06 // Environment Illustration Analysis

I've selected three illustrations which I intend to analyse in order to better understand some of the thought processes and techniques that, when understood and applied, should allow me to produce better environment designs of my own. Some of these I already know, but from this recent study I've been made aware of several techniques that can help to steer the viewer from one part of an image to another, while providing a narrative that supports and enhances the illustration as a whole.

For the most part - at this stage - I've chosen to focus on videogame-related artwork. This shouldn't be detrimental to my choice of film design as a project category though, as the artwork generated for both fields are so similar in style, execution and grandeur as to be one and the same (especially for the Fantasy genre). If anything, I would say that focusing my attention towards game artwork would actually yield greater rewards, with the game industry definitely taking charge of the genre at this point in time.

In a later post I will turn my attention to artwork created specifically for the movie industry, but in the meantime, here are my studies of a few of my favourite pieces of environment artwork of late.

First up is an image by Juhani Jokinen, a concept artist working for RedLynx. This piece is a photo-bash environment that utilises several important fundamental skills for arranging the composition and leading the viewer through the design.

Next is a piece of concept artwork for Dragon Age: Inquisition. Similar to the last piece, the artist who created this image has a superb grasp of the fundamentals, yet pushes the piece even further, creating a narrative that flows throughout the scene. The image as a whole is rich in details, with a sense of grandeur that compels the viewer to spend a long time studying it.

Finally for this post, I have a piece of Sci-Fi concept artwork by the artist Stefan Morell. Despite being of a different genre than my intended focus, I've included this piece as it uses techniques that will benefit me in my creation of Fantasy environments; using 3-point perspective, he creates huge architectural designs whose scale are further emphasised by the use of atmospheric perspective. This in itself is a valuable lesson to learn. By applying this to my own scenes, I should be able to produce larger-than-life, epic structures within my own illustrations.