First Actual Project: Stuck on how to continue.
Well like the title says I'm trying to finish my first actual piece. I spent the last four years in college kind of drifting until I finally settled on the Game Industry and specifically art as what I want to do. So to that end I'm trying to start up a portfolio of work. However, I always seem to get halfway through a project and abandon it, so this is going to be my first "I'm not abandoning this one" project that is going to go into my portfolio. Attached is a WIP Render, I'm going to try and do a 90s anime style alleyway, I've got the basic colors down as well as the outline and I'm just I don't know kind of stuck, not sure where to go from here. Like I said I've never actually taken any art classes or done any professional work, everything I've put into this is self taught. The black wall at the end of the alley I was planning to replace with a static image, maybe another building I'm not overly decided on that. As for lighting and making it look more like a 90s anime, that I have no idea where to start.
Any advice or recommendations, anything at all is welcome. I'm just not sure where to go from here so I could really use some help. Oh and I am using Blender, if that helps at all in terms of advice.
Replies
Hi! Do you use references (scene composition, style)? I recommend including them into the thread so it gets more clear what the goal is. Since you wrote the goal is game industry, I would try to render within a game engine, if you don't already.
Did you do some some brief pre-planing/research before? I believe this and taking a step back now end then to reflect during the process can help to not get lost (still working towards goal? Problems that came up? Can they be solved or does the project need to be re-scoped? Can make overpaints to explore).
If get lost regardless, I would cut out the design portion and translate an existing concept, there is still enough filling-the-gaps required.
Good luck!
Piggy backing of what Fabi_G said;
It may be a good idea to pick a background painting from your favorite 90's anime, and try your best to recreate that in 3d? That way you will have a clear and definte finish line, while not having to worry about layout/composition.
Your trying to run when you haven't crawled yet. You're not at scene creation level yet. I'd focus on creating small props…a fire hydrant, a dumpster, a pipe kit…etc. Get those figured out and then you can put them into a larger scene or alleyway. Got to work on the basics before you can dunk….you need to have good running ability and dribbling before you can work on posting up, passing, defending etc. Baby steps, you've given up before due to the fact you've probably bitten off way more than you can chew…a full scene requires good assets, understanding of the tools, lighting, compostion, and bunch of other elements I won't go into….remove some of those hurdles for yourself. Focus on good fundementals like good assets and textures/materials. It's easy to build on solid foundations.
get some real world ref for alleyways and take it from there. maybe one end of the alley has a chainlink fence
Maybe more than 1 dumpster and a bunch of rubbish bags etc
door should be recessed in to the wall, looks like an interior corridor in places, so put disticnt outside looking props in the composition
Here is a something you might want to look at , loads of stuff on google maps too
you have to really push yourself :) all of the stuff in this pic is easy to model, they are just rectangular shapes on the whole
pay attention to real world scales also, you alley seems really not wide enough , more like an internal corridor
Thank you so much for all the responses, I have been looking up references though I've been picking through multiple images for reference, and should probably focus on one or two at most. I also understand what Pixelpatron is saying about biting off more than I could chew, I may take a step back and model some props and such before continuing. Make those the best they can be, and let my mind take a break so I can come back refreshed.
I also saw that including reference images I looked at in the thread would be helpful. Thanks Fabi_G
These are two of the main ones, but there are plenty of others. The first is pretty much the style I was going for, while the second is where I got the basic shape of the alley. Though looking at them again I can see that my alley is a bit thin in comparison.
Well I took PixelPatron's advice and started a bit smaller, working on making the props for the scene look as good as I possibly can. As the style is a bit simple and doesn't lend it self to small details this is pretty easy. I've started on a Power Box and I've continued work on the Dumpster. I'll also include an update I made to the scene itself, I added a few placeholder shapes for where I'm planning to put stuff as well as made some adjustments to the scene.
This is all work in progress of course, I still need to put some polish on the Dumpster and the Power Box, some advice there would be appreciated. As for the main scene I'm planning to add in windows, an air conditioning machine, trash cans and of course the Power Box. Also considering more objects to fill the scene out but I'm not decided on anything yet. Like always I'm open to any advice I can get as I am fairly new to Blender and putting a scene together in general.