Here are my first six thumbnails for the Room of Roots. 1 - 3 are some of my initial sketches, and 4 is my first using Photoshop. When creating these thumbnails I was trying to get a feel of what the room would look like and I decided I wanted to explore the possibility of a circular or odd shaped room, thumbnails 5 and 6 are examples of this.
I feel that a room with rounded walls and multiple surfaces would enable me to achieve the labyrinth like environment described in the book.
whoop whoop! Well done, Megan - that's the ice broken then - see? Wasn't so terrible, was it? Certainly, that top thumbnail is absolutely the approach I've seen before, when the roots actually obscure the space and sort of 'shut out' the eye. The first thing that's noticeable in all your thumbnails is the floating, mid-distance point-of-view, which is often the by-product of students getting their heads around their vanishing points - which encourages this rather conservative 'mid distance' default. Try and put your point-of-view lower and 'inside' the space (as opposed to hovering just outside of it).
ReplyDeletehttp://www10.clikpic.com/imagesworldwide/images/_DSC0025-01-layers-Velvia-2-perspective-warped.jpg
http://webecoist.momtastic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/ta-phrom.jpg
(you've probably been looking at images of Ta Prohm for weeks now, but they're great for reference for your room - especially in that you might want to consider giving your walls some embellishment in terms of carving etc.).
Again, if you haven't done so already, check out Mangrove root systems for some real world reference in terms of determining your composition:
http://www.nickgarbutt.com/images/dmImage/xLargeImage/Mangrove_roots_Bako_1.jpg
I think the notion of utilising a different sort of room is good (to stop the pipecleaners-in-a-box effect), but don't forget, in terms of figuring out some effective compositions, take a look at anything that's a bit jungly, because that will give you ideas in terms of how to use organic shapes effectively - also, they might help you think a bit more 'massive' in terms of the scope of your 'room of roots':
http://conceptartworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Avatar_Concept_Art_Seth_Engstrom_10b.jpg
http://conceptartworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Avatar_Concept_Art_Seth_Engstrom_12b.jpg
http://sf-art.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Avatar_Concept_Art_by_Dylan_Cole_20a.jpg
I look forward to seeing more arrive on here! Be bold, Megan - just commit to the process of feedback and you'll absolutely improve and soak up new ideas and points of attack :)