills, to help me in my dream of becoming a concept artist/designer.
I've reached the point where I need to start building a folio with real projects, and I decided to give myself a historical based project to start the portfolio building process.
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Research
Before I started any sketching/design I spent some time researching 19th century London. I wanted to deep dive into the research phase, as I feel that I can create a more authentic version of Victorian London by spending time trying to understand the era.
I want to create a London that's 90% authentic to the time period, but with 10% changes that allows me to use my artist license, and play with the historical timeline a little. For example, my version of 19th century London uses Nikola Tesla's coil technology to power the city.
London in the 19th century was extremely dirty, had vast societal inequality, and was the rife with crime and prostitution. All these areas I want to explore in terms of including in the process. Jack the Ripper, Joseph Merrick, and also the rise of the resurrectionists during the period are interesting subjects to explore.
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Concept Art - [St Giles] Thumbnails
For each element I design for the project, it will start with thumbnail sketches. This is the stage where I can try out my ideas for the project before committing to a particular direction. Starting out with thumb nailing, this allows me to iterate, and explore as many ideas as possible with less pressure. Whilst sketching, I'm using reference of 19th century London to help with creating realistic interpretations of the types of buildings that appeared in and around the slums of 19th century London.
After conducting my research, I decided to base the slum area for the project on St Giles. The area historically was a notorious area, and home to many of the poor, and marginalised people of London.
The slum areas of my version of 19th century London are dirty, full of criminality, prostitution, and almost everything within the environment makes peoples lives harder. These things were at the forefront of my mind whilst thumb nailing my concepts. Once the thumbnails are complete, I'll take a few of the strongest ideas, and develop them into full perspective sketches.
[St Giles] In-the-Fields Church
In keeping with the historical aspect of the project, I wanted to inject as many real landmarks that were at the heart of 19th century London. I started the project with the poorer areas of the city, and St Giles "Rookery", or slum was one of the largest in the city at the time. St Giles church was at the center of the slum, and this was something I was keen to retain for my version of Victorian St Giles, as it makes for an imposing landmark within the area. The church itself can be seen from anywhere within the area of St Giles.
The church is visited by people who need refuge, or a moment away from the grim realities of life within St Giles. The church grounds are sacred, and any crime committed on the grounds is punishable by death.
The design process of creating the church involved alot of research about the history of the area, and the church itself. I kept the design as close of possible to the real church, so to keep the realism of the landmark intact. I made minor changes to some of the details, as to keep the form language similar to the rest of the design, and also simplify where I could.
The next stage will involve me taking the design and building it in Blender, to help create the perspective concept of the church. This process will also allow me to play with certain design elements to create variations of the design.
[St Giles] Tram System
The trams of 19th century London were located at street level, but I wanted to play with reality a little, and combine influences from different parts of the world. I looked at, and took inspiration from early Chicago, and New York's tram systems when sketching the concepts for the tram system.
The idea of the tram system being built straight through the middle of the slum areas felt very dystopian, and very Victorian. The tracks themselves being raised above the slums, so that the passengers can look down on the lives of the poor whilst they travel in comfort. From the slum residents point of view, they have no choice but to live with the noise, and invasion of these industrial machines traveling through the place they call home.
I took inspiration from real London trams from the period, and also trams from Chicago, and New York. The trams use Tesla coils to help create self sustaining power to allow the trams to move. This is allowing for some artistic license, and is assuming Nikola Tesla's coil technology had become mainstream, and used to power all kinds of machines.
St Giles has no tram stops from passengers to board, as the cost of traveling by tram is out of reach for the residents of the slum.
[St Giles] Slum Building Concepts
Now that the thumbnails have been established for the area, I can start to take the stronger of the thumbnails, and refine them into fleshed out concepts.
I start this process by placing my chosen thumbnail off to the side of my canvas to reference when plotting out the "block out" drawing. This is a really important stage, as it allows me to sketch without having to worry about making sure the perspective is correct. I can then lower the opacity of this "block out" layer, and begin sketching on a new layer. This process also allows me to concentrate on the design without worrying about perspective.
I plan to take 2-3 of the initial thumbnails to this stage, and also incorporate Blender (3D) into the process to speed up my workflow. I'll upload further designs as they're finalised.
[Whitechapel] Police Station
Briefly moving away from the area of St Giles, and into Whitechapel. The area is synonymous with Jack the Ripper and the Whitechapel murders. This is a rich subject, and area to delve into designing for, and one I had to include in the design process.
As before I began the design process with research before any sketching took place. This is an extremely important aspect that I simply couldn't overlook. I then created a mood board of reference images to inspire the thumbnail sketches.
The police station that acted as a HQ for the Whitechapel murder investigation in real life was situated on Commercial Street, in Whitechapel. I used reference images of the real building to inform my design decision as I sketched. I wanted to design more from imagination for this particular building as to make it more visually interesting, but take elements of the real building into my designs. Elements such as the scale of the building, and certain details to the main entrance areas. The police station will be a key component in the story concept behind the project, and something I'm looking forward to sharing once its finalised.
[Whitechapel] Murder Locations
Jack the Ripper is synonymous with 19th century London, and the Whitechapel murders are a subject I've been looking forward to delving into for the project. I'm following the "Canonical Five" victim theory for my project to simplify my design process, as there are many disputes over how many actual victims were killed by the ripper.
I started the process with research on the murders, the victims, and the locations where the women were discovered. I collected reference images of the locations, then compiled a image board to refer to when sketching the thumbnails. I was mindful to retain as much of the real locations into my sketches as possible, but designed from imagination where the reference wasn't clear, or difficult to distinguish.
These thumbnails will provide me with a good base for building the concepts in Blender, where i can build out the crime scenes and potentially provide a turn table to show 360 degree view of the buildings.
Tower Bridge
I wanted to take some time to take on another of the landmarks of London. Tower Bridge is a huge landmark, and I wanted to include it into the project as soon as other concepts were completed. This gave me a huge opportunity to bring Blender into the project, as up until this point everything has been sketched using traditional perspective techniques.
As the project is set during the 1880's, I wanted to be as accurate historically with Tower Bridge as possible. The landmark was built between 1886 and 1894, and as such I wanted to show the construction phase. Using some fantastic reference images from the landmark during its construction, I began blocking out the mesh in Blender.
During the modelling phase I was mindful as to give myself enough information to work from, as the purpose of this model was to be used as a guide for sketching the final concept. I also rendered off the shadow information of a sunlight above the landmark to save myself plotting shadow information later on. Should I wish to do so, I can rotate the sunlight to give myself different shadow information to indicate a different time of day if needed.
The next stage is to lower the opacity of the render, and begin sketching the final line work on a new layer.
