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Notice: All articles under the worldbuilding will be ever evolving. What you're reading right now is an early version. There's always more to learn, and better ways to go about the design process are discovered.

In March 2017 I took part in a design workshop that changed the way I think about design. I could go on and write an entirely new blog post on great lessons from it, but for this blog, I’ll focus on two of the strongest aspects that I learned and I hold in my mind ever since.

I’ve touched one aspect in the “How to Design Almost Anything” post, that deals with how to design in a way, that we find pleasing. This post will deal with principles on the evolution of the reality you’re designing. Before there was anything, there were the rules. Your rules. And just before there were rules, there was a decision, that something should happen. You start with the decision. Continue reading “Worldbuilding – It begins with nothingness and becomes nothing”

In March 2017 I took part in a design workshop that changed the way I think about design. I could go on and write an entirely new blog post on great lessons from it, but for this blog, I’ll focus on two of the strongest aspects that I learned and I hold in my mind ever since.

One aspect is the Evolution of Design process, which comes handy in Worldbuilding, which we will visit at some point later. The other one – vaguely described in this article – is a set of guidelines developed by one of the most influential architects to walk the face of the Earth, Christopher Alexander.

It’s a set of principles, normally referred to as Fundamental Properties of Wholeness. Continue reading ““How to Design Almost Anything” – Introduction to The Nature of Order by Christopher Alexander”

2022 – Project PR.01 is introduced in the last quarter of the Synoris Championship. It comes second to last in the championship due to many mechanical failures
2023 – Project PR.01 wins it’s first race in the championship (two in total). Charismatic drivers – Ian Quinn and Skylar Walker, combined with great PR ensure PR.01 gains fandom quickly. It gets nicknamed “Firestorm” due to many failures of the last year championship ending in fire, besides the (now signature) backfiring.
2025 – Project PR.01 – now unofficially adopting the name “Firestorm”- comes second in the championship, the last match being the deciding.
2026 – Project PR.01 gets destroyed beyond repair in a massive crash at the 14th match (out of 22) in the championship, causing it’s retirement. To this point, PR.01 was winning the ’26 championship.
2027 – Project PR.01 gets restored with the name “Firestorm” and is put into the museum as one of the most influential racers of its (short) time.
2029 – Firestorm gets stolen from the museum.
2032 – The picture was taken.
2033 – ???

There’s a story behind this image, though not quite as dramatic as Firestorm’s. Continue reading “Better Days [Project PR.01]”

It was a productive month, ranging from setting up forum to extending my portfolio pieces. One of them was related to the Character Design Challenge, Egyptian Gods. This is how Bast here came about.

It might show around the Rocket Coil and the blog posts, but I love to think about design as a form of storytelling. I’ve seen many designs, especially in the CDC that would look amazingly good, but quite a few of them – while drawn perfectly – seemed to lack a story and were just pretty drawings.

I definitely wanted to place more story in my design. I’m sure there could be a debate about whether I succeeded at it or not, but if nothing else, I learned more about the process. There were hiccups in the production, of course, and some of them can be avoided in the future.

 

See the Bast on the ArtStation Continue reading “Making Bast (Egyptian Goddess CDC)”

Hello! Welcome to the Rocket Coil blog!

I believe my knowledge is doing the best job, when I put it out there. It will not be the ultimate guide on anything in particular, but I hope that someone who might want to learn things similar to what I do, will find it helpful. On the blog we will mainly cover 3 topics:

• The development of Faery Tale
• Production Design and Storytelling topics
• “Let’s Call That Philosophy” series

With the Faery Tale series I’m going to talk about how Faery Tale was (and still is) being produced. It’s my first ‘real’ 3D animated film that I’m making and I’m learning a lot while producing it. I’m starting to understand the scope of the production of (3D) animated movie, as making this one is taking enormous amounts of energy and time. Animation is just a monstrous craft. Continue reading “The Rocket Coil Blog”