Introduction
After researching enough about the dwarf mythology, looking at some reference images online and getting an idea of their living conditions I started making some concept art.
In this blog post, you’ll see some basic sketches of volcanic rock drawn on my sketchbook and a couple matte paintings on Photoshop. Matte painting is something I wish to improve since it is what professionals do for making environment concepts.
Rock Sketches
At first, I drew different variants of volcanic rocks. The rocks I want in my game are hexagonal basalt columns formed by the cracking of dried up magma. This is perfect for my project since the dwarfs in my game will live in an active volcano.
These sketches aren’t very complex as you can see. This is just to give me a basic idea of what rock assets I need to make. Each rock drawn will have different variation so that it doesn’t seem like I am simply duplicating assets
Here is a more complex sketch this time showing how the rocks would be used to make an environment. This scene is concept art for the entrance towards a dwarven elevator which takes you to the underground dwarven city.
I made this drawing by making 3D hexagonal or pentagonal shapes and placed them adjacent to one another. I didn’t give them a perfect shape because I want it to look somewhat realistic. This drawing was really easy to make as it only required basic shapes and shading techniques I learned in year one of game design.
I’m not sure if I’ll have time to make this environment so what I will do is make the dwarven city first and then make this environment last.
This is the digital concept art I made of the first scene using matte painting technique in Photoshop. It uses images found in Google images and light and shadow adjustments to make a believable scene. I primarily used this technique for rocks to make a background and foreground. I could have done the same thing for the bridge in the middle ground but since dwarven architecture is very specific, I couldn’t find a way to make a dwarven bridge without making it look stolen from other artists. There is a way to improve the middle ground, I could have found a basic stone bridge from Google images and painted in dwarven patterns.
I personally don’t think this is that good but I am satisfied with this art regardless since it is my first attempt at matte painting an entire environment. For my first time, I personally think I did alright since I now have the basic idea but, in the future, I don’t see myself being a concept artist since I specialize in 3D art.
Here’s a video of me making the digital concept art:
At first, I tried making digital art for the second scene but found it too difficult. I at first tried using the same method I used for the first scene but found it difficult because the scene requires a lot of man-made structures from a fantasy setting, it’s hard to find images I can use that perfectly shows what I envision for the scene. I then tried painting in Photoshop but also found it difficult also simply because I’m still not used to it and I find it easier to control if I just use my sketchbook.
With that said, here is the concept art for my second scene:
After looking at various different images of Dwarven architecture, I’ve noticed that a lot of their buildings are made with a layer of gold and a layer of rock. So I decided to make all of my buildings follow that style. I also noticed that Dwarves don’t use a lot of curves and prefer harder edges which is why you see me using cuboids and hexagonal prisms as the basic shapes of the buildings.
What I like about dwarves are they are masters of engineering. Since the dwarves lived underground, in volcanos and mountains, I would imagine them using the environment to their advantage. An example of this is partially carving out a room in a cave wall or the side of a mountain for their home or like what I’ve done in the concept art above where I use volcanic rocks to will in the roof of a tower.
The problem with making this concept art on my sketchbook is that I couldn’t capture an accurate representation of the lighting for the environment. I obviously want it to be dimly lit due to the fact that this is in a cave underneath a volcano and that there is molten hot magma giving off natural lighting. There would also be torches of some kind scattered around the area for added lighting. I could have spent extra time making showing lighting but I thought that it would take up too much time and finished it there.
Timesheet
I managed to complete the concept art within the planned time and not just that but I also feel satisfied with the work I produced. I personally think I gave myself more time than I needed as really it should only take a week or two, but I spend a lot of time picturing the layout in my head before putting a pencil on paper.
Nick Amalin 