Environment Design / Exercise & Projects

23/9/2025 - 23/12/2025/ Week 1 - Week 14

GUAN YAXIN / 0370687

Environment Design / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

LECTURES&PROCESS

In the first week of class, Mr. kannan introduced the main content of this course to us. In this semester's study, we need to design a distinctive building and define its environment. We should not only design their appearance but also define their internal structure, so the structure must be reasonable and rigorous. Mr. Wang also told us how to use a software to make mood board. He told us to confirm the design type and make mood board when we go back this week, so as to facilitate the subsequent smooth completion of projects.

According to Mr. kannan's request and suggestion, I first searched some interesting environmental designs to determine the theme I want to design. At the same time, I also began to collect pictures to complete the production of mood board.

In the second week of study, Mr. kannan explained to us a series of methods for creation and practice, such as structural design, value painting, etc. Because I haven't fully confirmed the theme of my design and I'm still looking for materials to complete my mood board, I just drew some simple sketches. But they were quite scrawled, so I deleted them and decided to paint again.

In a word, because I didn't fully determine my own theme, my progress went wrong. I continued to complete the production of project 1 temporarily in a hesitant state and drew some drafts of buildings. 

Since I may not have a clue for the time being, I decided to turn my attention to the exercise and finish some exercises first. I drew basic perspective exercises, which are one point perspective, two point perspective and three point perspective respectively.

 Among them, the drawing of three point perspective is somewhat difficult for me, so it takes me a long time to draw. In this process, I realized the importance of perspective, and I became more clear that my understanding and mastery of perspective is not good. I think if I still have time, I should really study and paint more systematically and deeply in order to improve the overall painting level.

What I finished next was still practice. 

Because of my own understanding, I didn't fully understand the content assigned in my homework. I thought we needed to draw some photos to sketch, but in fact we didn't need to draw this. He also told me this question in the feedback with the teacher the following week. Besides these sketches, I also finished some exercises about value painting. This exercise is actually a drawing exercise of light and shadow. I chose three different monomers to depict, they are nectarines, porcelain cups and books. 

In the process of drawing, I can feel that although my description of the object is relatively high and the distribution of light and shadow is relatively real, my texture performance is still much worse, but the focus of value painting is on the description of light and shadow, so I can take time to practice the description of the object texture.

According to the project in project 1, I painted the building in natural color according to the previous draft. 

In the feedback with Mr. kannan, he told me that we can exaggerate the structure of the building and enrich the picture, and the design is comprehensive. We should consider the surrounding environment, people living there and other factors, such as what their style is like Cyberpunk, fantasy or other series, what people live here are like, what their occupation is, what this building means to them, what they can do, and so on. According to his suggestions and feedback, I made clear the design style and design elements of the building on the basis of previous drawings, and drew some drafts. 

And completed some exercises, which are also related to the requirements in the homework, and are works about composition and atmosphere.

In this process, I found that I still didn't have a particularly satisfactory design and composition method, so I found some information to finally clarify the structure of the building and improve the overall design. I drew a new draft, and Mr. kannan said that my design was feasible and could be completed on this basis.

On the basis of the draft, I decided to complete the final outfit of project 1, and I started from the line draft step by step.

 Line drawing is the basis of determining everything, but the final picture doesn't necessarily need to show it, so I didn't describe the lines very carefully in the drawing process. After the rough picture was determined, I began to color. First, I roughly determined the colors in the picture, and then refined them, including some descriptions of details. After a period of drawing, I finished the whole picture as required. 

In addition, we have to draw some objects separately, because it is often impossible to show all the details in one picture. 

And I also finished the color matching and characterization of the characters. 

When making a PDF, I made some textual explanations about the depicted monomer, which is related to the character setting and story background I constructed.

In project 1, we also have a project about drawing value painting and composition. Of course, this is related to our design subject-the building to be drawn. So I drew different compositions and portrayed the light and shadow on the basis of determining the building structure. At the same time, we should also portray different atmospheres. According to the requirements in the homework, different atmospheres are displayed on the basis of previous drawings.

