The Paranoid King's Island Retreat

[Caenwyr]

Hey all! So I recently discovered a way to easily draw a whole bunch of "sight lines" (is that the word?) in Photoshop, all radiating from a single point.

Before, I would draw a shape, copy it, rotate that copy 1 degree, copy both, rotate the two new shapes 2 degrees, then copy all four, rotate the four new shapes 4 degrees and so on. It was a cumbersome process but once you've done it once, you can keep the result in a separate file and re-use it over and over again. But something I couldn't solve was how "heavy" and "slow" the file became. And then I stumbled onto this video by YouTuber Sour Planet. And gee whiz, that worked! So I threw in not one but three of those starbursts and got experimenting.

The first sketches looked like nightmarish renditions of massive hollow spaces, like this one:

2023.02.07 - test 1.jpg

After a few of those interesting, but terribly unexciting "space scapes" I decided to do a building from the outside. I went for a fortress on an island, a bit like the Sagahra Bridge map I did last year, but with true three-point perspective this time instead of the (much simpler, but slightly more boring-looking) isometric alternative. Messed around a bit more, rejected almost all of my early attempts and ultimately settled for this:

2023.02.15 - test 2c.jpg

I know, I know: it has a lot in common, stylistically speaking, with the Sagahra map! But maybe they live in the same universe? Or maybe I just ripped myself off, so I'll make sure to send that copyright lawyer to me and have a ball . Anyhoo, I am happy with the layout so I started doing the inking. Here's where I'm at right now:

2023.02.15 - test 2d.jpg

[Redrobes]

I might have said previously that I collect a few of Syd Meads artwork in books and publications and he has a number of sketch books that are quite difficult to get hold of but I have some. In there he has a number of sketches where he leaves the construction lines on them too and its very interesting to see them. Some of them are high perspective in a similar vein to your image.

Compare this one for example:
https://sydmead.com/syd-mead-2010-command-center/
or another
https://sydmead.com/syd-mead-aliens-sulaco-interior-03/
ohh I found another even more striking example:
https://sydmead.com/syd-mead-aliens-sulaco-interior-02/
(Using spirit pens ! Anyone tried to use them ? I did once and they are impossibly hard.)

So I think the idea is very old and very powerful and it does create some wonderful immersive interior designs and vistas that have a certain feel about them - which I like !

[Caenwyr]

I might have said previously that I collect a few of Syd Meads artwork in books and publications and he has a number of sketch books that are quite difficult to get hold of but I have some...

Oh man, that command center is awesome! I can picture myself sitting there, pushing a million buttons (and wrecking the mission, undoubtedly) and look cool as heck in the process!

Oh by the way, I managed to get a few more hours of work on this one. I'm going super detailed here, so I'm moving slowly but steadily. I'm glad I didn't decide to detail every single brick this time, that would have caused a major headache. keeping a consistent height to the bricks is easy enough, but keeping them at a constant width, visually speaking, is hellish. Just look at the completely inadequate merlon widths to get an idea of how I would fare drawing bricks. Narrow bricks close by, super elongated bricks at the furthest edges. Silly.

Anyhoo, the main structure is done now, I just need to add a bunch more vertical "ticks" to suggest bricks and of course I overdid it with that one tiny roof and now I had to add a ridiculous amount of roof tiles to the tower and the main keep. Remember I just said I wouldn't detail the bricks and now I'm going all-out on the roof tiles? Yeah... I'm not very smart.

Another thing I did! I noticed that some linework artists tend to use thicker linework on the "back edges" of objects. You know, those edges between sides you can see and sides you can't. It helps viewers get a feel for the shape of the object. I've seen it all over and I tried to emulate it here, probably very poorly. What do you guys think about my execution? Is it even worth doing? It's not very time consuming (compared to all the rest) but if it makes it worse rather than better, I better cut it out. It's on a separate layer for now so I can easily remove it.

2023.02.17 - test 2f.jpg

[Caenwyr]

Hi peeps! Here's the next update:

2023.02.21 - test 2h.jpg

[Caenwyr]

And here's a first version with colour! Still plenty of texture to add, but the first touches are there. Not sure about that drop shadow though, I might have to redo it.

2023.02.28 - test 2j.jpg

[Caenwyr]

Yet another update for you guys:

2023.03.03 - test 2n.jpg

You'll notice I redid the drop shading for the entire thing. Turns out I hadn't really understood the "dimensionality" of incoming sunlight in that first try, so I scrapped it and began anew, with two more starbursts to indicate (1) the height of the sun and (2) the position on the horizon directly beneath the sun. With those two, I could easily work out where each corner would throw its shade and then fill in the blanks.

I also added some darker hues to the sea and did some more shading to the background. Nowhere near finished yet, but there's progress!