Looking at Composition

The 'golden spiral' is a pattern that is naturally pleasing to the human eye. It can be seen repeatedly in artwork (most notably in the Renaissance), and occurs in nature. Wassily Kandinsky's painting, 'Komposition VIII' (1923) is an example of the pattern.

Kandinsky had an impressive understanding of composition and layout, even his seemingly random abstract pieces were painstakingly thought out. If we apply the golden spiral to his painting, we can see a whole new meaning to the arrangement of the abstract shapes.

 The tightly grouped lines in the top-right corner almost perfectly match the focal point where the golden spiral curls in on itself, and the large black and purple circle meets the beginning of the curve. Other circular elements are arranged along the curve's path, to guide the eye towards Kandinsky's focal point.


There are many other techniques for creating visually pleasing compositions, one of which is the 'rule of thirds'. Often seen in photographs, by dividing an image into the thirds horizontally and/or vertically, we can arrange elements at equal distances and create focal points where lines intersect.

Gueorgui Pinkhassov is a Russian photographer, who uses an unconventional approach to framing his subjects. Pinkhassov often uses compositional elements in an abstract fashion; objects or figures that might conventionally find themselves clearly depicted in the centre of a photograph are used to create interesting visual arrangements.

This particular photograph is a good example of this:

Although this image is relatively simple, and appears casually shot, Pinkhassov has spent a great deal of time in considering how best to arrange the two birds. We can see this if we overlay lines that follow the rule of thirds:

Face Reference

The character of the soldier will be of Mediterranean descent, so I've chosen a few people with 'swarvy' features to study.

Eli Roth (in Inglorious Basterds)

Oded Fehr (actor)

Russ Khroma (a friend of mine)

Studies based on above images:

Model Sheets

Model Sheet WIP

Colour Iteration

There will be small but bright red details in the outfit (red = revolutionary/socialist colour), subtle blues would be good to use to bring out the red. Perhaps browns inbetween, with olive tones appearing. Boots should be reddy brown to link up red at shoulder with bottom of figure.

Final colour decision. I'll use this as a basis for more drawings:

Character Iterations

At this point I'm creating more detailed versions of the shapes I experimented earlier on, continuing my iterative process. There are certain aspects I need to fit into my final design - red neckerchief/arm-bandage, 3-prongued flag symbol, and ammo pouches. It would be nice if I could fit in a satchel, as the original story mentions the soldier carrying 'his pack'.

This is the drawing I will be using as a basis for my final designs. ^

Monster Silhouettes

More reference

I've noticed a lack of period reference, that is images taken at the time of the civil war, in my work research so far. Here are some useful images to remedy that.

Famous photograph taken by Robert Capa, showing the death of a Republican fighter

American volunteers arrive in Barcelona

Warp Brainstorm

I will also be doing my essay on Warp (2012). Fantastic game, great example of how innovative downloadable indie games can be.

Environment Concepts

I'm staying focused on the cave.

I must say I've found drawing environments rather tricky, perspective is not something I've ever had a natural grasp of.

 

For the tree leading into the cave, I was inspired by the tree in Tim Burton's 'Sleepy Hollow' (1999). A 'three-prongued' theme runs through the Tinderbox story (3 dogs, 3 rooms, etc.) and I want to emphasise this in my work. To that end I plan to include references to the number three in the design of both the environment and characters. I plan to use the three-prongued, triangular flag from the civil war in the soldier's outfit (see below in blog) and I have given the tree three branches and roots spreading out equilaterally.

Mudbox

Had a go using Mudbox a while ago. I present to you: my nose.

Environmental Reference: Caves

After sketching out a brief idea of the layout of the three-tunneled cave level, I now know what kinds of areas the player will need to navigate. In looking at reference for my underground environments, the first thing I thought of was Resident Evil 4/5.

Resident Evil 4 makes use of a mixture of narrow tunnels - often barely wide enough for one character to fit through – and expansive caves. I would want my own environment to be arranged similarly, contrasting feelings of claustrophobia with sudden vulnerability.

  

  Shadowy, underground caves are illuminated through flaming torches, oil lamps and beams of light through cracks in the cave ceiling. Dust/mist in the air catch the light, potentially dispersing it further. Leon has a weak torch but it offers no real source of light itself.
 

Resident Evil 4 features mixes up the colour palette of caves encountered at different parts in the game, for example cold, damp looking versus dusty, sandstone environments.

Resident Evil 5 is in many ways an updated version of number 4, in gameplay and particularly in its environment design. Although significantly shorter than its predecessor, it leads the player trough familiar environments. Observe the following cave level; it carries across many aesthetic choices from Resident Evil 4.

As RE 5 focuses more on ancient ruins and the interplay between man-made and naturally occurring structures it is of limited use for me at this time. I do like the idea of ancient structures making occasional appearances in the cave environment, to hint at the idea of an ancient presence buried deep beneath the earth, forgotten for millennia: crumbling pillars/wall with mysterious carved symbols.
 

A level earlier on in the game features a brilliant bit of asymmetric cooperative gameplay: in a pitch black tunnel, one player must hold a heavy torch while the other defends both players from enemy units. The torch-wielder is vulnerable to attack and cannot defend themself, but their team-mate is equally vulnerable without a source of light. This level shows how a more a advanced game engine can use a real-time light source to pick out detail in the environment, conveying the impression of a damp rock wall through simple textures and a limited number of polygons.

Appropriately for my transposed story, the US does have a history of mining, among other things, gold and silver and, to a lesser extent diamond. I should be able to find extensive photographic resources to use as reference, both from when the mines where in use around the end of C19^th and explorers documenting them in the present day. Here is a selection of reference:

Some of these colour images are great reference for colour and pattern on rock walls. I could even potentially use parts of the photo as texture in drawings.

Other good period reference shows wooden scaffold structures.