This semester visual literacy has given us a project that is; in my eyes, right up my street - Research the work of an artist you admire, and use their work as a starting point to create an environment for a 3d visualisation. Not only does it allow me to work in an area of art I love; landscape – fantasy or real, but it also allows me to research one of my all time favourite artists, Roger Dean.
Roger Dean
So why Roger Dean? Growing up as a teenager in the 70’s I discovered the music of Pink Floyd and the fantastic album art of Storm Thorgeson, this in turn led me to the band Yes and the mesmerising art of Roger Dean. Sure you had the likes of The Beatles album cover for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, designed by Peter Blake and Jann Haworth in 1967 which moved out of the ordinary, but Roger Dean created a whole concept art around the band, which became as important, indeed probably more so than the band’s music. From the free flowing Yes Logo to the more architectural influenced Asia logo, his work became instantly recognisable, with many buying the albums – myself included- not for the music but simply for the album art and free poster that often came with it.
Dean, R. c.1973. Yes Logo. [Online image]. San Fransico Art Exchange.
Available from: http://www.sfae.com/index.php?pg=300107#
Dean, R. c. 1980. Asia Eyes Logo III. [Online image]. San Fransico Art Exchange.
Available from: http://www.sfae.com/index.php?pg=300105#
So Who Is Roger Dean?
Born in Kent, England in 1944, he spent most of his childhood abroad in Greece, Cyprus and Hong Kong, retuning to England in 1959. Two years later he embarked on a three year Industrial Design course at Canterbury School of Art; it was during this time he created the first designs for the “Sea Urchin chair” which is seen as the blue print for the modern day “Bean Bag”.
On completion of the Industrial Design course, Roger then Joined the Royal College of Art Furniture School. He made the Sea Urchin Chair which was exhibited at the Design Centre in the Haymarket, where it became the focus of media attention.
His first commercial contract came in 1968 whilst still at Art College, this was to design seating for Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club. It was also when he was asked to create his first album cover for the band Gun, who were at that time being managed by Ronnie Scott.
Roger Dean's firt album cover
1971 was the year Roger became a name in the world of album art, he was approached to design an album cover for the band Osibisa, the design attracted wide spread attention and led to the band Yes asking him to do work for them. Roger created a whole identity around the band.
Dean, R. 1974. Yes, Relayer. [Online image]. San Fransico Art Exchange.
Available from: http://www.sfae.com/index.php?pg=300083&a=-4
Dean, R. 1985. Asia, Astra. [Online image]. San Fransico Art Exchange.
Available from:http://www.sfae.com/index.php?pg=302526&a=4
Dean, R. 1995. Dragons Garden III Sunrise/Dragon. [Online image].
San Fransico Art Exchange.
Available from: http://www.sfae.com/index.php?pg=300147&a=4
This is my favourite Roger Dean painting, part of a series of
three paintings, created for the album cover of a concept
album Us and Them: Symphonic Pink Floyd.
3D Environment
To create the 3D environment we have to use Maya, the creative scope with this software is almost limitless and so are the chances of clicking the wrong buttons to begin with; all part of the fun. Although the structured tutorials are invaluable to start with, the "dive in" technique often proves the best method to learn; dive in and click buttons to see what they do, "eh! whys my screen went blue?".
So the idea is to create a 3D environment using Roger as the starting point, to this end I will be creating a landscape centring around rock, tree and water but trying to create something different; do rocks have to be rocks? If something is big enough can it become tree like?
This is an idea from my sketch book visualizing how a scene might look.
To begin with I have been experimenting with rock formations and how it can be approached in Maya.
The original starting shape can be seen on the left, the inspiration for the base shape comes from the rock formation of The Giants Causeway in Ireland.
Nature can provide us with many scenes that appear to be more fantasy than reality and are truly stunning.
Entwined with the legend of Finn McCool
[Unknown].(2008?).Giants
Causeway.[photograph].[online image].spotcoolstuff.com. Available from : http://travel.spotcoolstuff.com/amazing-attraction/walk-along-the-giants-causeway/
[Accessed 21 January 2012]
Natures very own bridge building
Gonzalez, J.(2007?). Strange
rock formations at Arches National Park, USA.[photograph].[online image].123RF.com.
Available from : http://www.123rf.com/photo_8709248_strange-rock-formations-at-arches-national-park-usa.html
[Accessed 21 January 2012]
Floating Islands
Foothead.(2008). Danxia
Mountain in the morning mist.[photograph].[online image].tripadvisor.co.uk.
Available from : http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g677480-r22793305-Shaoguan_Guangdong.html
[Accessed 21 January 2012]
There are many more similar scenes in nature that can be used as inspiration for a project such as this. I have also been trying out some textures created in photoshop, organic textures will be required; rock, wood, water and plant.
This is a very simple texture to create in photoshop that may work well for rock.
I have also been thinking about a possible tree bark texture again created in photoshop and very simple to achieve.
I like this texture as it lends itself to more than one use.
My original ideas for the 3D environment have expanded as my understanding of Maya and, ability to use the software has grown. I was not 100% happy with the original idea as I felt all I was doing was changing Rogers ideas to suit a 3D environment. With that in mind I began to think of ways I could create the environment but still use Rogers "Floating Islands" as the starting point. To start with I considered changing the trees to lollipops and making the rocks sugar cubes or chocolate, basically basing it round a sweeties theme but I kept thinking "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".
They say inspiration comes from anywhere and often when you are least expecting it, well in this instance it was spaghetti bolognese or to be more precise the mushrooms I was putting in, instead of having trees on the floating island put mushroom shaped building and make one of them an Observatory, that would give the floating island a sense of purpose for being there.
I searched shutterstock for mushroom/toadstool images to give myself a starting reference for the initial shape, but decided to make them more "built" looking in their appearance, rather than "natural", more Tim Burton, than Disney.
[Accessed 21 Febuary 2012]
[Accessed 21 Febuary 2012]
The first building, "The Observatory" .
There is always a danger of loosing track of the original idea, the original sketches are for a floating island with mushrooms replacing trees, with one taking on the appearance of an Observatory as can be seen in the original sketches.
Some how I have allowed the creative process to run out of control and expand to the point of loosing track of the original idea as can be seen in the "flying mushroom" bellow; time to re-channel the imagination.
While I like the above concept, its not what I set out to create.
