The Classical Elements: Environment Concepts Continued

If I'm going to be honest, I haven't really had much experience when it comes to environmental concepts and I never know where to start or how to even begin to think about what kind of environment I want for my animation. But, like with anything else, I felt that researching visual references would be a good place to start. So I decided to go onto trusty Google and pick up images of trees from there (because I know I definitely want trees and a lake).

Using these images as a reference I then began to create an environment for my animation in Photoshop, as I am doing a digital animation. Although I'd already begun to think about environment, I feel that I was going about it the wrong way and I feel that this was a much more successful attempt, as I felt more prepared and had a much stronger sense of what I wanted to achieve.

After completing this environment I found that I was actually quite happy with how this had turned out on my first try and I feel that it is basic enough to use with the rest of my animation, as it doesn't draw any attention away from the main element of my animation. I also like how simple the background is and I feel that it wasn't too much work to complete either meaning I'd have more time to focus on actually animating. I think because of the time frame I have and because I am struggling with the water element within my animation I will leave my background as it is and create the others similar to this one.

I then wanted to experiment with placing my characters into the environment to see how they would work together.

I decided to experiment with my Earth character, as this is the character that I will have the most trouble with making it stand out. However, apart from the quick sketch being slightly too small, I feel that the character works well in this environment and that it stands out against the other similar elements around it.

Overall, I feel that I have a good idea of how to create my backgrounds. I just need to tidy them up a little and I can use them within my animation.