art: BTGC concept sketches - the village of Twigmound
March 28th, 2007 at 1:12am
These are concepts of possible building in my Graphic Novel. I am trying to find a way to avoid fairy tale buildings that look like there a rip-off of Disney’s Pinocchio. Click for a bigger image.
Tag(s): Beyond the Great Chimney|btgc|comics|Brian Kolm|Atomic Bear Press|AtomicBearPress|ABP|
Since I’m not an artist (though I doodle from time to time), I’d only comment from an author standpoint that your buildings should reflect the people that live there, the technological state of the people, and the natural resources they have at their disposal…as well as the emotional tie you want the reader to have with the buildings (if any).
Good ideas Midwestern Writer Wannabe.
The ‘Temple of Luck’? And a ‘Luck Shrine’? Dang, the possibilities multiply: Would the four counties in this country be named North Clover, East Clover, etc? Are dice used to determine the price of the shoes advertised on the building in the top left frame? Do the unlucky have to go for treatments to cure their bad luck?
Dunno which direction you’re going with this, but it has the potential for major parody written all over it
The Shrine could be a Hobbiton Smithy, and the Temple feels Polynesian for some reason…
Right now I am playing with designs and will try anything to make it look different.
My hero asks for help from the Adellia, Goddess of Luck and he will make an offering to her before going on his quest.
Oh I’m glad I came back to check your blog a second time. Those are great sketches. Each building seems to have it’s own personality.
I want to live in the house that’s in the middle on the right.
RoseMerry, it’s a real fixer upper.
Thanks Susan. Part of my goal is to make everything unique, one of a kind.
Hmm . . . I’m not an artist, but I certainly have opinions. And my best friend is an artist and I’d like to think some of it has rubbed off on me. At least enough to make decent comments. So here goes:
Top Left: I’m not sure of the tech level of your society, but this one seems to be rather modern. I’d expect to see a house like this on a street today actually. If that’s the character you want, then great!
Top Right: Again, a little modern although less so than the first one. I believe there are houses like this on in my area. I’d suggest thinking about tweaking the architecture. Give the houses something architectural style that you can think of as unique to your world. Window rounded on the bottom? Or rounded at both top and bottom? What about door frames? Or the ironwork on the doors themselves?
Middle Left: This one has some style to it, something that makes it unique and interesting. I like it, except for the fact that the second floor looks WAY too small to really hold anything, especially not multiple rooms. I think it’s the size of the window.
Middle Right: Again, lots of style. In fact, I like this one the best of the 6. It has its own personality, its own tone and atmosphere. I’d go with this one, or something like it.
Bottom Left: If the top two were two modern, this is probably too primitive. It’s interesting though. Can a whole town or society live in houses like this? I can see it, so it would definitely add an interesting level to the story.
Bottom Right: And this one is cute . . . but boring. It’s too stereotypical I think. Just blah. I don’t get drawn into it or imagining the story behind it as much as I do the last 3.
Anyway, that’s my take on all of these. The art is exceptional, so there is no criticism of the technique or the talent here, just throwing some ideas out about tone and concept. Hope it helped!
I agree with Zonk, the Temple does have a South Seas Island feel to it - you just need a couple of tikis to complete the look.
Also, Joshua has a good point about tieing the styles of the buildings together in some way. Perhaps they could each have a unique “lucky” carving above the door.
Wow guys, thanks for the ideas. It’s really a challenge to get something that is both familiar and also unique. You also do not want to re-invent the “wheel” if you don’t have too.
The temple image was my bad attempt to draw a Nordic church with a thatched roof. It’s fun to see that there are people of different cultures who maybe hit upon similar ideas.
It has been said that with Animation that it has to be Believable but not necessarily realistic. The audience for no matter how you do your story telling has to believe that your world is real.