This task saw us choose an environment that inspires us and create a story that could link with the piece.
STORYTELLING
The environment I chose was “Mining Town” posted by Eddie Mendoza, a senior concept artist at Apple, who posted the piece four years ago onto ArtStation and Instagram, which can be seen below.
This piece made me think immediately of surviving an apocalypse of some kind within rural United States, based on the conditions of the buildings and the clothing that the three characters in the centre of the frame are wearing, and that the people seen in the image are trying to rebuild a small community after an apocalyptic disaster. Taking inspiration from the end of Far Cry 5 and the opening to Far Cry: New Dawn, I imagine the people in the image to have survived a nuclear fallout and are starting to rebuild. Additionally, I did think that if not surviving something like nuclear fallout, they might have been surviving a collapse in society – taking inspiration from The Division series which had scavenging groups trying to rebuild and create small communities.
The buildings seem to be in various states of disarray, some with several roof panels missing, dirty exteriors and potentially even walls missing when looking to the buildings on the far left. The background of the piece follows suit, with what appears to be a cargo bridge partially destroyed and what I believe to be a remnant of a plane resting on the mountain in the far left with what looks like a part of an engine in the foreground on the right.
The clothes that the three characters in the centre are wearing seems to be pieced together from various bits of clothing and elements of their surrounding. The characters that are flanking the central character make me believe that they are a scavenging party based on the clothing, as the character to the left has what appears to be a humanoid skull mounted to her shoulder and some form of a mask whilst the character on the right seems to be wearing an amalgamation of animal pelts, making me believe that the normal way of living is no longer and people are wearing different pieces and remnants of clothes and animal pelts just to get by in their lives.
The character in the centre of the frame has various pieces of equipment attached to them that remind me of a post-apocalyptic scavenger, such as a bundle of rope and cloth on their left, what appears to be a form of protection along their forearms and a blade on their pack, which did questions such as “Why do they have a weapon? Are they in danger? How often has this weapon been used?”. The backpack on the central character reminds me of two characters from Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, Lion and Finka, who were introduced to combat an outbreak, with the yellow colouration of the backpack being a very close match to their backpieces in game.
Referenced Material:
Mendoza, E. (2019) Mining Town. ArtStation. Available online: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/geXPx
Ubisoft (2018) Rainbow Six Siege: Operation Chimera – New Operators Lion & Finka | Trailer | Ubisoft [NA]. www.youtube.com. Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meLOY29qarc