france rouge
REFERENCES
Starting in december 2019, I've been working on and off (when I have some free time that is) on a TV show Project. The main goal was to come up with a full environment design set in a close dystopian future, that would look like a distorted version of the Parisian suburbs I grew up in.
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It was a good excuse for me to play with architectural features I like, but cannot use enough in the stuff we do day to day at the studio: mosaic murals, waffle ceilings, big fat concrete ramps, just to name a few. All related to brutalism and/or soviet era architecture.
I needed also a ground to play with some mechanical designs I made and had laying around for a while that wouldnt fit into any of the stuff I was doing commercially.
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So here's a rough chronology of what I've been up to so far, and this will be (hopefully) updated in the near future.
I wont go into the technical process as it's became quite complex over the years, the main softwares I use being layered with more and more specific plugins, and that's just not the point of this page.
I'll talk also later about the story (yes there is one).
So first here are some photographic references I used to setup the urban background, all part of a larger collection (click to enlarge).
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The DESIGN
I first made a serie of rough illustrations to find the correct balance between vintage, futuristic, gloomy and various feelings I had in mind for the set. It took also a lot of testing to find the correct scale between all the elements that are part of the background composition, and the correct lighting setup (click to enlarge).
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After some fine-tuning, I was finally happy with the composition of volumes around the plaza, its asymetry, and with the and the general aspect of the city.
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I did some mechanical designs as well (click to enlarge).
The TeASER
I made a little teaser to see how the different scales (hero, mechs, buildings) would work together, and to highlights the different story arcs and characters, so far Im happy with the general mood.