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| Fig. 1. Derpy from K-Pop Demon Hunters |
ENVIRONMENT DESIGN: EXERCISES & PROJECTS
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23/09/2025 - 09/01/2026 (Week 1 - Week 15)
Irdhina binti
Mazli Sham (0366894)
Environment Design - Bachelor of Design in
Creative Media - Taylors University
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Instructions
- Exercises
- Projects
- Feedback
- Reflection
INSTRUCTIONS
EXERCISES
- Perspective drawings
- Composition
- Value painting
- Ambience
- Color management
- Vignette set design
- Photo bashing (Textures)
PROJECTS
Project 1: Exterior and Landscape
Design
In Project 1, we were introduced to worldbuilding and designing a world based on our imagination while still having reason behind every choice so it does not become too illogical.
To start off the project, we were required to create a storyline to base the design on, whether it be serious or whimsical. The story I decided to come up with revolves around a physician and a world with wildly grown plants like mushrooms.
Story Premise:
The world is set in a place where things are affected by uncontrolled growth of nature mimicking man-made structures and causing them to distort, leading to collapse when left alone without support.
In the middle of a twisted forest where the trees bend to cover and overshadow the entire area, lies a physician’s house that got separated into three parts by the mentioned phenomenon. It is surrounded by several buildings destroyed from a lack of support. The house supports not only the physician’s living quarters, but also his laboratory to create tonics, an area to harvest plants for herbal medicine as well as a bigger area to hold and treat patients.
Moodboard:
Once the story is established, I continued with silhouettes and trying to form the general look of the building as per Mr. Kannan's instructions. I ended up with several sketches and ideas to work with, which I did end up liking but unfortunately did not manage to apply them to the final product as much.
Aside from the general look of the building, we also needed to come up with actual compositions to put the design in, rather than having it on an empty background.
Since I was still struggling to decide on a solid design, I decided to draw how the world itself would look like in hopes of finding inspiration, which did actually help.
I particularly liked the idea of the third composition, which was a witch's house having to be rebuilt over and over in different drains because the duplication growth kept destroying her house. Mr. Kannan gave me feedback saying I should expand on the compositions since the drains look as if they're floating in the sky.
However, I decided to drop the idea of a house in a drain but instead keep the part where it has to be rebuilt over and over again. Eventually, I did settle on a composition I liked, which at first had the building on its side view but was changed to 3/4 view following Mr. Kannan's feedback.
I continued on with colouring, which was another setback...... because I tend to choose warm colours that make everything blend together (a habit I am still trying to break). I presented my colour studies to Mr Kannan and he told me the first stood out most.
Once the colours were decided and approved, I moved on to giving the base colours for my composition, which I did in Clip Studio Paint.
Final Outcome:
Project 2: Interior and Set Design
For Project 2, it was a continuation from Project 1 but instead of the exterior, we were required to pick one area of the building and design the interior. Since my apothecary had three different houses, I decided to design the one storing the actual medicine and experiments.
Moodboard:
Before actually going deep into one area, I did try to design a general look for all three houses to see if inspiration struck for the other two but ultimately, I still went for the lab area.
Once the thumbnails were approved, I continued to sketch and refine the compositions.
After getting the finished values of my chosen sketch, I continued on with colouring the composition.
Final Project: Complete Environment Design Bible
For the final project, we needed to create a 3D model of either the exterior (Project 1) or interior (Project 2) of our design. Initially, I wanted to use the exterior but I ended up making the interior instead.
I started with a blockout on Blender. For this project, I used both Blender and Zbrush to make different parts of the model with Blender being more technical while Zbrush was more organic sculpting.
Since some of them have a more organic shape, I found it easier to just sculpt them on Zbrush and exporting as .obj to Blender.
I assembled everything on Blender, including the colouring and rendering.
After exporting, I transferred the image over to Clip Studio Paint for paintovers and colour correction.
Since the final submission is an art bible, I decided to further render the previous projects as they looked too flat when looking back. I also expanded them a bit to act as an opening page for their respective sections.
Final Outcome:
FEEDBACK
Week 2: Expand more on the idea – the idea is there but need refinements and exploration
Week 3: Perspective and house design accepted as exercise – can be put in fundamentals
Week 4: Work on your colours, might be blending together not enough contrast.
Week 5: The idea is good but composition needs work. Only have the duplication growth mainly affect the outside rather than inside because logically, people would rather just move away if their house does that (true).
Week 6: Work on your leading lines, the composition is okay but can be improved by leading the eyes to the main building. (Note: no need to overthink how the building works if this and that happens, just have its main functions).
Week 7: Work on colours of the building, consider the surroundings and how they would look together (the building is too green, there's little contrast).
Week 8: No consultation.
Week 9: Started on Project 2.
Week 10: The compositions are good to go, make sure to clean and refine them for final submission.
Week 11: Proceed with colouring and finalising.
Week 12: Add more contrast to the colours, without contrast it can look like ambience rather than the actual colours. Good on the blockout, can proceed. Try using alpha or bezier curve for the vines.
Week 13: No consultation (Christmas break)
Week 14: Stylise and adjust some of the geometrical objects so they suit the organic ones. If really no time, adjust them using paintover on an art software.
REFLECTION
Experience: This module was very fun and interesting but so so tiring at times despite how fun and interesting it is. Honestly, it was a mistake on my part for taking environment design right off the bat when first entering the specialisation rather than taking it in the following semester, especially paired with vehicle design and interactive design which both require a lot of effort and attention. However, I did learn a lot, especially in terms of my art skills and where I need to improve (like colour.......). The amount of times I felt like that one photo of the dog closing its eyes in the sunset is ridiculous but I'm glad I took this module regardless haha.
Observation: I deeply deeply appreciate Mr Kannan for being patient with the class and how he is willing to answer our questions regarding how to draw something or model something on this or that software. Especially in my case where I took this module before anatomy so I had little to no knowledge on 3D modelling outside of what I did on Blender in Design Principles from foundation. I was honestly very worried about 3D modelling on Zbrush because I have never touched that software before in my life but with many many video tutorials on my own time and Mr Kannan's guidance, I actually managed to somewhat figure out how the software works, at least enough to make a decent model.
Findings: I really learned a lot in this module, especially in finding details in any work I see, which is very helpful in this field of study. I definitely need to increase my visual library and this class really helped with that as it helped me discover other media such as the movie recommendations given by Mr Kannan for references.
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