I've mentioned in a previous blog post that I find the best way to work on personal work to be focussing on projects rather than individual, one-off pieces.
There are a few reasons for that:
- I find it easier to become immersed in the style and world of the work I'm doing rather than starting from scratch with every new piece of work.
- I've heard from others before that working on projects is a good look for employers - it shows that you can stick with a theme and work consistently in one style/tone - and that's got to be a good thing.
- Your work can become more developed and detailed as you work through a project, with each new piece informing others.
- I just genuinely enjoy thinking up new worlds or scenarios and exploring them through concept or illustration work.
With that in mind, I took on a small personal project called Nyreen - The Mirage City. The plan was for a multicultural desert city-state. The nickname 'Mirage City' comes from its place atop a desert mesa, so from a distance in the heat haze the city looks to be floating in the sky.
After a lot of reference gathering, I worked on mostly prop and architecture details for this project. My hope in the future is to fully explore this world.
Here's some of the work done for it:
You can see my Nyreen so far work here on ArtStation:
Thanks for reading!