Applied 2: Set Design

Because Hayley was doing set design, I decided to give her some of my ideas so that she could combine both mine and her own to make a set that will be influenced by the two of us.

I started with looking at British farms mostly, because since our animation is based within the local areas, I thought it would be more appropriate to take influence from them. I noticed that there really isn't that much complexity to a farm in general. There were three main elements I spotted that were most prominent, these were, a wooden fence, a lot of green hills and sometimes, a red farmers shed. I quite liked these elements, and they weren't that extreme, so I decided to incorporate these into my designs.

I began with exploring different types of fences. I drew a few in fine liner, just to see how I could interpret them, and I quiet enjoyed this. I didn't realise that there were so many different types of fences, but there were. Some were heavy duty wood, some had barbed wire in them, there was a lot to choose from.

I ended up really liking the wood that was very rounded at the edges and looked like it had been hammered together. It made the fence seem well loved and hand made, which I liked.

I then began attempting to put the scene together. I am not the best at drawing scenes without an exact reference image, but I tried my best. I began in pencil and then went over it in fine liner (left image). I basically just wanted to get down the parts of the moodboard that I had liked most, into my own version for our environment. I then went into Photoshop and roughly replicated this digitally, adding a colour palette that I really want to go for. From my own experience and my research, British farms are quite muted and neutral in colour, especially when captured on camera, therefore this is what I created, and will use as

 a reference when making the farm.

Hayley and I had talked about just making a wooden fence and then green screening the background in ourselves, so that could be one option we go for, to create a more realistic scene.

                                             

However, just in case we opt to make the whole thing, I made a very rough plan of how we could potentially set out the scene. The square itself represents the surface area of the farm and then the wavy lines, the hills, and I also included a puddle for the sheep and the newts, and a tree for the birds. This is very rough but it is a guideline for when I make the set and will help me with positioning each component.