For my final work, Mr. kannan made some suggestions. He said that my color is fine, but it should be noted that there are some problems in the structure and perspective of the picture, and there are still some gaps in the whole picture. You can add some elements, such as fire, waterwheel and props used. At the same time, we should also pay attention to certain rationality. For example, the wooden bridge on the periphery can add a door to the building structure, which leads to the interior. This design is more reasonable. In the pdf I showed, Mr. kannan suggested that I don't need to explain the drawn monomers, but just show them together. The story doesn't need to be told in words alone, but should show the sense of story in the picture. He told me that according to the progress, I should start to conceive the internal structure of the building, choose to depict a room, and make clear the types and placement positions of internal objects. According to Mr. kannan's suggestion, I improved the picture, added some elements, and split the newly added objects. I started drawing project2. According to my design, I drew five rooms inside and made a simple description.

Mr. kannan commented on my improved homework. He said that the structure is slightly better than before, but for some items, I need to draw them more clearly. If I can, I should show how they work, and the sense of story in the picture is still not enough. However, Mr. kannan told me that I still have time to do this, and I can submit it to project 1 first. In the final work, we need to show a stronger sense of story in the picture. For my project 2, kannan made some suggestions. He said that I need to describe a room carefully and the internal structure and objects should be structured and diversified.

According to Mr. kannan's suggestion, I updated my schedule, trimmed the internal structure and drew some sketches. 

At the same time, for project 1, I also improved the final picture (overall atmosphere, scene depiction, etc.). But this week, the teacher didn't give any feedback to all the students in this week's class because of physical reasons. He reminded us that we should respond to the questions raised by the teacher in class in time, interact actively, and speed up the completion of homework.

For project 2, I continued to update my progress and drew the whole scene. However, because my speed was not very fast, I didn't finish drawing all the pictures before the 13th week of class. Mr. kannan gave feedback according to my progress. He reminded me to pay attention to the perspective of the whole picture, such as the stairs I drew, and its angle should be changed (because I didn't finish all of them, I just simply portrayed some objects to realize their different positions in the picture). According to the teacher's suggestion, I made some changes and finished drawing the whole picture. Just as I did in project 1, I also made some textual explanations for them. I have also finished the rest of the projects (Composition studies, Value studies, Ambience studies), which are the same as those required in project 1, except that the drawn contents have changed.

Time flies, this semester has entered the end, so our homework should also enter the final stage. According to the preliminary preparation and the evaluation of my own level, I decided to build a 3D model based on my project one. Before the 13th week of class, I used zbrush to construct the general appearance shape. 

Mr. kannan reminded me that after all the modeling is completed, it can be perfected in PS. He suggested that I use blender because some structures may be easier to implement, but because of my own reasons, I use blender very few times, which is basically new to me, so I can't get used to the operation inside and easily get confused with the shortcut keys in zbrush, so I decided to use zbrush to build the final model. Mr. kannan gave some feedback on my finished project 2. He said that in the final picture, the overall tone was gray and the contrast was not widened, so some parts of it could be deepened in color. At the same time, there were few objects, such as cabinets, and some small designs could be added. In a word, according to the teacher's feedback, I have further improved the picture, and I am going to show the final design to the final project (including the final design in the previous project 1, and on the basis of the previous improvement, I have improved some details, such as continuing to improve perspective, angle and other issues, and adding texture characterization, etc.)

According to the content of the previous modeling, I made further adjustments to them. The next step is to depict the details. First of all, the description of windows, doors and stairs has become a difficult problem. According to the original painting, I should improve the precision of carving, which means the difficulty of carving has also increased. I try to perfect the details as much as possible to make them more suitable for the original painting. 

Next is the carving of some props, such as stones, sundries (stools, ladders, etc.) and so on.

Because these objects are scattered, carving is also very troublesome. I need to finish them one by one and pay attention to the details at the same time.For example, easel, the steps are more complicated when making.

 The grass in the last picture is also the place where I need to carve it carefully, at least to make it look more real. 

After finishing the above, I am going to further improve the texture and texture, so that I can show the materials of various objects in the picture.

