The next step of the project is to create an ambient soundtrack for it. Before I did this, I decided to finish my concept art.
The first thing I did was come up with a solid design. Because I had multiple ideas, I had to merge all of them together to create the final piece. I decided to stick more with the original idea of a byzantine architecture. I did use some of the ideas from the other designs as well, but I used the least from the Romanesque design. I didn't think it fit my original idea enough, so there isn't anything of it in the final design.
I started to plan out how everything was going to work together, and how everything would be shaded. Since the original shading was just a test, I decided the next thing to do was to re-do the shading.
The new shading I created is a lot better, and makes the scene a lot more sinister and foreboding. I made sure to pay attention to the original linework, and which parts of the buildings would be more reflective than others. Because some of the parts were windows, I made sure they were shaded differently.
I shaded the sky and mountains next, which really brought the whole scene together. Without the shading, the scene looks pretty and peaceful, but in a dull, harshly shaded light, it looks bleak and terrifying.
I filled in the rest of the colours, using new pallets, made with the colder colours from the original colour pallet. Once I'd filled in all the panels with different colours, I checked that it all looked uniform. I wanted similar shades of colours to be facing the same ways. The windows were done with the same idea. Using the polygon marquee tool, I clicked the areas that I wanted to fill in before shifting a shade lighter and a colour to the left. For example, the windows on purple walls are actually a light magenta.
The skirting and alcoves on the buildings were done like this as well, but the colours stayed the same and only got darker. The domes on the roofs were circular, so to follow the rules of the rest of the ruined city around them, I had to use all the colours. I started with the light red, then when I got to the light purple, I went a shade darker. The final colour was green, so I had that as the darkest shade to help the shading along.
The flags are created with this idea as well, but to draw more attention to them, I kept them all in the darkest shades of the colours.
Once the colours were all in, I created a sky with light, pastel colours to match the rest of the scene. I wanted these to be the brightest colours in the scene, But I realised that since the ruined city was taking up most of the image, I needed to have some of the colour in it as well.
The shading was the first problem. Because I'd shaded with very dark greys, it was making the image look dirty. I lowered the opacity on the shading, and added white tints to parts of the buildings catching the sun. While this made it more accurate, It didn't help get rid of the dirtiness.
I next went in with a blur tool and blurred all the shading. This helped so much, and made everything look a lot smoother. I decided to bring more colour into the city and added layers of orange as a large tint. I wanted the city to look like it was absorbing the colours from things around it, and it would reflect the orange from the setting sun.
This is the finished version for now. I added some faint blue and orange accents around the sides, and got rid of the dark shading on the clouds and sky. Now the image is a lot more pleasant to look at.
I might go back and change the sun's position, as it's too high up for a sunset sky. Because of the shading, I can only get away with moving in a little bit, otherwise the shading will be incorrect.
The next thing to do is to add audio to my project. To do this, we have to record sound, which converts it to audio, which can then be played and mixed as sound. There is a difference between sound and audio, as sound is acoustical energy, or in simpler terms, sounds that is heard in real life. Audio is sound after it's been recorded, as it's technically not real life, and just a play back.
There are also two different types of sound and audio. There's diegetic, which means that it's a sound that you can see happening. For example, if someone opens a door in front of you and it creaks, that's a diegetic sound, as you can see what is causing it. A non-diegetic sound is the opposite. It's a sound that is happening that you cannot see, like if in a movie someone is driving a car with the camera inside and you can hear the wheels screeching. Some diegetic sounds can be counted at non-diegetic, as they were not produced from real life (fight scenes in fantasy movies have this a lot).
In my project, I had to think about the kind of sounds I would hear in an abandoned kingdom in the middle of some mountains.
The only diegetic sounds in my project will be the rustling of the character's cloak and the flags in the wind. This is because the other noises aren't visual. For example, I plan to add distant howling wind, as there are mountains. I'm also wanting to add some closer wind, this time with an echo, as it will be inside the city walls. It will echo because wind and sound bounces off of solid objects like walls. I'll also add a whistling noise to the wind to make it more realistic.
I realised early on that there probably wouldn't be any animals in the city, but I did plan to have some birds tweeting. However, because of all the wind howling, the image will seem more haunting, and small birds tweeting or crowing will clash with the image. What I could do is find audio of a larger mountain bird, like a falcon, hawk or buzzard, and put it faintly in the background. I will save this for last, however, as the main sounds are the most important.
Here is the wind soundclip I used:
I edited it down to sound less messy, and made sure it sounded like it was hitting the walls of the citadel. I played around with some of the affects in Adobe Audition, and got rid of the static background noise. To do this, you select an area in the recording where its audible, and go into the menu/ You go into 'Effect' and select 'Noise Reduction', which brings up a menu. From there, it's just a case of dragging the yellow dots down and matching them to the green as best as possible. You then select the whole thing, open the menu again, and press apply, which applies the effect to the whole soundclip. I did this with all the sounds because they were all coming back with static buzz.
I also played around with Notch Filters, which really allowed me to fine-tune the soundclip. I ended up not liking how it sounded, however, so I didn't apply it. Something I did apply was a Full Reverb, which is an effect that can be added. It can give a soundclip more echo or less echo, and can be edited further to make the noise sound wetter and drier. I used the effect called 'Football Referee' for this one because it's got an echo and the noise bounces back.
Here is the second wind soundclip I used:
It's the same clip, but I edited it different and staggered its starting point in the composition. I made sure it echoed, to sound like it's vibrating off the mountains in the distance. There is a Full Reverb on this soundclip as well, this time I used an effect called 'Ghost Whispers). Everything's extremely echoed, and far off. I made the sound drier, and now it really sounds like wind is whipping through the mountains.
Here is the flag soundclip I used:
It's very gentle, but with all the wind and the position the flags are in in the image, they would be making some noise. I tried to put a slight echo on them, but not too much, otherwise I knew they'd interfere with the rest of the composition.
Here is the cloak soundclip I used:
Once again, it's a very gentle sound, but I want the rustling of the character's cloak to get in the way of anything else in the sound.
Here is the soundclip from the footsteps:
As the final soundclip, I decided to put in some footsteps in. Since there's a person walking around there, I felt it was only fitting to put some echoey footsteps in.
After I'd finished creating all the individual soundclips, I put them together in one composition. I made sure to have the distant wind be staggered from the closer wind, otherwise they'd both sound the same. The flag and the ruffling cloak were the shortest noises, so I made sure they didn't play too often.
The next stage is taking the image and soundscape into After Effects and playing around with it to make everything sit together. Since my composition is on multiple layers, I will need to go back edit a few part of it, however, this shouldn't take too long.