Project Concept

Grey World is an idea that I came up with a couple of years, and while I created a few concept pieces for it, I never did anything with it, until now. The idea was centred around a mysterious world that characters somehow find themselves in, it would be heavily inspired by steampunk and surrealism, as I wanted to create a warped and uneasy place to be in. It would be a place where so many elements of it, were strange and out of place in one way or another. There would be flat and endless fields of suspicious wheat, where all sorts of structures, machines and sometimes towns poked out of the fields. There would be muddy paths to break up the wheat, and the atmosphere would be permeated by silence. The basic story premise was that the characters would have to survive in this world, facing a lack of resources, dealing with their strained relationships and facing dark and shadowy monsters. 

These initial ideas were not just inspired by the aesthetics of steampunk, and surrealism, but also by medieval and 20th-century architecture and art movements. A lot of the structures and machines reflect this. Some media had also been key influences for the design as well, such as the movie, the Isle of Dogs (2018), which had striking imagery, which inspired how I designed the way the structures stood in the wheat fields. The way the film also showcased this imagery also inspired me, as the strange focus on certain elements, paired with aesthetic music, influenced how I presented the backgrounds for Grey World. I was also inspired by two films by Ghibli Studios, Howl's Moving Castle (2004) and Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986). Both films used incredible, strange and beautiful designs for their machines, robots, flying ships and other steampunk elements. These influenced me to also design my machines in similar ways. 

As mentioned on a different page, another influence was the feelings I was experiencing at the time. I won't delve into the details, but I was essentially moving forward in my life, and I had to start going into the city a lot more often. It was a scary time for me, I was incredibly anxious about this new environment I found myself in, I constantly thought I looked wrong, I agonised about doing the wrong things, and I was afraid of looking like a fool. It didn't help that I was also quite shy, but this new environment felt isolating to me, I felt like an alien, which is reflected in the design of Grey World. The project helped to put my emotions onto (metaphorical) paper. That's why this is one of the key themes of Grey World, and how to navigate them.

A final thing to mention for the original idea is the colour scheme. I decided to use grey colours, as I was trying to think of a unique aesthetic that would work well with an odd setting. After deliberating, I finally had a eureka moment after designing the protagonist and a monster using black and white colours. I decided to go all in on the grey colours, as I felt it was the perfect aesthetic to create and reinforce the odd, liminal and uneasy vibe of Grey World. Another factor in this decision was also my colourblindness, as it does make it difficult to work with colours on digital art programs. So I figured this would help make the process easier for myself, where I could focus on the values of the colours, rather than the colours themselves. 

Now that the idea has been brought back, a lot of things have changed for me. I've grown as a person, I've gained confidence in myself, and I'm feeling much more comfortable in this environment that I'm in. As the years went by, I navigated and confronted these emotions, and that is one of the driving ideas behind the revision of Grey World. I felt that the project just displaying the concept of loneliness and anxiety in a new environment wasn't really enough, so I've expanded the idea to also be about confronting those emotions. These new themes are essentially about being in this terrible state, and from there, growing as a person, becoming more confident, kinder and overall, better than who you were before. I also chose to do this, as in class, I was asked what the story was about, and I struggled to answer that. So I took that feedback and made sure to use these new ideas to really flesh out the intent fpr this project. The story premise now follows the characters and all their flaws and anxieties and overcoming them. To also add to this, from class feedback, I was given a resource that led to me making a connection with my themes. I mostly focused on one specific experience, but I realised that immigrants, refugees, international students and such, also experience similar things, alongside culture shock (Swallow, & Tomalin, 2022). So I also looked into applying this idea into my depiction of characters in the story. Another aspect of the revision is that I've also improved in many aspects as an artist and creator. I've learnt to better tell stories and different art techniques, skills and knowledge that I'm able to apply to this idea. So it will boil down to telling a snippet of the story, the protagonist first waking up in Grey World, exploring it, meeting the other characters and encountering a monster. Another focus of the idea is to further improve on my background design, as that's my specialisation in animation. This will help in making the animation not just a small story, but also one that's heavy in its aesthetic and having audiences get absorbed into it.

There are also new influences that I've used in this project. I've looked into more artists and media in an attempt to help flesh out the aesthetics and design of Grey World. Artists such as Dr Suess, Simon Stalenhag and the team behind Zooliminology. These examples all construct interesting worlds, such as surrealistic structures, and gigantic machines being littered about, in contrast to 20th-century architecture. Not only do these artists create strange landscapes, but they also focus on more mundane scenes, such as focusing on a small robot in a field, instead of the gigantic factory in the background. Another influence comes from the concept of liminal spaces. This is a recent, but popular online genre and aesthetic, about spaces that seem odd, due to missing key elements. Such as office spaces with no furniture, a playground at night with no kids or a closed-down mall. This fascinating imagery can be unnerving, strange, and interesting, and it's something that will also be used in the construction of Grey World's design. A piece of liminal space media called the Backrooms (2022), uses these aesthetics and creates infinite labyrinthian places based on liminal spaces. The poster child of this being an indoor maze, with its interior modelled off empty office space, and in its infinite and empty halls, lies monsters ready to pounce. I feel incorporating this kind of concept into Grey World, will do a lot to really drive home the idea of it being a strange and unnerving place.

