Clarissa Elbo

Sketches and Inspirational Images

I chose to model the city of Zenobia because I was attracted to its unique vertical structure. Zenobia felt like a city that was slowly built as a result of its environment, and I imagine that the dry terrain encouraged the city to build vertically and the inhabitants to collaborate with one another as they lived closely together. I wanted to emphasize the various heights of the buildings and their relationship with the environment they are in. Other than the environment, another part of the story that stood out to me was the materials used to create the city. I took inspiration from bamboo forests after reading the description of the houses to be made from bamboo and zinc. I also looked into the shapes of bamboo houses and gave them a treehouse-like feel as they were placed on top of the bamboo stilts.

As mentioned earlier, I wanted to emphasize the different layers of buildings and their variety of heights amongst each other. I originally planned to use a black and white silhouette of the city that I drew and then 3D model it to add textures. However, while I was working on this, I realized it was harder for me to experiment with adding different textures to the different parts of the buildings. I pivoted to using different primitive shapes to build up the silhouettes of the buildings. For future iterations, I would want to try and incorporate the smaller elements I had included in my sketch, such as the fishing poles, weather vanes, ladders, and bridges. I had trouble with angling the bridges right which I think is an important element to include in a city where everyone is connected with one another. I also want to experiment with more textures to make the buildings appear less flat and repetitive.

Textures Used