Flatness vs. Projection

In this module, the concept of projection and perspective is explored through representing a two-dimensional world into a three-dimensional one.

Process

Elevation 1

Elevation 2

My palette consists of two shades of each main element of my Mario world, which is made up of warm and cold colours from navy blue, green to yellow. I included light shades and dark shades too to produce shadows and highlights for my objects. For example, the aluminum block is created using a range of blues, Navy blue, Carolina blue and Alice blue.

First, the two elevations are taped down 200mm apart at a 40 degrees angle, with the first piece of tracing paper taped down on the top. I decided to put the more complex elevation at the front and the relatively simpler one at the back.

The pencil draft was constructed by drawing a line to align the object in the elevation and the three dimensional representation on the tracing paper, then shifting it along the axis to create a sense of depth.

Another final piece of tracing paper is overlaid on top of the pencil draft to trace over. Some things were added, like coins and brush, while errors made in the previous draft were fixed.

The pencil draft included everything that can be seen in the elevation but in the final finelined draft, the six chosen elements were used as building blocks to design the areas which can't be seen in the elevations, hidden behind blocks and walls.

The hand-drawn piece was scanned, cleaned up in Adobe Photoshop and traced in Adobe Illustrator. Major changes were made in the refinement stage, like making the hills bulbous, breaking apart solid walls and adding more elements to the environment.

Layers were added on top of the traced image in Adobe Illustrator for shading in. I used many layers for colouring in order to keep the linework and rendering separate. For example, I kept objects that are further away in the bottom layers and the closer ones on the top. This way, the drawing remains clean and clear.