Brief Description of Image

This image was directly inspired by the universe of Blade Runner and Philipp K. Dick, and I can't forget Syd Mead. It was the 30th anniversary of the movie in 2012, and I thought this was a good reason to make this illustration. In this article I will explain my workflow on this project and all the new tips I've discovered.

Objectives

Blade Runner has a very detail-heavy environment, and with the mixture of old buildings and new technology everywhere it has always fascinated me. The story takes place on the night of a big storm and I wanted to reproduce that.

I chose an avenue, which was a good way of including lots of realistic details, like a car in the foreground with pipes and dirt, and the lights of a big city in the background.

I wanted to add a new twist to the subject, so I chose to use a retro-futuristic version of Paris. The Haussmann buildings are very beautiful and to see them abandoned was a good way of adding character to the illustration.

In this project I had two main objections: to make a very dense model with fine texture details, and to create a realistic ambiance with a storm at night.

Modeling

I wanted like the largest shot possible so I could see a maximum number of elements, which would help create the realism of an avenue. The composition was the most important thing at the beginning. I started with some bounding boxes to create the basic composition. After this I started adding more and more details by density level (Fig.01 – 03).