Behind The Scenes: Stranger Things (Patreon)

Another one from TV show, this time the fourth season of Stranger Things. I loved Stranger Things from the start, they just made so many things right. Time setting with appropriate culture, D&D and music, that's just enough to click with me. Put a solid story on top and I'm hooked in.

I don't want to spoil your experience, but I'll say season 4 surprised me in the best way possible. And there is this very abstract setting with the house teared into pieces, that struck me immediately. I needed to create that.

The road to final result can be quite bumpy, especially if it's something like this. Normally, I create dioramas of buildings, rooms, streets. But this was something new and it could end up really bad if not careful.

Visit the full Pinboard here

I didn't leave anything to chance and prepared the best way I could. Saved some key references, like the house itself (even if not apart yet) for atchitectural inspiration, character and some moodshots, mostly for the style and lighting reference.

I really loved the cover image with the clock in the attic. It had the right red vibe, but complemented with blue dark tones. The real TV scene was bascially just red, but to keep this interesting, I knew I would need to use combination like red and blue.

Again, there was not much yet to grab in the internet, so I made some shots from the episode to guide me and used those images to get together a list of key objects. Staircase, door with distinct window and of course clock.

I sketched out some basic layout using very soft lines and played with only this composition for a while. After few attempts, I found a mix that somewhat worked, so I refined the sketch and put in some details.

This was still very uncertain place to be in, I had no idea how this will come out considering the lighting scheme and the need to use some sort of fog and clouds.

In the end I made minimal changes to the layout and setting the lighting and clouds around the scene had the exact effect I was hoping for. I was prepared to scratch the project if the result would be weird. But moving forward using proved and known steps helped me to cover the distance and set me up for a better chance. 

You can watch the process video on Youtube