Empire Challenges | June 2021

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.

The most colorful time of year is upon us! As artists, we can all agree that the burst of colors is especially inspiring. This challenge is an opportunity to spend time recreating some of that.

For this challenge, you should build your ideal summery outdoors retreat place.

Here is the catch: Wherever you are in the world, that's where this environment should be set for you. Whether you are in Southern Europe, Middle East, or North America, share with us what would be your perfect artist happy place.

• It can be an interior, such as a cabin/shed, as well as an exterior, like a garden. Use these pictures as inspiration, don't just pick one and recreate it. Get creative!
• Design a top-down layout of its different areas so it's easier to plan the workload ahead.
• Be mindful of how much time you want to spend and what style you want to make this in, as vegetation can take a bit of time to create.

Make it easier for yourself to deliver something that looks great and doesn't take forever so it's as fun as possible!

• This implies field work! Enjoy the weather, go outside to take pictures and notes of what types of plants, flowers and trees you could include in your region & climate (Google lens is very useful for this). You should also be mindful of the distinct architectural styles.
• Compile these notes and pictures in moodboards. This is part of the final delivery!

Stay safe, be sure to follow your region's health related guidelines regarding open spaces.

Create an artist's easel, as if it were in the middle of a plein air painting day.

How complete the painting is, the exact design of the asset, and the level of wear is up to you, but make sure to make something colorful, spring/summer-like

Take a stab at creating a shader for this larger scale piece.

Think in layers, you'll need:

• Large scale textures with big influence on mesh displacement for the big geological shapes.
• Smaller scale, non-square tileables for the flowing lines
• Detail normals.

Have fun!

Research different flora and fauna fossils and create a wall or a cave featuring it.

Make it feel intricate, otherwordly, almost alien.

Experiment with colors like in the ref!