(B4) GRID THREE-DIMENSIONAL RENDERING

MOOD BOARD

• I thought about the design I had just mocked up and how I can make that into a more scientific diagram look rather than an illustration and I started thinking about The Outrun aesthetic. 
• This style has been constantly in and out of trend since its arrival in the 80's. It is timeless, so with that, extremely recognisable. Its constant present mimics that of the increase in sea level, its always been around but not necessarily acknowledged. 
• The reason I thought of this aesthetic was because of the use of three-dimensional rendered grids used to form these mountainscapes and sunsets.
• The colours often used in these designs are a range of neon pinks, blues, oranges and yellows against a much darker variation of one of them. It reminded me of the colours used in the diagram of the sea-level change in a previous blog. 
• I thought that this sort of effect could be used to make my illustrative designs reflect the scientific data and diagrams about the sea level rise.

• I started trying to render grids to make it look like landmass or water. I have never done this before so it was quite difficult to make it look as good as the Outrun aesthetic designs (obviously, I did not want it to look just like them but, at least carry some of the same features).
• I realised though that, it may not be a very recognisable image, as in would it be seen as landmass? How can I show the sea level rising with it? So, I thought about try to make it look like the ocean instead. The third image looking the most like the surface of the ocean however, now all I could see was the landmass. 
• I thought back to the altimetry readings and remembered the water levels were the lines on the line graph, which lead me to my next idea. 

• With that in mind, I applied the techniques I had been using before to a group of lines. I added a radial gradient to further the three-dimensional appearance. 
• I think this gave the appearance of water much more than the rendered grids so, I decided to stick with it. 

• I did not want to completely abandon the grids from before but, felt they could be used more appropriately for drawing buildings. 
• I wanted to used the colours used in the diagram fro earlier because the orange and reds reflect the rising sea level and the connotations of these colours reflect the impacts behind that. The blues were used to label a decrease in sea level which I applied to the buildings to reflect the decrease inhabitable land on Earth. 
• Not only can the colours be justified in this way but, it also makes me think the water is warm and risen because the sea temperature has risen too (mentioned in the book and several sources I looked at when measuring sea level). 
• Aesthetically, I think the colours are interesting to look at and add dimension to the shapes.

• Obviously, the building I drew before were more for placeholders to see if the grid rendered design would work with the lines. I chose to use New York City as a reference to draw some buildings. 
• The author of the book is American and often references the average American and their effect on the climate crisis. Also, mentions cities in America that will be underwater, so I felt an American city would make sense for my buildings. It also makes the shapes identifiable as buildings so, the reader can relate to them and the image comes together into a terrifying scene of an underwater city.