Sketches & Planning

So this is where I have initially begun. What I want in my layout, because the Moon surface will be far too basic on it's own; I want a rocket, a sputnik 1 model crashed onto the surface with a rusted - weathered look to it (purely for cinematic effect) and I would like  flying saucer and some rocks just scattered around. What great science fiction doesn't have props like those in?  This i think, as a whole will look simply cool for a science fiction little movie like this, where I am wanting to achieve in immersing an audience into the place that I plan to take them and by doing so, I need to kind of hit the benchmark of cliche's that an audience can instantly relate to the genre and place setting I am building to show and by using props and sets that audience's can associate space (and the moon!) with, I think this will work really nicely. Below are the sketches and source images that I have been putting together.


Iv'e had quite a specific vision in mind all along for the benchmark of what I want to acheive so this would explain why the sketches are quite thorough. Aside from watching lot's of Science Fiction films: The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Day The Earth Stood Still, War Of The Worlds (The old movies) Alien, Aliens, Prometheus, Blade Runner, Mars Attacks, Moon (The obvious!) these have been fueling a lot of innovation. Then I was watching The Incredibles and some of the old "Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a half century" Looney Tunes episodes and this sort of, pushed me into the direction of giving everything a sort of period look as though, these reflect a period such as the 1950's-60's visualizing what the future would be like in the future; and I really liked this idea, it gave me a lot to play with in regards to modelling.

A side on view of what I hope to acheive to mode, texture, light and animate in Autodesk Maya.

The Rocket design, any loyal retro science fiction fan will know is heavily influenced on the "Forbidden Planet", "Buck Rogers" and "Duck Dodgers" Art style and direction. To keep in with the period science fiction style I wish to achieve, this seemed the logical option artistically - but it also allows me to limit myself to simple poly counts in Maya, and also so that I can effectively UV map the rocket with my own custom UV painted texture from Photoshop which I am VERY excited about doing! I think it's gonna add some real dimension and character to the rocket!

Sputnik 1 was always a design that I didn't want to compromise or alter during the design and modelling stage. This has always been one of the key things that I would always leave, as to so that it looked instantly recognizable so iv'e been sat in a Starbucks just sketching away some Sputnik's. In Maya, I plan to add a rusting, weathered Bump map to the sputnik model. I know this again defies logic in regards to actual Lunar conditions (temperature, atmosphere, how materials react with the conditions) but I think this will build on my weathered, period look and I think that it allows my Sputnik model to stand out from just been an ordinary crashed sputnik model. It is crashed, but it's weathered, worn and rusted -  For me, this tells it's own story and I find that very cool and interesting.

The UFO model I wanted this to hit that benchmark of been a flying saucer. A design that visually represented all those conspiracy images/documents/newspapers and all of our historic recordings of what a UFO looked like. I wanted to model it so that it looked leveled - it had some dimension and levels to the design, from top to bottom. I wanted it to looked like it had been constructed practically, and not just absolutely glossed over with an absolutely smooth design that wasn't aesthetically stable to fly -  and the sketch matches what I am modelling quite well for the moment, I am pleased with the progression at this stage.

                                                                              THE STORY