0x151e86b0…cfe9sent to0x068c8208…5390·#18,277,820·view on Etherscan
BastienArtwork Documentation >>> Motivation > The first ignition for this piece came from a well-known series - Stranger Things. I was binging the show with my girlfriend and I was absolutely dazzled by the 80s aesthetics and all those incredibly balanced and vibrant colours. Everything in the show worked together so well that I knew I had to act on that inspiration. Those of you who watched the show probably know that some part of the story is happening in a mall. An 80s American mall. I decided to approach this on my own, taking what I can and transform it into a nostalgic 90s art with a speck of 80s vibe. This is a universe-expanding piece. One of the stores in the mall is Arcade World, which is another piece of mine owned by a dear friend and a great collector. I reused the elements from the original piece and aligned them to work within the composition of this piece as a tribute to the original one. // Workflow > Although motivated, I started with the wrong foot and spent about 25 hours doing it the wrong way. In my art, I always go for perfect composition and colour balance. The eye of the viewer is supposed to smoothly transition between individual areas and elements of each artwork without being too distracted by anything. This showed to be really difficult in case of a mall. All those flashing lights, noise and rush make it essentially chaotic and it's very difficult to align everything within it consistently. After a week of work I got annoyed, deleted everything except a few main elements (moving staircase mainly) and started over, this time I focused on creating the overall layout without the shops, services and other details first. This should be usual approach in any craft – work step by step and layer detailing. Although as an ADHD individual my case is a bit different. When I work, I jump between phases of the project like a squirrel on cocaine. I model a part of the scene and then go to lightings, texturing only to get back to modelling again just to close Blender and get into Photoshop for 3 hours. My usual work project is a batch of thousands of iterations in a very random order. If you look closely on the final piece, I tried to follow some of the 80s aesthetics, mainly it's the overall grain of the piece and somewhat of an old camera filter effect to underline the overall vibe. Also the soundtrack is based on simple 80s synths (it is literally samples of 80s synths). I attempted to create the final sound design as a combination of the overall noise of any mall and a subtle mysticism engraved into this piece. On the visual side of things, I used paper planes flying around like there was not tomorrow which helps the effect of a rush hour in the place and pleasantly disturbs the basic back-and-forth pattern of the animation. My favourite thing about the piece are most definitely plants (Monstera Deliciosa), most seen in the left lower corner, they are animated in an attempt to give the piece a bit magical vibes. The name “City of the Young” came out of a brainstorming with my girlfriend. She usually brainstorm my art with me, and I came up with the “Young” part. I asked her that malls are for young people, young wannabe thugs and teenagers, after which she added that I should name it “City of the Young” since malls are originally conceptualized as cities. And so here we are, looking on City of the Young. // Epilogue > Originally I started creating City of the Young out of sheer curiosity of how I could approach it, yet ultimately found myself investing a big part of myself in the piece. I also spent long afternoons and weekends in local malls, trying to be cool, or trying not to be uncool. And working on this woke up those things in me again. Malls always were the places to be. We went there with out friend groups to spend time, to chat with girls (actually just sitting in a safe distance from them thinking about how it would be like to talk to them), to eat fast foods and buy stupid things we did not need. They were places for teenagers, for cool people. Those were our **Cities of the Young.** // Tools Used > Blender: Composition, 3D modelling, texturing, lighting, camera and rendering. Adobe Photoshop: Detailed texturing, posters, logos Adobe After Effects: Screens, in-scene videos, color grading, compositing Ableton: Sampling and sound design // Acknowledgements > As always, my biggest thanks goes to my girlfriend Ruthie who has supported me since the day 1 and without whom I wouldn't be where I am now. Second greatest thanks goes to all my online friends, supporters and collectors that have supported and vibed with me despite market sentiments, through good and bad and that made me realize that I can be who I really am and do art that is really me. It's priceless to me. //