Populating the scene – Conspiracy Theorist’s Apartment / Why is Joseph Gordon-Levitt in my van?!

As part of a uni project, I was tasked with designing a scene from a selection of choices. From the choices, I decided to design an apartment that a conspiracy theorist/mad scientist might live in.

I started out by listing everything that might be found in the aforementioned apartment, making quick sketches of different angles of the apartment:

I then drafted out a quick concept image, laying out different parts of the apartment:

From there I had the idea to design the apartment around the concept of mobility; as a conspiracy theorist may be extremely paranoid and may not want to be found easily. So I thought a van that was shoddily modified to be habitable would have been a more interesting concept.

So I started looking up old worn out vans and started to think how someone might live in the back of one.

From the research I went straight into google sketchup and did a quick mock-up of the van I wanted to make:

After loosely modelling the van using google sketchup, and its 3D warehouse, I moved the van to photoshop to add the final touches that will make my scene look populated:

I decided at this point to add someone who was living inside the van, so I looked up some images of people curled up in a corner and found the perfect image of the actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt; so I added him to my scene:

While in photoshop I started playing around with some filters and effects to make the image a bit more interesting, these were the results; I personally like the black & white version:

Street Brief – Artist Research: Caroline Miousse

Caroline Miousse is an assistant art director at Ubisoft Montreal. She was responsible for the design and 3D building of the amazingly accurate and beautifully detailed Notre-Dame in Assassins Creed: Unity. Miousse also worked on Assassins Creed II (Florence/Firenze map), Assassins Creed: Brotherhood, Assassins Creed III and Prince of Persia.

Here is her Linked-In Bio.

Below are some examples of her work from Assassins Creeds II and Unity:

Below is the topology data Miousse used to accurately model Notre-Dame

Observational Modelling – 3D

As part of my Uni course I was asked to model an object that was somewhere in the building. The object I was given was a pressing machine (I don’t actually know the name of it :P), I had to go and find where it was in the building and take both reference images and sketches before I could start accurately modelling it in 3DS Max.

All of the images above are what I used as reference to compete the final model. Unfortunately I forgot to record my modelling process, meaning the only thing I have to show is the final model itself:

*I made this one green because I like green, I now realise it makes the model less defined… -_-*

If I were to go back and do this again I would make sure I got the scale right. It may not be as visible in the images shown, but my model is actually taller than the real one.

Character Design Sheet

As part of my Creative Futures module, I was tasked with designing a character for a game and display it as professionally as possible on a character design sheet. First, I went through a few possible looks/styles for the character; I started by throwing quick designs onto a sheet and picking the one most fitting the characters persona.

I chose the third design to expand upon as I believed it best represented the character’s laid back lifestyle. I then went on to create multiple sheets to expand upon the characters design.

I decided to change the characters jacket to a cloak for his final design, and move his weapons to a sling on his back. I decided to give my character two swords, a Daito (longsword) and a Shoto (short-sword) – when worn together they are called Daisho. I also gave him a bow and quiver; I thought about the possibility of giving him Kunai (throwing knives) but decided to leave them out, as I didn’t want him to have too many weapons.

The above image is the final design I’d settled on for my character, with it is a description of him.