Other influences basically boil down to aesthetics and narrative inspiration, such as the movie Metropolis (1927). A film about a sprawling city of the future, (from the perspective of the 1920s), which combines art nouveau and industrial aesthetics to craft an amazing and depressing vision of the future. I also looked more into other genres, such as retro-futurism and sci-fi, as they coincide with steampunk, and were genres I was already working with before, without realising. Feedback about the genres helped to especially realise the role of sci-fi in my project. The show, Over the Garden Wall (2014) also inspired some of the narrative for Grey World. As it's a show about two kids finding their way into a forest filled with strange things, and must work their way to escape. This helped me to round out the rougher edges of my premise for Grey World.

The monsters in Grey World are dark and shadowy creatures, often reflecting the warped nature of their world. Sometimes they're fluffy, sometimes they're smooth, and other times, they're gooey, but all of them are dangerous in one way or another. Some are actively hostile, more than ready to pounce on any of the characters, while others are stationary, waiting for someone to touch them. With their designs, I wanted to imply that they were unnatural, even for Grey World's standard. As if something incredibly disturbing happened in the past, leading to the monsters that roam today. To help in this, I made them out to be completely dark in design, not only to help them stand out against the landscape but to also make them seem out of place. I also thought of giving them unique facial features instead of normal eyes and mouths. It's an assortment of odd glowing white shapes that almost look artificial. They might not even be their faces, but that's a part of their monstrous charm. 

For the sketches below, I referred to a variety of things as influences. One of these is bugs, as seen in the monsters with arachnid-like legs and bodies. Some monsters take inspiration from microscopic organisms, such as bacteria and white blood cells. Other monsters lean more into the artificial and disturbing implications, such as human-shaped monsters, or ones that look like they've been combined with objects. Another type of monster is the gooey monster, which is essentially any creature that looks to be made of black liquid. Throughout Grey World, there are a lot of black blobs and liquid, seeping out of cracks and infecting machines and buildings. Another vague hint at the true nature of the monsters. In the story, they are the main antagonists, providing difficult challenges, risks and sources of group conflict with the characters. Their true nature is a part of the mystery that the characters set out to solve.

The creature is the main antagonist in my proof of concept animation. It's the first enemy that Hiemi encounters after waking up. After wandering the fields for what seems forever, Hiemi is surprised to suddenly come face to face with the creature. It chases him, only to be slowed down by obstacles that Hiemi avoids. The creature nearly captures him, just before he escapes into the city, but it continues to be a recurring antagonist throughout the story. This design takes inspiration from spiders, where I've made it less terrifying, and more ominous. As tall as a house, it's basically a fluffy ball on four spider-like legs. The sketch above was helpful for me, as it allowed me to flesh out the design of the creature, and how it actually operates. I got to test out how it reacts, moves and attacks, as well as test out in funny positions. Another thing that I wanted to do in the revised version was to also experiment with different styles for its fur. Since my style has changed, I wanted the fur to look better, or at least more clean in its design. I found I struggled with pointy shapes, so ultimately, the fur became more rounded. 

One thing that's a shame was that I had to change the animation during rescoping, and during that process, I decided to mostly cut out the creature, as I felt I didn't have time develop the scene with them. Instead, I decided to only hint at the creature, through one scene, where it lifts a to leg, to imply that something dangerous is about to happen. 

Different sketches for machines, objects and some of the ways, monsters interact with them.

Above are the sketches for machines and other steampunk-inspired objects. My goal was to help myself learn to draw mechanical designs and details, as well as to come up with official designs. Part of the original idea had some of the machines being based on animals, and this was because I had previously created a steampunk painting with a flying ship based on a fish. I loved the way I designed steampunk in my art, and I continued that in Grey World, and I wanted to continue that in this project. I revised how I designed animal machines, updating how I added details and actually working with perspective for once, creating more dynamic and interesting designs. I also had a flash of inspiration, and that was to use biological concepts in the design. Such as basing some machines on parasites, bacteria and cells in the body. This was because I felt it would further work into the strange and creepy atmosphere of Grey World, working into an interpretation that it could be alive. An example is a robot based on a tapeworm, a gigantic machine that's burrowed throughout the ground. Other objects were designed based on the inspirations from my mood board, such as creating surrealistic sculptures, or furniture combined with mechanical parts.

I also decided to experiment with monster designs as well, by combining them with machines and other objects. It was fun to explore different ways that biological monstrosities could interact with inanimate objects, and it also got me into some world-building. Such as designing a monster that acts like a tick, but towards machines, instead of legs, it has veiny tendrils that seep into the machine, as if to infest and root into it. Or with a gooey monster combing and tearing apart a cat-like machine, which could be an interesting enemy that catches the characters off guard.