EP: Environment Sketches

Surprisingly, I have found sketching for the environments to be quite difficult this time around as I feel that I am slightly confused about what it is that I specifically want within my environments and how I want my character to react to it. 

Although I know that I want my introduction to take part within a cave and I want the main story to take place within an alternative world which is mainly a forest, I'm not 100% certain on how to go about that. However, I decided that I would sketch the first thing that came to mind in the hopes that it would clear my head and give me a better sense of direction in terms of where I want this to go and how I want it to look aesthetically. 

With this in mind, I started by sketching out a few cave illustrations, however, these are what I struggled with most, as I am not sure what kind of cave James would like to model at this stage, whether he wants to stick to low poly or go more realistic with his modelling, and as James has other priorities right now, I feel that it would be best to leave this until he can be with me to run through what he would like achieve. 

I found designing the tress a lot easier that I did the caves, as I had already decided which kinds of trees I wanted to use. I chose to go with Beech trees, more specifically those found in Ireland, as they tend to intertwine with themselves and are full of little knobbly bits and twisted branches. I felt that these helped to create a stronger sense of mystery and would work really well in creating the archway that leads the character to the main reason she is in the world. 

Thumbnails for layout

Although I felt a lot more confident creating these sketches, I am still unsure as to whether or not I was capturing the right visuals for my project. This is proving to be quite frustrating, as I want to create visuals that James can use to begin designing the world for my narrative to take place in and we can begin to move forward, as at the moment, I feel that I am at a bit of a stalemate and not making much progress. 

In order to fix this, I think it would be best to speak to James again and decide how he wants to build to the world, whether he wants to use low poly or something else. I feel that this will help me to get a better understanding of how I should be representing my ideas through drawing and kick start my concept art.