Planning, Sketches, Design & 3D

I initially had an idea of warriors on flying stingray inspired by nomadic horse riding civilizations such as the Mongols. Storyboards were quickly sketched for a scene I had in mind. During a diplomatic meeting, these warriors would raid The Weather Station, an elf inhabited island in the sky that augments the weather through advanced cloud seeding.

From the initial storyboard, I tasked myself to think of the nomadic civilization. Heavy armoured stingrays replaced horses. The stingray riders were influenced by a mix of Mongol nomads and early pilots, they stand on a large leather saddle equipped with inserts for their boots to fasten themselves to the stingray during air manuevers. Riders control the stingrays by directing their feelers. Spearholders are fastened to the saddle.

From the design stage, a full 3D model was created for the stingrays in Blender. A few custom materials and decals were created in Substance Designer. It was a fun problem to solve how a stingray would be equipped with armour and saddle, and how everything would fit together in a realistic way.

Environment Sketches

The Weather station drew inspiration from Rivendell from The Lord of the Rings, it also drew inspiration from ‘Cloud Forest’ biomes on Earth, Art Nouveau, and Rococo architecture. Nature infused with manmade creation.

Some self-made and customized 3D assets were made for environment shots

More coming soon.