Axculho.com - My bachelor thesis

acapulco

Hello everyone,

Long time no see! I guess I haven‘t published any new work for around 5 months, but that had a good reason.

I have been working on my bachelor thesis for last 6 months. It was a lot of work, but it was all worth it. I have never before worked on a project of that scale before - and on my own.

So what special thing did I do? I created this: Altepetl Axculho - A nomad city

I created a whole new world, based on some loose sketches I did years back, worked out the visuals , built up a website for presentation and painted 8 big illustrations. I decided to concentrate on one of the nations and went in on them in detail.
It took one month for the worldbuilding, one month for concept art and the rest of the time for the web site and the illustrations. While always knowingwhat to do in case of concept art and illustrations web design was a complete new one to me. I had to learn HTML, CSS and Javascript, but I don’t think anyone in here really cares about that part. I wanted to create a website, because it is easy for all of you to access and it allows me to show new content pretty easy. And I want to create more content on this world.

So what’s up with the world? I won’t tell you much about the world now, you have to experience that part on your own. Just so much:
It is based on our world and is set in around 1800 years into the future. Mankind is no longer able to use electricity and their state of knowledge and mind is somewhere back in the middle ages. A huge artificial intelligence reigns over the world and humanity. The people I portrait are the Mak’Torei, more precise a town of the Mak’Torei - Altepetl Axculho. They praise the artificial intelligence Acatl as their god.

I think this is enough knowledge for now, go visit the web site and find out more by yourself:

Axculho.com

Here are two teaser images for you:

I am really looking forward to hearing what everyone of you thinks about it!

Best regards,
Simon Kopp

ArminChaudhry

I love your drawing style and as i can see you are from my hometown (Nürnberg), so two points for that
The way you are telling your story is really epic. The only critic i have is that your entry website should be more appealing for new visitors. In general new visitors tend often to look just at the first page of a website and if this site is not interesting enough they will lose their interest. I mean the first drawing is nice, but i cant get the whole purpose of this website on the first page and i think this is crucial to keep your visitors.

acapulco

Well, I guess the website is the weakest link in my work. I had to learn everything regarding creating a website and usability. I know what you mean and I am aware of that, but I wasn't really able to pull it off.
But I'm glad you like the most important part of my work

_Connor

acapulco wrote: »

Well, I guess the website is the weakest link in my work. I had to learn everything regarding creating a website and usability. I know what you mean and I am aware of that, but I wasn't really able to pull it off.
But I'm glad you like the most important part of my work

If people don't see that first image and think "i need to go deeper", they probably just aren't interested in any of it. Your website gives me goosebumps. Only issue i have is not having a full screen on the images. The border seems largely pointless.

acapulco

Thanks man, kind words - in the waywo too

Regarding 3d - I used it in the concept art phase for blocking out the village. I then painted over it. The village overview has a simple blockbase and then painted on top of it same with the flying island illustration. No other image had any 3d as a foundation. I just needed the 3d part in order to have a coherent view on the town - and where everything is located.

Regarding the borders:
I made this website with a 16 to 9 ratio in mind. That and 16 to 10 is what most people nowadays use - or at least in my target audience.In order to fit everything on the screen I had to shrink the 'viewport' down to that size - leaving those borders.
But I could have implemented a button to view any illustration in full screen. I'll keep that in mind for the next iteration.

Thank you for thefeedback - Much appreciated.

Shrike

Actually thats a step over classical concept art. You not only do the artworks and give context, but you give detailed background and information that can viewed interactively - this is like a logical evolution over the classical 2D image concepts, which I find really nice if It was more or less intended that way.

Maybe thats a perspective thing.

The artworks look great, the graphic design is not exactly on that level, the carpet is kind of a weak point, also the page is kinda sluggish, and your icons are not distinguishing from tooltip or link which is often confusing
The font choice and style makes it look a little cartoonish, not sure if that is wanted, and some texts are a little cheesy, like the intro text , I was thinking something like "Ah, but you know that" ; )

acapulco

Thanks shrike, I completely agree! What I did was not only concept art. I mean, concept art should have this kind of background behind it in my opinion. Putting fangs and skulls on plate armor is not exactly what concept art is supposed to be.

I can also see, that this work is lacking in everything - perhaps besides the illustrations. And the intro text was more like a negative experience for you. Also interesting.
I really struggled with the usability part. I thought having another form, color and cursorstyle would be enough to distinguish between whats clickable and not - but that is still not the case.
What I learned: I will not try to make a website again ^^