The first task I was given while working with Faycrest Studios was to design the Countess’s Estate. The architecture was influenced by Gothic and German architecture, and to make the design more unique, I added elements inspired by crows to the design. It was one of my first times making a rough 3D blockout for the building and painting over it, a workflow that is something I do frequently now.
When working on this project, I began trying out different ideation methods. I used to explore thumbnails primarily with shape and value and while it gave me good results, it was inefficient and I often would default to the same shapes over multiple designs based on the shapes of the brushes I was using. I began forcing myself to get better at sketching with line and experimented with a hybrid shape/line approach. Over the duration of my year-long contract with Faycrest Studios, I became much better with this method and it’s become a mainstay of my process.
