Behind The Scenes: Fantasy House (Patreon)

Although I still preach about being consistent both in online presence and in style, I'm guilty of straying away occasionally and wanting to try something new. If I see some eye candy, I definitely want to try that.

And there's nothing wrong with that, if you feel the same. To develop a style a consistency in your work, you first need to try a lot of different ways to see what suits you the most. So even though you should be trying to find some common ground for your work, it's ok to look elsewhere from time to time.

I really loved some works out there, that used abstract textures and patterns to define a material structure and immediately wanted to try it.

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But there's a catch.

There is a certain fear, that if you really get inspired by someone else's work, you will plagiarize it and become a copycat. And it's not uncommon to happen. So how do you use the inspiration in a way, that results in original work?

You need to take out the elements that make it different from yours and just apply them. For instance, here I wanted to try abstract and geometric textures on a stylized 3D models. Most of the works I saw, that used this technique had really stylized color palettes and displayed still life scenes, characters, or object close-ups.

So I went and did what works best for me, and thought of environment scene. I liked the idea of some kind of fantasy house floating on an island, or placed on a tree, so I went ahead and gathered some references on Pinterest.

I found a lot of good ideas of fantasy and tree houses, so I just studied them closely and took out the elements I like. It was absolutely necessary here to have a clear picture, so the sketch helped a ton.

I sketched out basic proportions and how I want to incorporate the tree curling around the tower. I added few basic house shapes and spiral stairs to make the layout more dynamic. Rounded balcony was kinda random idea, that I hoped would help me to make the house design more original and create memorable details.

I detailed the sketch more, so I can mostly focus on how to deliver new texture style into my work, rather that what to model. Staying with my traditional environment color palette was another form of safety net and one more element that helped me to make the work more original and mine.

So if you see some technique you like, there's nothing wrong in trying it out. Just dissect it into elements that make it up, and mix and match with your own style.

You can watch the process video on Youtube