Full Composition:
I’m planning on making a series based on dilapidated and/or forgotten objects. While rather broad of a topic, I want the focus to be on nostalgia, objects that inspired strong feelings at one point in the past, but now languishing. My initial inspiration for this piece is this picture of the Falkor prop from Never Ending Story sitting in a New Jersey garage. There was something so eerie and sad about the image, that it was stuck in my mind. Other influences for this include Simon Stålenhag’s The Electric State, but the biggest inspiration of all is the gigantic stuffed mountain goat sitting in my storage unit that I’m holding for a friend:
The oversized and lifelike creature stuffed into a much too small space hits very close to home as you can see!
I used a dragon sculpt by cristobalmardoneschl on Sketchfab as the basis for the dragon. I like how Falkor’s design takes inspiration from a Chinese dragon, but pushes more dog like. I made some edits to push the initial design into a friendlier looking direction, and added materials and hair to give that softened look, pulling from the design of Falkor and the storage unit goat.
Early in the layout process, I was really drawn to the visuals of tin sheds. The patchwork sheeting was very visually interesting, and felt like a good textural contrast to the soft and organic dragon head. The addition of the person was a more last minute decision. I think the character added some necessary color, movement, and story to an otherwise still scene.
I have a few more images in this same theme planned, but enjoy the breakdown and an extra goat picture below, and thanks for reading!
Clay Render:
Breakdown:
More GOAT:
