Ethereal Swamp
Started: 2018
Ended:TBD
This was a project I started during my character creation class in 2018. I got busy later in the semester though and didn't finish the project for a while. I was stopping around the time midterms for the fall were starting and the last thing I was working on was the trees. Ironically, later in senior year for the thesis project (2020), I pulled out the trees again for the 3D animatic and later I asked a friend for a 10 minute tutorial and I can now make my own trees for this project. I also happened to use a rende of the scene to turn into the school to graduate.
Research Material
This is concept art for trees and stones. I've never done realistic or otherwise organic shapes and forms. I gathered a bunch of references. Which sadly, I didn't do much for me. I did like the use of planes (cards) for the leaves. However, much of what I found was game type assets which are made to be low on geometry. I used the swirls to modify the lamp and fence designs. I revisited some of this to start shaping the trees.
All images come from google.
Test Renders
The first three images are from 2018 when I was originally making this piece. As one can see this was my first initial layout render and some simple textures. Looking back I think the only good thing here was the fence, which needs some fixing, and the lamps.
The next two images are renders because we were given a week to give something for our senior portfolio and we were supposed to avoid senior thesis stuff. I honestly, didn't have something too close to done and that I was also proud of. So I pulled this up and worked to get a decent render. For something I spent about half a day fixing up from the initial renders that's not too bad. I hadn't gotten to touch the project since early spring of sophmore college year.