I don’t know about you, but I LOVE magic and magical-looking things. There’s just always something so fun, charming, and whimsical about a space that is dedicated to magic spells and charms, particularly magic shops.
That said, I present to you, a personal project I’ve been working on — the Crescent Corner Magical Apothecary. This magical apothecary has seen many changes as I’ve learned different techniques since starting it in 2020. My goals for this project were to tell a story with a scene, by dressing it to make it feel “lived in” with character. This has become one of those projects I’ve just continued to add to because I really love it so much that I want to spend more time in it. I’ve used it to test out different techniques and processes, which has helped a lot — I will consider it finished at some point 😊
In the meantime, check out the images, below, to see what I’ve cooked up so far.
First, we gotta start with the Moodboard/Pinterest board. This helped keep my vision true and consistent as I began to work through my ideas. Sometimes I jump into Maya or ZBrush like a kid in a Please Touch Museum — just ready to go absolutely bonkers, but we must practice patience haha
One thing I aimed to do with this project is make as many of the assets as low poly as possible. This is something I’d like to be more consistent with, as an artist (I’m sure my computer would appreciate it). But working on this project taught me a few things that will improve my workflow, moving forward, and make it easier to accomplish that. Obviously, having some sort of idea of what you want to include in the scene helps with that, for sure, but so does working big to small. So it really did help to at least have an idea of how I wanted the bigger pieces in the scene to play their respective roles.
Another thing I had on my wish list for this project was having some sort of shop counter with personality — something the owner would ring customers up at, and where they could also refill bottles or track the day’s purchases. I wanted it to have a strong sturdy counter top but I wanted the legs/posts to have some curve and weight to them.
I also have to admit I was picky about the lighting and changed my mind on what I wanted for that a few times. I didn’t want something that felt old but a little more modern. It being a magical apothecary doesn’t mean it needs to be old, so it was important to me to have some modern touches, here and there.
