Picture House - Main Piece

For my game menu screen, I already had a vague idea in mind.

I knew that I wanted a landscape without much detail in the middle in order for me to put the menu options there later, rolling hills that would make my animation look a little more visually interesting, Solis in the foreground and the shrine in the background.

The first thing I needed to do though, was design the shrine.

Why a shrine? Since so much of my inspiration comes from Breath Of The Wild, it makes sense that I would continue to pull inspiration from there. The game's setting was originally based on the game director's, Shigeru Miyamoto, walks around Kyoto as a child.

Therefore, I took my inspiration from the shapes of the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine in Kyoto, Japan. I haven't been here myself (I wish I had) but because of the fact it is one of the most impressive sights in Kyoto and one of the most popular shrines in Japan, I know about it. Here are some of the pictures I found of it.

Above found at: https://theculturetrip.com/asia/japan/articles/a-brief-history-of-fushimi-inari-taisha-kyotos-most-important-shrine/

Above found at: https://lillagreen.at/fushimi-inari-taisha-shrine-travel-guide/

Above found at: https://medium.com/@nomadictravel/fushimi-inari-taisha-3ed3bb6f2479

After looking at pictures of the shrine, I built a mockup of my idea in Minecraft and took a screenshot in order to help me with perspective later on.

Above: Screenshot I took of the mockup

Using this screenshot, some pictures I took on a walk and a few images I sourced from the internet (credits below), I tested my piece's composition.

I printed the pictures off and cut them up so that I could rearrange them in my sketchbook, in the hopes that one of the arrangements would look right.

These were some of the combinations I came up with, as well as the one I annotated and chose to work with in the end.

(Credits for images I used: https://www.mediastorehouse.com.au/worldinprint/hilly-landscape-val-dorcia-unesco-world-9091475.html

https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Wide-Hilly-Landscape-with-Flower-Meadow-/4241433071E015CE

http://www.artnet.com/artists/josef-dobrowsky/hilly-landscape-VsLMhs_eCQpwDlABK4_L7Q2)

With that, I started drawing my main piece.

The first thing I did was sketch out the basis of Solis in the foreground, reaching up to receive the Hana Orb.

Next, I loosely sketched in the landscape, plotted in where the shrine will be, finished the main sketching for Solis and drew the basis for the Stone Guardian. I chose for the Stone Guardian to be a fox for a few reasons: There are a lot of fox statues in the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine, foxes are the right sort of size to be a good companion within the game, and I also really love foxes. Simple as that.

The next thing to do was finish the sketch for the shrine in the background and refine the ground a little.

I proceeded to do the line work and main colouring for the shrine after that.

Next I did the line work for everything in the foreground and added a green overlay to the ground to colour it.

I then coloured everything in the foreground, as well as drawing the warm lighting effects.

With the lighting in place, I added a dark purple overlay in multiply mode over everything to make the whole scene night time, as well as adding in the starry sky.

To finish the piece off, I textured the ground to look like grass, including adding some tufts of grass in front of the figures in the foreground and the shrine in the background to fully integrate them into the scene.

Overall, I am very pleased with my main piece. I am very much looking forward to animating it!

Harvard References:

'The Legend of Zelda (video game)' (no date) Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda_(video_game) (Accessed: 10 October 2021).