Derick Ma

My project was based on the fabled city “Sophronia,” a city composed of two half-cities. The first half is a sort of chaotic, twisted amusement park, one that seems to be taken from a page in a horror movie script. The opposing side of this half is the grand marble city. There are cement roads and large stone buildings, and is much more sophisticated than the other side. It is said that every year, the side made of marble is torn down annually just to be built up again months later. I thought this was quite a peculiar passage and I loved the concept of it being made of two half cities. I am heavily inspired by video games and entertainment so I was drawn to creating a “overworld” graphic, like one you would see in Nintendo games that summarize the detailed world the player would play through. Personally, I am very drawn to the concept of duality and based on their descriptions went with the contrasting concept of black and white. I created stone buildings and walls and gave them marble texture materials and used a contrasting black marble for the other side of the island. I created the scene from the text: rollercoaster, a turnpike to represent the motorcyclists, rings to represent the ferris wheel. I realized the ramp resembled devil horns and I ended up adopting the “heaven and hell” motif once I realized the connection, and picked the remaining color palette based on it. How I could improve on this would be to improve the lighting, I realized the buildings in the marble city are a little hard to differentiate. With more time and experience, I could also add more impressive details. Otherwise, I am quite satisfied with the composition and colors and the overall project!