Derick Ma
Derick Ma
Welcome to...
Welcome to...
Sophronia
Sophronia
The city that I picked from the book was Thin City 4, Sophronia. Generally, my theme was duality. It depicts classic contrasts such as heaven and hell, rich and poor, black and white. Aesthetically I absolutely love a white/black/red color scheme and decided to use it for this project. This city, being made of two halves, is depicted to be two parts of an island made of very different materials. The marble side is shown to be floating slightly higher to depict the annual "disappearance" of this half. In my interpretation, the island simply floats away at this time of year. Below are two of my inspirations: there is a city in "Pokemon Black and White" that appears differently in the two versions of the game. They differ in architecture, theme, game music and characters, and adopt a black or white look based on which copy of the game one owns. The second is an overworld level entry from "Mario 3D Land" which was the type of imagery I was going for: a more simplified version of a detailed world that encompasses its main themes and attractions.
The city that I picked from the book was Thin City 4, Sophronia. Generally, my theme was duality. It depicts classic contrasts such as heaven and hell, rich and poor, black and white. Aesthetically I absolutely love a white/black/red color scheme and decided to use it for this project. This city, being made of two halves, is depicted to be two parts of an island made of very different materials. The marble side is shown to be floating slightly higher to depict the annual "disappearance" of this half. In my interpretation, the island simply floats away at this time of year. Below are two of my inspirations: there is a city in "Pokemon Black and White" that appears differently in the two versions of the game. They differ in architecture, theme, game music and characters, and adopt a black or white look based on which copy of the game one owns. The second is an overworld level entry from "Mario 3D Land" which was the type of imagery I was going for: a more simplified version of a detailed world that encompasses its main themes and attractions.
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!
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!