Intro
This fabric design collection is inspired by the stunningly beautiful, Art Nouveau building, the Hotel Hannon in Brussels, Belgium. I visited Brussels in the Spring of this year, where I spent three entire days drooling at as much Art Nouveau architecture as possible. I was particularly smitten by the Hotel Hannon and the Horta Museum. While this collection is inspired by the Hotel Hannon, the darkness and brooding of the Horta Museum has seeped in.
For this design collection, I have decided to re-use the color palette that I used for the previous collection, A Forgotten Italian Villa. The colors that are central to these designs are different choices, so not a repeat exactly. But this is the first time I have not started by picking all new colors for my palette. I would like to settle into a palette - though always feeling free to add or subtract a color or two. The hope is to release the palette as solid colors - and choose the colors emphasized in a given collection to accompany that collection.
The Fabric Collection Designs
The first design is wrought iron. Spiraling wrought iron inspired by the spirals in the metal railing of the stair at the heart of the house.
As one layers multiple designs over each other in Substance Designer, the ones towards the back, get flatter and flatter, which results in them looking flat and cartoonish. To defeat that problem, I rendered the lower (farthest the to the back designs) in Photoshop and save them. Then put the rendered version into Substance and omitted it from the height map. Certainly cheating, but it worked very nicely.
I also put on “fake” shadows to give more illusion of depth. Shadows in front of the design, I find, give a spark of life to the design. I do this sparingly because I want it to not be noticeable. you see it and understand subconsciously rather than noticing it. I also put on shadow behind the wrought iron. And then I rendered it in Photoshop in addition to that. The drawn on shadows and shading are effective.
The second design is a piece of stained glass. I thought about putting something behind and something in front to get a more “glass” look, but decided to stay with just plain and simple. Thinking that crafters would prefer it this way for an all-over design.
For the third design, I made stained glass window. My exploration (and struggle) with stained glass continues. And I remain obsessed with making stained glass designs. I put some fake light, shadows etc on this - and I let the background show through a little. The end result is effective glass-looking stained glass. I think the fake frame shadow (drawn on TOP of the design) had the most impact on it really looking like glass. I made the glass irregularities extra bumpy, to get more “shine” from the rendering plug-in in Photoshop, but in a few places they look more like damage to the glass.
The fourth design in this collection is a fresco - hoping that it looks hand-painted, of reasonable quality, and on some nice linen fabric attached to the wall. Since I normally make things with height maps and render them with the Substance Designer materials plugin for Photoshop, drawing on shading and shadows is new for me —- well, new-ish. (ok. on a design here and there, I have been cheating and drawing on some shading and shadows and streak of light. Despite this software being for making 3D stuff, I think painting on shading, streaks of light, and shading is fair.)
I was originally going to have a maroon background - like in the actual house - but maroon wasn’t working for me. It resulted in brown/gray when I put the stained glass over it. And with the dragon being blue-black and the brown of the floor leaning blue-ish, maroon just wasn’t working. So I changed to a mid-range blue. And it works perfectly.
These were fun to make.
The fifth design has decorative wood creating “pictures” - of holes - so you can through to what is lurking behind the wall.
When I started on this collection, I blocked out all the designs. Rough shapes in shades of gray - white for top (closest to me) and black for bottom (farthest away). Mostly, I made a design idea, fit the “square” shape (for being tileable). This design, the stained glass window, and the stair - all relate to the dragon nicely in terms of scale. The stained glass and the fresco flower wall design are large - close to the viewer - and the dragon is small (far from the viewer). Happy accident or sub-conscious reproduction of the way the world looks when observing it?
I considered doing this straight-on perspective with the last collection, but decided not to. I set it up as one draws architectural elevations - everything is shown the same scale with total disregard for how far or close it may be to the viewer.
The sixth design is an inlaid wood floor. I leaned into the purple/blue tints for the brown of the wood, since blue became the dominant color of this collection as a I worked on it. I had envisioned the dominant color to be maroon - as the actual house in real life, has maroon walls. But that wasn’t working for me. so I switched to blue. My efforts to put my stained glass over the maroon wall kept ending up brown or gray. As you since in the remaining designs, there is a strong preference for the blue.
It’s funny because when I first made this design, it looked “off” color-wise. As the other designs progressed (this one I made fairly early), the color change from maroon to blue progressed. And by the end, this cool brown leaning into blue, looks correct. You have a hard time imagining that it should be warmer or yellower.
The seventh design - what is lurking, hidden from sight, is becoming clearer. As we go down the stair to the bottom level, we begin to see…
These stairs defeated me. I worked on them and worked on them and worked on them. They still don’t have enough height. I could have pushed it further for my height or painted on a deep enough shadow for the treads. But more height for the landing above the dragon was going to swallow him whole in a dark, deep shadow. I wanted him to be seen - at least partially - and not completely disappear into the resultant murk.
I really struggled with the scale of the stair. How wide should the stair be, how deep each tread. How many steps. The stair in the house is truly grand. It takes up space. It fills space. And my stair just doesn’t even come close to that. So this was me trying something new - and it not really working - but that is ok. Because when you try something new - even if it doesn’t work - you are learning and improving, and the next time will be better.
Getting back to my previous comments about scale, this stair being a bit “small” and “skimpy”, does give the dragon the appearance of size. The dragon really is too big to be in the house.
The eighth design is dragon skin (aka Dragon scales) About two years ago, I said that, someday, there would be dragons —- well, someday, has arrived!
I do internet searches for dragon scales every now and then. I typically feel disappointed by the results. People seem to have one fairly concise vision of what dragon scales look like. And my design does not fit that profile at all. I really feel that I made dragon skin, more so than dragon scales. My apologies to anybody who finds this design and feels disappointed or cheated., but I stand behind my design - making art is about creativity, and exploration.
The ninth design is a dragon —- it has snuck in! I am so excited about this design! When I started learning Substance Designer, I dreamed of having this level of skill with the software. I did not dare think it would actually happen. But it has!!! and I am ecstatic!
The tenth design is a light blue & blue-gray marble design. And my second marble design. Trying to achieve a spidery fine lined marble this time. And of course it is light blue to bring out the blue tone of the dragon’s skin.
When I do designs that look simple or plain, I feel like I haven’t created a design worth bothering to make. Or worth including in the collection. Since I need this design for the mosaic tile, it made sense to make it as a stand-alone design. Not necessary, but actually works better overall. I can keep file size down but making a part of a design separately, and then putting it into the main design.
The eleventh, and last design, is inspired by the mosaic tile in the house. There are various mosaic tile floors in the house. As always, I feel free to change and adjust as I please! The goal is for me to create new art - not recreate extant art.
This is also a first attempt at making mosaic tiles. I did cheat and put in regular square pattern for the general background. I also struggled with the tile looking very uncomfortable to walk on - getting the height of the tiles and the grout to look level and correct, never really came out right. The entire first year of learning to use this software, I struggled to get height - and now I’m struggling to have less height. It’s funny how one struggles to achieve something, but over-shoots and then struggles to retreat back a bit. But I will definitely explore more mosaic tile making in the future.
Outro
This design collection was a big skill improvement experience for me. I tried to many new things here. I did a lot more assembling of various designs to create scenes. I am steadily getting better at this task. And more creative about how to do it. And better at composing scenes that are tileable and still flow nicely.
I also spent a lot more time editing an revising and tinkering which each design.