February 2019 Challenge: Rooftop Living

[aeshnidae]

Hoo boy! I finally got a moment to start a post. I've been working on this for a while but hadn't come up with anything worth posting until now. Here's Tonquani's commission request:

Brief: A zombie apocalypse (or something similar) has happened – there seem to be rather a lot of these around at the moment ��… A small group has managed to barricade themselves onto the roofs of a group of high-rise buildings and establish some sort of colony/settlement there – including growing food, raising livestock, etc. They have built walkways between the various buildings, so that they never have to go down to the ground where the zombies lurk.
Perspective: This is probably the most important – I would like an extreme three point perspective specifically showing great height above the ground. Something along the lines of this… (see below, the image grabber keeps grabbing the wrong image)

Colours: No specifics apart from it being drab and dark below – some sort of black mist on the ground may be an idea if you want – and probably makes it easier in that you won’t need to draw loads of detail on the ground. The roofs themselves should be quite colourful in contrast.

I've sketched a bunch but haven't yet been successful with the extreme three-point perspective. I was getting quite happy with my WIP last night but now I realize it's not three-point. D'oh!

### Latest WIP ###
Zombie Apocalypse City v1 (sm).jpg

[aeshnidae]

This was the requested perspective:

Zombie Rooftops.png

[aeshnidae]

Welp. Apparently I forgot to title this. Might one of our awesome mods fix that for me? The title should be Rooftop Living.

I started over and finally achieved three-point perspective, but I'm not sure if the angle is extreme enough.

### Latest WIP ###
Zombie Rooftops v1.jpg

[aeshnidae]

Okay, I think I've finally got the proper perspective.

### Latest WIP ###
Zombie Rooftops v2 (sm).jpg

[Azélor]

It's not easy to work on such a perspective.

[aeshnidae]

It's not easy to work on such a perspective.

You are not wrong! I've been craning my head a lot when drawing. I think this is the most challenging map I've made yet, but that's why these challenges are great!

We got a snow day today (the university closed) so I had some time to play with this. I think I'm happy with the overall perspective. There will be plenty to fix but I'm excited to finally have the skeleton of the map finished. I hope to make the rounds and check in on the other entries soon.

### Latest WIP ###
Zombie Rooftops v3 (sm).jpg

[Azélor]

Are you using a grid?

I'm drawing in isometric perspective which is considered a 0 point perspective, so it should be easier but as soon as I draw something that is off the grid (like a chair), it's complicated.

I've never had a snow day when I was at the university. Here the school only close if they are the ones providing the transportation, like high school and lower. Otherwise it's very rare they close even if a lot of people don't show up.

[Tonquani]

Ah, now this is looking a lot better than the first couple of drafts. I really like where you're going with it!

I would echo Azelor's question about whether you're using a grid...

If I was just drawing it straight onto paper/screen, I would probably establish my vertical perspective point first, and then just make sure that all verticals ran straight into it, as below...

Zombie Rooftops v2 (sm).jpg

Most of the buildings in this image make sense from a perspective point of view, apart from the circled ones.

Not sure why the entire image didn't download for me - possibly something to do with me using GIMP...

FYI the way I generated the original image was in Sketchup - simply lay out your basic street and building footprint, and then you can "pull" the buildings up to whatever height you want, and move your view around to get the perspective you want.

Looking good - keep going!

[aeshnidae]

I used a grid for the version I posted on 2/19, but the perspective wasn't extreme enough so I did this without a grid, basically by eyeballing it while trying to keep the verticals in line (which is why I knew I needed to make some adjustments - precisely to the buildings you circled, Tonquani!). I've never used SketchUp so I didn't even think about it until after I posted the last WIP. I'm wondering if I should switch over to SketchUp, since I'll need to draw doodads and such on the roof. I've never used it before and I've heard mixed information about the learning curve. My father-in-law, who is an architect and uses SketchUp, was just here last week. I should have asked him for a tutorial!

When I lived in Colorado, the university never closed for snow, even when public transit shut down. However, no one actually made it in, even though we were open, because trying to get through several feet of snow to go to work just isn't worth it! In Maryland (near Washington, DC), we get heavy wet snow that forms a slick sheet of ice on the roads, so driving conditions get too dangerous. My current university is enormous (basically a city in and of itself) and handles all public works and emergency management for the actual city in which we're located, so we close for safety and operational reasons. What that usually means is I wind up working from home, but fortunately yesterday it was crickets on work email.

[Tonquani]

I used a grid for the version I posted on 2/19, but the perspective wasn't extreme enough so I did this without a grid, basically by eyeballing it while trying to keep the verticals in line (which is why I knew I needed to make some adjustments - precisely to the buildings you circled, Tonquani!). I've never used SketchUp so I didn't even think about it until after I posted the last WIP. I'm wondering if I should switch over to SketchUp, since I'll need to draw doodads and such on the roof. I've never used it before and I've heard mixed information about the learning curve. My father-in-law, who is an architect and uses SketchUp, was just here last week. I should have asked him for a tutorial!

I would have thought that you could probably learn the basics of sketchup in an hour or so with a simple tutorial and experimenting - although if you can find someone to show you how to do it, it is likely to go an awful lot faster. After all, if it just the perspective that you are looking at getting right, you can just use simple box shapes to get the main lines right. It is simply a matter of setting out a simple square, drawing your streets and building footprints on it, and then "pulling" them up to the desired height. You can then move around it to get the perspective you want, take a screenshot and away you go. If you do decide to use it, don't fall into the trap of putting more and more and more detail into your sketchup model - it's bery easy to waste an awful lot of time that way.

When I lived in Colorado, the university never closed for snow, even when public transit shut down. However, no one actually made it in, even though we were open, because trying to get through several feet of snow to go to work just isn't worth it! In Maryland (near Washington, DC), we get heavy wet snow that forms a slick sheet of ice on the roads, so driving conditions get too dangerous. My current university is enormous (basically a city in and of itself) and handles all public works and emergency management for the actual city in which we're located, so we close for safety and operational reasons. What that usually means is I wind up working from home, but fortunately yesterday it was crickets on work email.

Ha! you should try living in the UK - half an inch of snow on the ground, and the whole country grinds to a halt! (well, England anyway - those North of the Border are a tad more used to it!)