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Immediately when you said islands I thought of the Crash Bandicoot series on Playstation. They were kind of always journeys through tropical islands, but each one always had a different theme or environment (1). Snow, space, jungle, industrial. These were the very first game (1 / 2 / 3).
There were two themes you had going in your email, islands and Detroit architecture. So perhaps a Detroit themed island would be possible? This kind of an obvious mash of two ideas but I think treated in the way that the Crash islands had themes (1) then it could work.
Really feel the purple / red colour schemes of these from the game (1 / 2 / 3 - this one not so much). There is this one level that I think would be perfect for it, you ride around on a jet ski amidst a mad burnt orange sunset > I'm gonna see if I can dig the came out and take some snaps. It's actually worryingly similar to the new Gorillaz cover which I actually quite feel (1).
Anyway some themed island sketches - >
I know 002 isometric but I think like this you really get the sense of the blockiness of the Detroit buildings...
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(I think I've actually mentioned this in both previous brainstorms so I don't want to seem obsessed!)
The island of Atlantis (1), this is the image I posted up previous (1). And actually looking through images it seems to see that some people's interpretations are that it is a manmade island (1 / 2). I think both of these fit with the ancient that was in NS001 and NS002. Number 2 especially, this is what I was getting at too with the Crash Bandicoot thing, just with Detroit architecture.
Obviously Drexciya take their name from a similar (but not so pleasant) underwater community / country / island.
It might be quite cool to render this one underwater. And I don't see a manmade underwater island (if there is such a thing) as being stuck to the ground. Rather it would almost be basically some sort of space station (1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5) come submarine (1 / 2 / 3 < love the sense of scale) concoction. Or even like that Star Wars underwater city that seemed to be a series of floating interconnected bubbles (1 / 2 / 3). Also ♥ this (1)...
In terms of process, the trees that are in the Mosca and Egyptrixx covers could easily be adapted into seaweed or some sort of underwater coral / plant (1 / 2). Both the first two covers are pretty deserted in terms of life so it might not work, but maybe a floating Jellyfish or something would make the island / construction / submarine-esque thing look like it really was underwater. Jellyfish are pretty dead anyway (1 / 2 / 3) - I prefer the long strung out ones, this could well work better than say a clown fish or something.
More sketches - >
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Ok and onto Detroit architecture :).
I've never been and you probably know much more than me but here's what I like!
• Favourite image I found by far (1)
• The windows (1)
• The decay, the gothic, the dirt (1 / 2 / 2 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9)
• Really nice colours here (1)
• I'm not really sure what this is but it's pretty cool (1)
How this translates into anything workable..
You mentioned freeways and this got me onto spaghetti junctions, if there was someway of blending these mad, winding freeways with this block-y, dirty and broken architecture. I mean this photo is amazing (1) and these (1 / 2). These ones are actually is Detroit (1 / 2 / 3 / 4). If there was some way of rendering the glow given off from the car lights in the first one (1), might be really nice, particularly on the dark backgrounds we seem to have running.
My two thoughts in terms of process here are
1 > a birds eye view, very striaight, from above. This would lend it's self to a harsh contrast between the winding freeways and the blocky skyscrapers. This (1).
2 > a ridiculous sense of perspective, again from above. Forgive the contextual reference but like in Dizzee Rascal's Bonkers video (1 / 2) - > fish eye I guess. Like these (1 / 2 / 3) but pervert it even more.
Maybe these spaghetti-esque freeways could link a load of islands together? Would make for a pretty epic image with a lot of depth... Be nice to fit in the big empty spaces that you also get in Detroit, this could be the sea?
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