Alfven Ato takes us through his creation of Barren Lands.

Inspired by Cloud Atlas and Mad Max, Ato gives us a behind the scenes look at how he created a world that was struck by an asteroid but persevered.

BARREN LANDS

Initially, the challenge brief was civilization collapsed after a terrible event, but a new one is rising from its ashes. Afterwards, I kept thinking of what cataclysmic phenomenon happened that could wipe out the human race – so disaster movies/scientific theories and literature were my first source of ideas. Is it a nuclear fallout, a super volcano erupting, global warming on steroids, a massive earthquake causing continental shifts, or war between worlds – or maybe mystic and great battles of kingdoms? (If you're going into a fantasy world aesthetic)

Then I decided to create a world partially inspired by the films Cloud Atlas, Mad Max, and Oblivion. Yes, the challenge was to create "worlds" but I looked at it on the perspective of the human condition – how they're living now and how the collapsed world affected them. The future depicted on those films is that humans turned into savages after the world collapsed. Humans are struggling to deal with the harsh realities they're living in.

RESEARCH

- Gathering References/Design Inspirations

After narrowing down the idea, I then decided what event took place based on those inspirations that needs to be original or somehow fresh at the same time. So the story is that an asteroid hit our moon causing debris to fall on earth that turned our world barren. I collected deserts and canyon images, where life has difficulty thriving in, as references. Favelas were also an inspiration for the community I decided the humans to settle in.

SKETCH

- Rough sketches/preliminary layout and composition

Next, after collecting enough references and ideas, I roughly sketch out into small thumbnails what I came up with. Establishing initial composition and layout is the priority without spending too much time into details.

DETAILS

- Initial rendering of details

Then, with the help of Sketch Up, I roughly create a 3D base that would greatly help me on camera position and layout – it could save me more time also.

MORE DETAILS

- More rendering of details/ lighting conditions/ mood and atmosphere

After deciding the layout and composition, I chose to have a dusty and murky atmosphere from all of the sand and debris scattered all around. All done in Photoshop.

Sepia colored sky; glazed by the orange sun. I wanted it to be a little monochromatic and rusty. I also used related photos to help for the details that I wanted. The atmosphere from references helped a lot to establish the lighting condition of the piece.

FINAL

- Polishing of details/ color and lighting

Finally, pushing more the contrast between the structures and the environment. I added more details to the favelas and the other structures as well – such as torn construction cloths, rusts on metals, hanging cables, worn out structures suggesting they were reused all throughout, and sand covering the structures as well . Checked the values and adjusted some color levels.