Concept Art 2023

´Flood´ is an Artbook and original IP we developed, together with few classmates, here at The Animation Workshop as graduation project. The goal for this year was to work together in order to create a book full of concept art made by us, keeping a coherent look and following a common brief and story we invented and worked on during the year. This year I decided to focus all my time on exploring concept art and try to build a portfolio towards this path, I finally learned Blender (a bit) and I had a blast. Cannot think a better way to spend my last year of school! Thanks to the amazing Flood team who shared this journey: Mads Hendriksen, Wendy Agostinho and Jonas Nathanael

Flood takes place in Asia 150 years from now, after a natural disaster flooded most of the Earth surface and the only survivors are now living in the highest spots on the globe. We will follow Adrian's journey through this land, trying to save her brother from a terrible illness that is hitting her village and other communities.

"Adrian sails with a heavy heart, fully aware that this journey marks their final departure from Kali. However their struggle intensifies as the weather rapidly goes from bad to worse, making it very difficult to navigate the aggressive waves. Suddenly, their desperate attempt at survival takes a turn, as an enormous ship looms into their view, quite possibly the largest vessel they have ever laid their eyes upon. In this pivotal moment Adrian and Isaac realize that trying to get onboard this ship is their only chance of enduring the weather and surviving against all odds."

For all the pieces I needed to create for this project I've been forcing myself using as much Blender as possible and to try to implement some new techniques in each piece to be sure to learn something new every time. For this keyshot I've been using some 3d photoscans I took. (I am getting obsessed with photoscanning)

"As the Peacocks rescue the two siblings, Adrian and Isaac are assigned accommodation on the ship. While exploring the vessel, Adrian is captivated by the well curated ornaments in every corner of the ship. Golden plates and meticulously crafted carpets exude a level of elegance never seen before by the siblings."

For this piece I took huge inspiration from a trip I took in Nepal few years ago, (The flags are exactly the same that stand in our living room and the masks are a scan from the one I brought home). I had a lot of fun working on this piece and learned a ton. I quickly dig into Marvelous as well in order to do some quick clothes and had a lot of fun.

"A red lever catches her attention on the control panel. She pulls it, and everything inside abruptly turns black. A loud boom resonates as the entire system shuts down. Without the continuous circulation of water into the reactor, the pumps overheat and explode. It seems like the pumps were reversed, pushing water into the dome instead of out."

I wanted this piece to be very simple and cinematic as this is the main climax of our story. My goal with this piece was playing around with some simulations and scale as well.

The Rebuilders are the first community we encounter. Very calm and pragmatic people, they live without power and have as main occupation fishing and recycling all the trash they find to build new houses.

Extra Portfolio pieces

Technology finally allowed New York Police and Detectives to work with the last generation model of the SX-07. This visor developed by Polaroid in 1973 is the best device to solve crimes and murders. Turning both camera lenses the User is now able to go back in time and reconstruct what happened on the crime scene. For facing the prohibitive cost of this item, the projector situated on the top of the helmet projects what the User sees in the visor for everyone to see. The detachable time dial situated on the left side of the helmet registers the exact time period is being caught by the lenses. Thanks to SX-70 the number of unsolved crimes has dropped by 45% in the last two year.

Seed is a personal Worldbuilding Projeect set in a post-atomic world where any form of life has disappeared. The only survivors now live underground. The society consist in: working class - in duty to clean the earth of radioactive waste - and scientists - located on the upper floors and looking for the recipe to recreate life on the planet. In secret the worker Alek has managed to recreate a form of life after years of research. All this is forbidden to his class and punishable with expulsion from society. Here we see his apartment underground, one of the thousands of cubicles reachable by the lift, which every night takes workers back to their lodgings. For this project I was heavily inspired by the magical work done on Stray and the use of light indoors.

Gaya Monastery is a personal worldbuilding project based on India's fascinating ancient architecture relics. The style chosen for the concept is inspired by the great work of Quentin Mabille, Shadow of the Colossus and Boeri's "Bosco Verticale.

This was the very first piece I made using Blender this year. Even tho I can see now a lot of flaws in it, I think it's still important to look back at where I was back then. I still have A LOT to learn but it's nice to remind myself I still one step forward towards my goal :) (at least now I know how to project some textures eheh)

WIP - What I am working on now...

I am right now working, after finishing our Bachelor Project "Flood", on an IP my dear friend Cristian Rod developed, based in South of Europe. I am finally getting the chance to mix two of my big passions: photography and photoscanning to create some textures and Kitbash Sets and I am having a lot of fun with it.

Some of the scans are taken from sketchfab as well. Most of the facades and textures were taken from some pictures I made during my travels in South of Europe and in my home town.

I would like to conclude this show with the oldest image between all. I made this piece one year ago, where I still never opened Blender in my life and had no idea how to integrate 3d into concept art. Back then I wasn´t sure if digging into concept would have been a good idea for me, even if I really liked it. I was very afraid (still am) of all the competition and incredible talented people wayyy beyond my level, and thought maybe focusing on environment art would have been better. Today I am a very different person, and I coulnd´t be happier of the decision I took to invest into concept art. I still am far from my goal but at least finally sailing on the boat to reach it. I did this piece after watching an amazing tutorial made by John Sweeney about Cinematic shots, still a big fan of his work. That didn´t change :)

I would like to thank all my classmates and the school to give me the chance to join the CG course. I don´t wanna be dramatic, but it did change my life for the better.

Thank you to The Rookies for organizing this super nice contest,

and thank you for reading this far, cheers!

Vale