My main reference for this environment was the concept art by Aleksei Liakh and photographs from this era. In addition, western film sets were a nice reference. During the challenge, Christoffer Radsby showed me some awesome pictures of what seemed like model wild west buildings. These pictures helped greatly in building my environment. Unlike my previous challenge I didn’t want to copy the concept art exactly, this gave me enough room for creativity but also a nice backbone to fall back on.

Working on the Architecture

Once I decided I got my blockout down I moved the buildings one by one to a separate scene and started detailing it. One thing I learned here is that I should take a better look at references and make sure that I make the buildings visually interesting from the beginning. I ended up with almost identical buildings. They had the same porch, planks silhouettes etc. Going back to remake five buildings isn’t fun! This was definitely a big lesson for me. A good design can save a lot of time in the end.