so here are the air vehicles, had fun with the silhouettes on this one picked one out again and pushed the design. the design includes unburdened and laden with the resource cargo.

so here are some concepts for land vehicles, resource transport primarily. the silhouettes were done to gain some ideas and then i went forward and pushed one of the black outs. design is pretty cool i will just have to learn how to animate the tank treds in maya

so this is snow environment concept as i have mainly focussed on desert scapes. snowy alpine icy environment, harsh and unpredictable.

colours are nice but to model and texture snow with correct deformations would be very difficult

a quick idea i had with the desert landing pad and mine entrance. the idea being that the mine entrance was huge and built into the cliff elduding to a massive underground mining network.

concept05

so this was to show a possible entrnace to the underground mining system with a big crater opening and a landing pad in the middle. the buildings around the edges are accomodation for the miners.

concept04

after looking into a piece called the unfinished swan which is basically an interactive game world environment which is completely white until you throw balls of black paint around to reveal the shape of the environment. from the idea of having an environment revealed by colour i had a thought of having our environment ( the mine) based underground in a dark cave where the architecture of the surroundings is revealed by light from the character moving through the tunnels.

concept03

ok so this was inspired by a piece in an art book called exodyssey the original was done by patrick desgreniers and features a similar situation. i enjoyed the idea of having some huge machine chasing after one of the workers for whatever reason.

concept 02

so this piece again represents the atmosphere and environment but also includes some structural aspects. i quite like this one mainly due to the heavy contrast

concepts

so this pic was done really early on and i did it to try and explore the landscape of the the environment rather than the architectural side of things, so it is a desert environment with little shade, rather baron, but on the waters edge so can be used as an access point.

the backstory

so i compiled ideas with other groupies and sat down and wrote the backstory for our project:



2215
Earth's resources are depleted all that remains are the low yielding wind, tidal and light farms. Yet Earth has been turned into a Galactic homeland for the rest of the EC (Earth colonies), in essence an expensive holiday resort treated like a pilgrimage.

With the introduction of inter galactic travel in 2098 Earth's answer for energy came in the form of Intronium a high yielding energy resource that seems limitless in supply. It is found on planets and moons with harsh weather conditions ranging in polar opposites and as such it was seen as a useless venture. 2120 the EC roles out space technology with increased enthusiasm and introduces Terra-forming, previously uninhabitable atmospheres are now breathable and the weather conditions on many moons have been greatly improved making Intronium accessible.

2142 Lance Carter, Earth's richest citizen, establishes Inter Planetary Mining (IPM). IPM uses the EC's imprisoned convicts to work his mines, conditions are too harsh to open to the general populous-no one would apply. The Galactic Defence Force (GDF) is introduced in order to keep control over the convict workers, some of the small mines faced rebel uprisings but Carter's answer to this was to glass the planet. The mines vary on the planet or moon they are working on and how the Intronium is reached, common ground usually being that of depth.

2214 our mine is situated on the moon Utor 8 which orbits a huge storm planet.
Utor 8 is under IPM hold and directly under the jurisdiction of Dr Fritz, his style of leadership is that of the iron fist – one foot out of place and you disappear. The GDF is notorious here as 3 years ago there was a rebel surge but Fritz insisted to Carter that he would deal with it, and so he did a huge death toll that fills one of the abandoned mines on Utor 8. So the GDF use this as an excuse to exact their own authority.

Given enough food and water to survive and worked long 10 hour days in deep mines the convicts are given no choice over the situation. The convicts live in temporary buildings set up in and around the mines, as there is no money trading is essential and what is traded is either stolen or scavenged.

A small rebel force is amassing amongst the convicts, who are slowly gathering weapons and vehicles along with usable technologies and supplies, with the aim of overthrowing the GDF and claiming the planet for themselves.
AK

the sketch book

so here are all the pages from my various sketchbooks from the beginning of the project the pages have lots of info and ideas which i have scribbled down.

HALO and the big german tank train

so yeah halo is huge and mainly due to the story and the artistic creativeness involved throughout the game. so i was doing some research work and came across this pic of a german cannon mounted on a train and then drew the similarities to the halo pic of the vehicle. who knows they probably have nothing in common at all to the designers of the game but to me they have a small similarity. the tank train is great because it would seem that if the turret turned to either the left or right of the train and fired it would de-rail the entire carriage. impracticle but cool and thats something that designers must think about is whether or not their design is practicle or whther the point of it is to be darn crazy.

Ships, ship breakers, planes and a roller coaster

so the ships are great because they are commercial vehicles and as such have a purpose as far as they have a job to do, not only that the construction of the ships can seem very formulaic yet blocky almost like beinig put together by a child with lego/duplo.

the shipbreakers are in there because of the deconstruction, they have chewed away at the ships and have left amazing shells which do not represent ships anymore and can be a great starting point for some crazy buildings.

the plane with the opened nose cone is cool due to the interaction with the vehicle the way it opens up is reminiscent of a draw bridge, once again a cool idea for doors and entrances to our mine.

the roller coaster is in there because of the way that old mines have been reinterpreted in amusement parks. the mine carts instead of carrying resources now carry people on ridiculous twisting tracks. ideas a plenty with this one as we can include some interesting transport devices for both people and the resource.

futuristic concept cars

so these are a couple of really sleak and smooth futuristic car designs. designs like these offer so much in the way of inspiration as the cars themselves can be silhouetted and then used as the basis for a building or anything really, including the obvious of a vehicle. but these pics im using just for the aesthetics and how they look as im almost certain that something like the bmw will pop up in one of my designs.

terrain and environments

so these pics show off some cool environments. my ideas for the planet that our mine is on is for a desert style wasteland so these referrence pics are ideal for furthering this idea. the pics of the sinkholes are there due to another idea i had, that of the mine being under the surface of the planet and everyone lived down in the this huge cave.

old mines

so there are loads of images on the net of old mines and huge pits that have left craters in the earth. with our project it would be great if in the distance a huge pit/crater was visible just to enhance the scale of the image and also show the practical side of the environment. the old american mines are great to look at aswell due to their ramshackle appearance, erected overnight to suit the needs of the miners and built to last until they fell down, they have a style but each are unique quite querky with lots of usefull architecture. the sheds especially give a good appearance of the slumy nature.

the Gherkin

even though its controversial in nature i actually like the design of the Gherkin building in London, although hasked the same question 3 years ago i hated it? but the main reason why i like it is because of the structural elements used in the external frame work, the nice sweeping curves knitting together the glass, very cool and also practical as i believe the building is used as a giant lightning rod.