"Dark Deco" Archictute City Set - Urban Sprawl
NoName99
Posts: 322
An Urban Sprawl type city set done in the Dark Deco Style.
In case the term Dark Deco is unfamiliar, think:
Tim Burton's Batman (1989) Production Design by Anton Furst & Dir. Tim Burton
Batman The Animated Series - Paul Dini/Bruce Timm
Film Noir
Art Deco
Franklin Lloyd Wright
Post edited by NoName99 on
Comments
That would be great :)
AntFarm's Gothic City is pretty much in that style. OK, it's only about three buildings, but sprawl has to start somewhere ...
When I saw the title of this thread THAT was the first thing that popped to mind...
And yeah, great idea.
It is quite Blade Runner-ish while the examples that the OP gave hint to a more 30's period (the first Batman comic is from 1939). The issue is important since Art Deco buildings in a Blade Runner universe are perfectly possible, the opposite is not.
It is quite Blade Runner-ish while the examples that the OP gave hint to a more 30's period (the first Batman comic is from 1939). The issue is important since Art Deco buildings in a Blade Runner universe are perfectly possible, the opposite is not.
When AntFarm released that set, I looked at some of the detailing on one of the buildings and said "Hey! That's a miniature version of the Police Building at 240 Centre Street in Manhattan." And he confirmed that he used to work just a few blocks away. The Police Building was finished in 1909, and is generally described as Beaux-Arts or Renaissance Revival, so I guess it's not really Deco.
When you say 'Blade Runner', do you mean the general gloom + neon feeling (futuristic), or were you thinking of the scenes in the Bradbury Building, which is another Renaissance Revival (1890-1910) building?
I guess Renaissance Revival is not really a substitute for Art Deco, although to my eye there's a definite progression from one to the other.
If you delete the more modern buildings from urban sprawl you can toss older style ones in, the thing I like about the sprawls is all the buildings are separate.
Use those antfarm ones maybe and others like the Paragon theartre and some of Faverals french ones maybe even if just swapping out streetlights etc, one thing there is no shortage of be it on Turbosqid, Renderosity or even Google Sketchup warehouse is buildings of every style and era, the street base layout being the handy thing to plonk them in.
Wow, awesome replies everyone. :-)
I guess this kind of shows there is a market an entrepreneurial PA could jump on.....(cough...cough...stonemason...antfarm....first bastion....cough cough...)
@angusm, Thanks for the heads up on that Antfarm Gothic City set, it looks pretty cool and now on my wish list.
In all the times I've searched "city" "buildings" and what not in the search engine, that product has never shown up.
@latego, Good point about blade runner futuristic not working in a retro Art Deco, but being that "Dark Deco" is a fictionalized "out of time" period setting, a few blade runner type pieces are ok. If it was pure art deco it wouldn't fly though, I agree with that.
@wendy, that's actually what I tried doing last week, I deleted the modern buildings in Urban Sprawl, and added Paragon, lol. I also threw in a few of the platinum club Prince cars on the streets. It does work to some extant, but the problem is in the fine details. Especially the materials. I haven't given up yet and going to try again. The streetlights are a brilliant idea, I hadn't thought of that.
Art/Dark Deco buildings have very artistic mouldings and statuesque embellishments on the exterior of the buildings. I could try to kitbash statues and other decorations from other products.
There are a lot of historic Art Deco buildings where I live, I'm thinking I should go take some high-Rez photos of them, but I've never modeled a complex building before and would much rather leave it to the pros.
The obvious fine detail is the Lighting and highly stylized Nighttime Sky, which are both doable, but easy to overlook.
In relation to your "throat issues" I will investigate in depth Art/Dark Deco (no hard commitment though since already once DAZ_Kevin politely told me no).
On a related note, if you ever need an interior to go with your dark deco sprawl -- perhaps a window to frame a view of the city? -- you might want to look at Jack Tomalin's Classic Deco. You might need to tweak the textures to get the dark feel you're looking for, but the shapes should be right.