BA3 - Concepting in Photoshop

After my attempt at creating a concept in ZBrush for my final model, I have been working on a concept in Photoshop to help me plan my idea. Below you can see the development of this concept.

This is the first concept that I created from my ideas that I have developed throughout my research. The castle is based on the Steampunk Style shown in Bioshock Infinite and Howl's Moving Castle, and the courtyard follows this style. The castle and courtyard is built on top of a huge Pirate Ship hull, similar to the pirate ship in Peter Pan and decorated in a similar style once again to Howl's Moving Castle, which has also been decorated with a face to add to the overall style that has been established by Disney throughout the years. By personifying the robot carrying the castle it gives it a much greater presence to the audience. The robot is powered by an steam engine to the rear of the ship with a number of chimneys similar to the engine room seen in Mortal Engines, which is also where I adapted the idea of the Tank Tracks from. The courtyard is also based on the Steampunk style, to create an oasis that separates the castle from the rest of the world, just as is seen in Agrabah from Aladdin. However, looking at this as a concept there were a number of issues that I addressed in my second concept below.

Above you can see how I developed this concept. The castle has been changed and developed into a much more circular design with more towers and details. There are less chimneys and more details on the hull of the ship. The path leading up to the castle has also been made longer to give more of a build up towards the structure.

I then added colour to the concept to help for my texturing phase of the project. I have asked for feedback based on this concept, and one of the main issues with it is the size of the castle. People have agreed that since the castle is the main focus of the piece it should be much, much bigger than it appears in this concept. Something else people said was that the design for the boat was very different to the castle, and so there should be more continuity between them. Finally, a few people thought that the tank tracks used for transport didn't fit with the disney style that I am trying to replicate. These changes have been made and you can see them below.

This is my final concept in 2D, and the one that I will be continuing on to the modelling stage of this project. I have taken on board the comments of my peers and made changes to the design, increasing the size of the castle, unifying the colours and exhanging the tank tracks for legs. I have also given the face on the front of the ship a comical nose, trying to follow in the stylised footsteps of Disney.

BA3 - Concepting in ZBrush

I've began to concept my idea for a Castle that moves from place to place across the world. I started using ZBrush since Mark has always said that it can be used to concept in 3D, so I thought I would give it a go. I've quickly created two ideas using ZSpheres which you can see below.

The first of these concepts was created based around the base of a Pirate Ship. I've adapted the legs from Howls Moving Castle onto the side of the ship to allow the structure to move, and the castle has been created out of a number of towers similar to that of Maleficent's castle that I looked at earlier. As you can see from the 3/4 view of the sculpt, the castle is connected to the rest of the deck similar to a Motte and Bailey castle.

This is the second of these concepts that I have created in ZBrush. The castle has been placed much more centrally with more symmetrical towers, and instead of being mounted on a Pirate Ship the castle sits on a kind of creature with four legs, similar to the Starwhale idea that I explored from Doctor Who.

Looking at both of these concepts, I personally don't feel either of them have much promise and I won't be continuing on with them into the next stage of development. I will next work on concepting my idea in 2D rather than 3D, however it was worth experimenting in ZBrush.