Welcome to The Empire Monthly Challenge!
You are all welcome to stretch your artist legs. Get out of your comfort zone or artist block, and unleash your full potential!
There are no winners or prizes, it's all about challenging yourself. The deadline is purely to indicate the start of the next challenge, if you need more time to finish up that's okay.
Modifiers are optional rules for the challenge that allow you to push your skills even further!
Environment Challenge - Challenge Focus
Zürich Viaduct Walkway
Winter has set in throughout the city. The viaduct walkway next to the railroad is usually sprawling with people but now people would rather stay indoors with a hot beverage. But, we are going to stay outside! Recreate this viaduct walkway/railway, inspired by the Roman aqueducts built in the late 1800s. Notice the difference in style and materials within the scene, the viaduct arches contrast the flooring, and the benches of the pathway represents a more brutalist style.
Prop Challenge - Challenge Focus
Grungy Doorway
Sometimes building owners like to repaint their fences and doorways, and sometimes they don't. A door left unpainted will tell you a lot about what it goes through each day. If you think about it, it kind of tells you a story! Here you are tasked with recreating the door, doorway and its story. Make sure to pay attention to each detail and try to understand the origin of every mark and wear. You can see grease where people have grabbed the door over and over for years. Then you can also see the various tones of scratches, probably from the garbage bin being moved back and forth against the wood each time the garbage truck comes along.
Substance Challenge - Material Focus
Dark Cobblestone
A freshly laid cobblestone pathway. Made with modern materials but with an old technique. For this task, you are asked to recreate these clean and almost unspoiled cobblestones. A pretty classic task, but one that requires close attention to detail on how the stones vary ever so slightly from each other and how the sand and small natural elements gather up in between the stones.
Substance Challenge - Material Focus
Natural Stone Tile Pillar
A downtown office building ornamented with cleanly shaped pillars dressed in tiles of natural stone so well polished that you can almost see your own reflection in them. You are tasked with recreating this polished stone material. Take close notice of how the roughness of the stone isn't the same all over as certain imperfections cause the light to reflect slightly differently.
