Moodboard

To start my 705 unit and create a village or scene for VR, I looked at my previous work in the  701 unit and looked at the style and story I had proposed. This was very fantasy themed as it is what I most enjoy reading and drawing, I knew that working in this style would keep my attention and interest the longest (an important factor due to my ADHD) 

I decided that the first step to creating an environment to build would be to look at the original story and character I had created, It has been a long time since I have looked at this as my project has changed so much, but I still would like to tether my work in this idea, as I remember writing this and wanting to continue with it and develop the story further. The characters and idea I proposed were: 

Name: Salina Dùn Na Rí

Height: 5ft 8inch

Age: 675

Likes: Jack, Mash potatoes, archery, sketching, reading.

Dislikes: People who insult her family, the Dullahan Family and their supporters, sprouts,

 

Backstory:

A member of an outcast royal elven family, who seeks to restore the reputation of her family by finding the lost gem of Dùn Na Rí which was stolen long ago.

She has lived her life on the outskirts of society never belonging to a single place or relying on anyone but herself and her trusty companion Jack who most often appears as a hare but is actually a pooka a magical creature that can shape-shift.

As a member of the race of elves, she has everlasting life, she cannot die of sickness or ageing though she can still be killed in battle. She has already lived for many years, though her physical appearance is that of a young woman around 25 years of age.

 

Since her family was an outcast, the land has been ruled by the human Dullahn family who seeks to stop Salina from Finding the gem and restoring her family's name and taking her place on the throne. The Dullahn family have thrown the land into despair, they rule with fear, they have hunted elves to near extinction and now wage war on the usually peaceful race of trolls, they will throw anyone in jail (or worse) who speaks out against the current king, many villages now live in poverty and must fight to survive. She must hide her elven heritage so as to avoid the persecution her people faced and protect the villagers that help her.  

 

She is a highly skilled thief, taught from a young age she is a master combatant with all weaponry and hand-to-hand combat, though she prefers to flee when given the choice.

Having lived so long she is highly intelligent.

 

Her ancestors were gifted magic welders who used their gift to protect their people from harm since the loss of the gem magic has deserted the land and the knowledge of how to use it has nearly been lost. That is until Salina Started her journey to find the gem, when she becomes stressed magic bursts out from her causing a multitude of issues. As well as finding and restoring the gem Selina and Jack must also uncover the reason behind her power and she must learn how to control them.

 

She records her and jacks adventures in a log in which she also illustrates their story, she is a gifted artist and storyteller who finds drawing out her adventures relaxing, she uses drawing as a way to calm herself when she has had an outburst of magic. 

Name: Rowan

Height:7ft 1

Age: 178

Dislikes: war, the Dullahn family, fish

Likes: stories, his family, the stars, flowers and green fields.

 

Backstory:

A member of the race of trolls Rowan has always lived in war, his family are all warriors who seek to stop the persecution of trolls and restore peace and harmony to the land.

As a troll he is not immortal but has an extended life span past that of humans, they age more slowly than humans as a-posed to reaching their prime and then stopping ageing like elves, because of this he is currently only around 25 in human years.

 

He is an orphan his father was killed trying to protect his mother. He has two older brothers one is a captain in the troll army, and the other is a lieutenant.

 

Rowan has a love of stories, as a child, his mother would try to distract him from the constant war by telling him stories that had been passed down by her great-grandmother about how there was once peace and prosperity throughout the land and how all the races had lived in harmony while they were ruled by the amazing Dun Na Ri Family and how they had great powers that they used to protect all.

 

He has had an interest in magic since hearing the stories his mother told him as a child, because of this he sort to learn all he could about magic even when been the subject of jokes from his older brothers.

He was a member of the troll army but upon finding an ancient troll elder who had been tasked by the Dun Na Ri Family to protect the last secrets of magic, he learnt more about the link the elves and trolls share and how magic was lost. Since the death of the elder, he has become his successor and became the new protector of the secret jewel, which grants its bearer the knowledge and secrets of how to weld magic and about the Dun Na Ri Family. Only he and his eldest brother know that he is the new protector of the jewel as it must be kept from the Dullahn Family at all costs. Since becoming the jewels new protector he has left the army and keeps moving around the land in secret, so that the knowledge about magic may remain out of enemy hands. He wears this jewel on a chain around his neck which he keeps hidden beneath his shirt.

 

As a troll he is exceptionally strong with his strength matching that of around 20 men, he is very skilled with a troll sword which is his weapon of choice. He always carries his father's troll sword which was passed down to him after his father was killed. He is also a talented cook, and he enjoys sharing his food with others.

 

As the protector of the jewel and because his people are constantly hunted he has no permanent home, and currently lives under the whitewater Bridge. 

Opening with a text prologue:

After Selina had to run from the guards, she dropped the precious log book that contains a record of all her and Jack's adventures. She is retracing her steps looking for the log around the bridge. Just as she spots the log she has to hide behind a tree as a Troll appears, the troll picks up the log and looks in, when he hears the noise of approaching guards he puts the log in his pocket and enters a hidden door underneath the bridge just as the guards pass over. Selina watches from her hiding spot, once the guards have passed, she and Jack start to think of a plan to get the log back from the troll. 

Behind the hidden door, there is a home that Rowen has been hiding in for years, it is safe here as the magic door cannot be seen by humans, only magical creatures are able to see it and Rowen has nothing to fear from them, as trolls are strong, fearless warriors, only the elves were equal to them but the elves relied too heavily on the ancient royal family and their mystical powers that protected all since the family was lost the elves have long since been driven from the land, no Rowan had nothing fear about someone finding him here… or so he thought.

Animation:

The scenario will play from here is Selina and Jack breaking into Rowan's home after nightfall in order to retrieve her log book. She must sneak around so as not to wake up Rowen, who has fallen asleep reading the book. As she reaches for the book she notices a necklace that has slipped out from Rowen's top, she has an irresistible urge to touch the stone pendant and reaches for it, Rowen wakes up and a fight breaks out. They both hear guards over a foot and while they can't see the magical door they would be able to hear the noise of the fight. Hearing them, Rowen signals Salina to be quiet, and they both wait as the guards pass overhead.

Continuation:

This would then lead to a conversation between the two. 

This led to me looking at images of bridges and woodland scenes, due to my previous photogrammetry tests I know that these would be very hard to capture until I got better at using the software, So I started looking at buildings that could be situated in the same world, I looked at both interior and exterior images, I collected these and created a moodboard. For this, I was recommended a new free-to-use software called pureRef which is made to create moodboards and image boards, this is a great piece of software, it allows you to copy images from google as opposed to having to download and save them, and it keeps the original images high quality even when zoomed in, it allows you to add and move images easily and automatically adjusts your canvas to fit them, it is definitely a software I will use often.

Below is my finished moodboard, you can see that I separated the images by colour so that I could start to see which I was more drawn to creating and which would fit what I was trying to achieve. 

Now that I have created my moodboard, the next step is to start to create a draft design of the scene that I will create.