The coloring part is relatively complicated, because each object in the original painting is not a single color. To achieve better results, I should use diverse and complicated colors to achieve good results. 

After finishing the above, I entered the final rendering stage. As before, I debugged different lighting and materials to render, and found the most suitable conditions by comparison. 

Finally, according to the teacher's suggestion, I use PS to make the picture better.

INTRODUCTION

Exercise

Project 1

Project 2

Final Project 

FEEDBACK

WEEK 1

General Feedback :Mr. KANNAN VIJAYAN introduced the course to us.

Specific Feedback :None

WEEK 2

General Feedback :None

Specific Feedback :None

WEEK 3

General Feedback :Mr. KANNAN VIJAYAN teaches students how to draw scenes and buildings.

Specific Feedback : None

WEEK 4

General Feedback :Mr. KANNAN VIJAYAN continues to teach students some knowledge about environmental design.

Specific Feedback :The teacher reminded me to determine the type of design.

WEEK 5

General Feedback :Mr. KANNAN VIJAYAN made some suggestions on students' homework and explained some painting skills.

Specific Feedback :None

WEEK 6

General Feedback :Mr. KANNAN VIJAYAN continued to explain his homework to the students.

Specific Feedback :mr.kannan reminded me to speed up the progress, clarify my own design and complete project1.

WEEK 7

General Feedback :Mr. KANNAN VIJAYAN continued to provide feedback to students and explain the problems in his homework.

Specific Feedback :The teacher affirmed my paintings and reminded me to add details and continue to improve my works.

WEEK 8

General Feedback :Mr. KANNAN VIJAYAN continued to provide feedback to students and explain the problems in his homework.

Specific Feedback :None

WEEK 9

General Feedback :None

Specific Feedback :mr.kannan affirmed my improved content and prompted me to continue to finish the project2

WEEK 10

General Feedback :None

Specific Feedback :The teacher affirmed my design in project2 and reminded me to add details.

WEEK 11

General Feedback :mr.kannan reminds students to speed up the progress and pay attention to the design details.

Specific Feedback :None

WEEK 12

General Feedback :Mr. Kanan Vijayan continued to explain the homework to the students and reminded them to speed up the progress.

Specific Feedback :None

WEEK 13

General Feedback :Mr. Kanan Vijayan pointed out some problems in 3d modeling for students.

Specific Feedback :Mr. KANAN VIJAYAN suggested that I can use blender for 3D modeling.

WEEK 14

General Feedback :The teacher reminds the students to speed up the completion of the last task.

Specific Feedback :Mr. Kanan Vijayan prompted me to add details and suggested that I could polish the final rendering with ps.

REFLECTION

Experience

Designing vehicles and props is a challenge for me, because before that, I had hardly come into contact with the design related to these two aspects. And because they are objects to be used, the rationality of their own needs is high, which raises the threshold of design to some extent and improves the difficulty and complexity of design. Sometimes some seemingly good design schemes or ideas may be logically wrong and need to be revised and debugged repeatedly. From this point, we can also see that life experience is very important for design. If a person is willing to observe and study the structure of various things in life, then at least he will be relatively relaxed when designing the structure. In this semester's study, studying vehicles and props has improved my design ability to a certain extent, and also reminded me that I should have the consciousness of carefully observing everything in my life.

Observation

For the design of vehicles and props, the most important aspect is the rationality of the structure, which is also the most critical and basic because they are very practical. Only by constructing a reasonable structure can it be possible to design a relatively reasonable vehicle or prop. If they are related to biology, they also need some rigor, such as ethnic characteristics, operation mode, etc., which is related to the construction of the overall world outlook.

Findings

For this course, perspective is very important. In fact, perspective is quite important in the field of painting. If one has sufficient perception of perspective, it will be quite easy to draw. I know that my abilities are far from enough and I need more knowledge to learn. At the same time, I should also improve my efficiency and not get stuck in any particular area.

For painting, being close to reality is not necessarily the highest goal, and selective artistic processing is also important. Sometimes, blindly reproducing can actually reflect intellectual dullness.