Road to Somewhere: Look dev

So I've been exploring doing look development type things lately and really wanted to create a piece for my reel outside class that would be challenging and also showcase my skills.

I absolutely love Hayao Miyazaki's 2001 film 千と千尋の神隠し (Spirited Away). I saw the film in 2002, just before I turned 10 years old, the same age as Chihiro. Because we were the same age and also looked alike I became more emotionally attached to the film and felt like I could be in that story. I remember not understanding the Japanese spirits and customs that were prevalent in the film and I think that is really what kick-started my strong interest in the Japanese culture, language, and folklore.

Looking through the artbook I have of the film I was really drawn to the background art of the opening sequence (plus every time I hear 「あの夏へ」 I get so nostalgic)

I first started working on blocking out this scene, the pivotal moment when the family enters the spirit area as designated by the old torii gate and stone shrines.

I also like the look of the iconic tunnel from the point of no return for the Ogino family, so I started modelling the building.

I started getting restless modelling the tunnel and wanted to do something else, so I started blocking out the stairs scene, with the thought in mind that I could add a water sim to it from the frog statue's mouth.

I was having a hard time figuring out how to model the rest of the building that is obscured by the stairs so I went and watched my copy of the film and saw this scene that revealed more of the buildings. But this added a complication- there are discrepancies between both paintings of the buildings: the screen doors are different, the railings are different, there is a side roof on one but not the other, the yellow building has a different top shape and one window instead of two. Because of these differences I picked and chose which ones I wanted to go with instead of just 100% copying the daytime painting.

WIP of the modelling and (almost) final grass.

Here is a gif showing my grass progress. I used paint FX grass that was tweaked to look more natural and the djPFXUVs script to add variety to the shaders.

Mudboxing the stairs!