Making Ode to Poe
This project included two of my favorite things as a kid: reading and the macabre. The inspiration for this particular artwork was The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe which was one of my favorite poems. I would constantly think of an abandoned church that was overgrown, surrounded by tall grass at dawn. The poem to me didn't really feel like it was about the death of a person, but the death of the building.
Stage 1: When in Doubt, Sketch it Out
I usually start all my big projects by making a bunch of sketches and playing with a bunch of ideas. Sometimes it takes weeks, but for this, it only took a few minutes. I already had a solid idea of what I wanted to make, the first struggle was how do I get this out of my head and onto paper.
This was the first sketch I made, but it didn't feel quite right. There were two things that stuck out for me that I immediately liked: the old colonial church and the bare trees.
This second sketch was when everything clicked into place. There was something about I loved that I couldn't place my finger on.
Stage 2: Mock Up
I tend to use an analog to digital method when I brainstorm, and this project was no different. To better understand the way I wanted this to be blocked out, I made a paper model. This is going to be a pop-up book after all.
This was the moment I felt like it was all coming together.... and that I was done brainstorming.
Stage 3: Modeling
One of the hardest parts of this step was figuring out a way to make the trees. I wanted to stick to the original idea of making everything look like it was made of paper, but there had to be a way to make trees. My answer to that was presence maps. I made essentially an alpha channel image of a tree and bush which would act as a cookie cutter on a plane.
