Texturing: The Horn District

The Horn District is now textured and ready. It took some tweaking, as the original concept art contained some blue shades, blacks and cooler tones. However, it was decided to stick with warm tones and dusk colours to keep with the aesthetic of brass...so those colours were then tweaked and changed into pinks, reds, oranges, yellows, or warmer toned purples.

Digital Sets: The Horn District

I've been working on The Horn District set over the last few days and I think it's come out rather nicely. I tried my best to imitate the camera angles as seen in the animatic/pre-vis...this set is now ready to be textured.

Environment/ Asset Design- Lots of Signage!

Embarking on some of the last few pieces of District furniture. I needed to finish the signs preceding a few of the Districts.

Following Red's fall down the stairs to the Double-Bass District, he scrambled to his feet and is faced with Design number 2

Chosen Design 2

Later, after his ascent from the Double Bass District, Red finds himself on the precipice of the Harp District. A few lovely little birds fly by, carrying Signage Design 1 to inform him of his place in the world.

Chosen Design 1

 Directly behind Red is the Horn District. The squiggly spaghetti like structure of design number 5 will be the Horn District Sign he will see. Shortly afterward, he sets off with steely resolve to find the summoning light in the distance.

Chosen Design 5

A while later Red finds himself caught up in a stampede of fellow notes as they all speed towards the summoning light in the distance. It puts both Red and the Trumpet District sign in a bit of a spin!

The design was supposed to point in the direction of the district. The first sheet of designs I focused on creating it entirely from Trumpet elements. However they didn't communicate direction very well at all. So in sheet two I took a more obvious approach and we settled on design number 5.

Chosen Design 5

Finally the Percussion District. Red arrives in spectacular fashion, delivered by the hook of a crane to find himself in the middle of a Construction site. 

The Percussion section is comprised of multiple instruments, unlike the others. Initial sign designs were therefore a mix of instruments. As I struggled to nail it down, it was highlighted that I had missed the most obvious connection. Triangles are well known for warning and caution signs, so that was the instrument I then fixed on to complete the Percussion District signage.

Environment/Asset Design: The Horn District- Buildings

A few more building thumbnails for the Horn District. I am still trying out varying art styles and puzzling out French horn architecture. I am also experimenting with how much or how little colour is used in any one design- Communicating something shiny in as simple a form as possible is rather a challenge.

Environment/Asset Design: The Horn District

'The Horn District gleams in the last light of day...'

'The music here is characterised by a quick succession of notes that align with a montage of shots compressing Red's journey through the Horn District. We're shown him going under arches, ascending staircases, arriving on bridges etc...'

After a fair stint of collating reference imagery and researching,  I've started creating some architectural asset designs for the Brassy environment that is the Horn District. As you can see from the excerpt, this particular part of the story requires an environment Red can travel through. So, fixated on that, I started with trying to visualise staircases and archways/bridges. Eventually I moved onto trying to design units of buildings.

I'm still trying to get a feel of UPA style, so some of these thumbnails are probably far too detailed. And I may have been rather literal with my colour palettes having taken them from photographs of sunset...