Behind The Scenes: TV Show World

Recently, I quite enjoyed making of the gaming world illustration, along with multiple hidden themes and game elements. I decided to take this concept for another spin, this time taking inspiration from a TV and movies.

So again, it can be quite rewarding to try to do different illustration every week, because after some time, your works start to stack up and you can build on your existing pieces and create series. 

The first thing I always do before even picking up the pencil, is to fire up Pinterest or other image search engine, and create inspiration board.

Visit the full Pinboard here

The board for this one is a bit different, than the others, because I had the style figured out already, I just needed to round up different ideas to include in the illustration.

I found out, I can't recall any good ideas and shows, so I opend few chart articles on best TV shows and movies of all time. After a while of going through these lists, there were so many things to include, I decided to let movies go and save them for another time.

I picked the rest of the TV shows going by the gut, selecting things I would really enjoy and that offered good references. For example, I would really like to include Mad Men or Suits, but didn't think of any strong recognizable element.

The hardest part for this type of work is putting together the layout and composition. I always do some sketching and even if it's not refined, I really recommend you to do this.

I split the paper into isometric squares and started to doodle in some terrain tiles. I picked few elements and TV show references, that would affect the terrain and layout and tried to sketch them in. For example there is a Wall in Game of Thrones, gate in Narcos and I needed the building for Sopranos and Sherlock door. These were the elements I prioritized and starting from the bottom, I could see what tiles are becoming obstructed, which meant some terrain adjustments, like hill or a slope.

You see, this kind of illustration work is very methodical and nothing just popped in from a vacuum. I started with TV show lists, brainstormed the iconic scenes and elements and solved the composition on paper (with a lot of trial and error of course). Even then, I replaced some sketch parts later in Blender as you can see on the final render.

If you didn't recognize all the TV show references, here's the full list :)

Stranger Things - Alphabet wall
Friends - Kayak with duckling
Star Trek - Transport (teleport) room
Queen's Gambit - Chess Pieces
Game of Thrones - Wall, elevator and Weirwood
Rick and Morty - Flying Saucer Car
Breaking Bad - Barrels of money and methylamine
Sopranos - Satriale's meat shop
Sherlock - Door on 221B Baker Street
Futurama - Suicide booth
Narcos - Gate with airplane
Mandalorian - Grogu's hovering pod

You can watch the process video on Youtube