Final Major Project:
Comic Book Adaptation - Secret Wars
For my final year project I was allowed to choose a novel to adapt a set from. I decided to design a set from the marvel graphic novel secret wars by Johnathan Hickman.I chose to adapt this book as I am a huge fan of both the marvel comics and films and the unique concept of a castle in a giant tree gave me lots of inspiration.
I chose to design the throne room and an entrance hall for the castle. The throne room is one of the most used locations in the novel so was a vital location to be designed and the entrance hall would act as a thoroughfare throughout the novel and provide a location for the ship to crash into in the final act of the book.
Drawing on inspiration from my research of European castles, palaces and the novel I created a digital concept model using google sketchup as a starting point from my design. I decided to keep with the circular design for the throne room shown in the novel and initially decided to keep the throne as a tangle of branches grown into a throne.
Building upon this I thought that the initial design could incorporate more of the tree in its design so began to introduce branches from the tree growing through parts of the interior. For the throne, instead of having lots of thin branches weaving together to form a throne I decided to adapt the design and have the throne and dais carved into the trunk which the throne room was built around.
I also decided to open up the throne room and ring it with huge windows instead of enclosing it in a wall like my original idea as you can see in my sketch models. Building upon this idea further I decided to make the windows slightly smaller so their entirety would be visible on camera rather than being lost out of shot. I also introduced another ring of columns around the void in the centre through which the branches would grow and added ceiling vaults which would support the roof.
I also redesigned the entrance hall completely changing its design, incorporating a lot more design features from various locations I had researched and introduced a walkway through the centre. I also chose to weave a giant branch through the set to break up the symmetrical nature of the set and to extenuate the symbiotic nature of the castle and the tree.
TECHNICAL DRAWINGS
