For my second enviroment art module on my Game Art course at Falmouth University, me and my peers have been tasked “Model, texture, light and present in UE5 a Victorian three-storey terraced building with a shop on the ground floor facing the street of Diagon Alley”, as directly quoted in the project brief. It must fit in with the Harry Potter/Dickensian style and look in place on Diagon Alley.
Initially, after reading through the portfolio and blog brief, I kickstarted my research. The first thing that came to mind was the fact that I had actually been to the Harry Potter Studio Tour in Watford, England during Easter 2017. I went through the digital albums on my phone to find photographs taken during our visit, however most of them were blurry and over-exposed due to the dark lighting as well as my sub-par 13 year old photography skills. The images still convey the atmosphere of diagon alley: the looming and wonky buildings that line the street makes one feel dizzy and disorientated, the shop displays and signage protruding onto the pavement in order to entice potential customers inside to purchase their miraculous wizarding goods.
Most of these photographs are of the extrodinary window displays of the plethora of diagon alley shops, namely the apothecary, Ollivanders, an ice-cream shop and Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. These will come in handy when designing the window display of my shop further in the future, for which I will need to make sure there is enough room for in the shop front windows when designing. One advantage of creating my shop using digital software rather than crafting it physically is the ability to manipulate physics. Without the restraints of real world gravity, creating a more magically emmersive shop is possible, with the potential to create floating assets and special effects depending on implementation time and the scope of my project.
Many of the Diagon Alley shops sport 2 tall cylindrical windows that flank the entrance to the shop. The doors to the shops also have large glass windows which take up the majority of the door, once again having the function of enticing customers into said shop. Desaturated colours are used for the majority of shops pictured with the exception of the Weasley twin's shop, 'Weasley's Wizard Wheezes'. As part of my research for this project I took out the book 'Harry Potter: Page to Screen - The Complete Filmmaking Journey' (McCabe, 2018) from Penryn library which answers why the Weasley's shop contrasts against the other shops. The hefty book provides highly detailed information on every aspect of the films series I could possibly want, including a segment on Diagon Alley set design and a few of the shops on the street, including Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Within this section it describes how prior to the arrival of this shop, the rest of the shops had "conformed to a uniform, subdued color palette" which prodcution designer Stuart Craig was a stylistic choice "to create a harmony of light and shape", with the Weasley's shop breaking this practice with its brashness and orange colour scheme, in line with the Weasley "inventive" and "kitschy" style; inspiration was drawn from American and Japanese toys from the 50s/60s/70s (McCabe, 2018).
On learning this information, I started to envisage ideas of my own shop in the same way; distinguished and unique, but still obeying to the baseline aesthetics of Diagon Alley as the Weasley's shop does. My next plan of action was to supplement my research with more in-detail imagery of Diagon Alley, so I consulted YouTube and found a short walk-through video of the Diagon Alley segment in Orlando, Florida's Universal Studios, showcasing all of the shops on the street and the interior of a few of them (Theme ParkShark, 2020)
Diagon Alley Research
A made a handful of observations whilst watching this video that will prove useful for the designing process. The shops which are constructed from brick usually utilise 2 colours - one for the brickwork, one for the windowframes and embellishments. A lot of them look very makeshift and old, with chipped paint exposing the brickwork underneath and dirty weathered brick, aswell as often leaning at peculair angles and multiple stories being wonkily appended to existing floors; this clearly conveys the destitute state of buildings in Victorian London.
All of the lighting is a warm, welcoming yellow colour, once again adhering to an olde-worlde aesthetic from before the invention of bright white LED lighting. Street lighting is usually appended onto the side of shop buildings, serving as decoration alongside its function.
Buildings are around 3/4 stories high, with the first floor being the shop floor and having the most ornate decoration, some even with 3D gargoyle-esque sculpture and columns decorating the building. Advertising is also painted up the side of some buildings, overlaying the brickwork with faded graphics and typography.
As before, window displays boast products from inside but I noticed an interesting detail that I have seen in practise in older buildings in my hometown - hand-painted writing on the glass of display windows, often noting the price of items or general advertising for the shop itself. I've seen this in an old bakery near my house, where cakes and breads displayed on doilies in shop windows would have their price listed on the window to invite customers inside.
One shop from the video caught my attention in particular - Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. The 3D element outside reminded me of the 'hero element' we are encouraged to involve in our shop front. The green foliage over-hanging from the trim around each story in combination with the pastel yellow is rather soft and cutesy for Diagon Alley, however this is shaken up with the topsy-turvy silhouette and construction of the building. I would prefer to create a shop that is leaning towards the cutesy aesthetic (whilst still maintaining the Harry Potter IP and realistic look obviously) therefore the existence of a shop like this opened up my mind to a less conventionally 'dark' and 'spooky' shop.
Choosing a shop concept
I started off brainstorming by making a list of possible shops I could create for this project, some of which were pre-existing shops I merely wrote down to incite inspiration from word assocaition, allowing my mind to make conscious and subconcious word connections.
Pub
Tailor
Potion shop
Apothecary
Taxidermy
Inn
Wand shop
Broom shop
Pet shop
Alchemist
Pagan/spell shop
Accessory shop
Sweet shop
Bakery
Botanist
Chemist
Candle shop
Pottery/ceramic shop
Plant/herb shop
Tea room/cafe
Some of these I crossed off immediatly due to the time scope of the project and my skill set - a ceramic shop would require crafting many pots and plates which could take a while to construct and wouldn't make for the most enticing shop display. Plant/herb shop would require a more in depth knowledge of foliage 3D modelling which I wasn't prepared to go full force into with no previous experience. Eventually I settled on a tea room/bakery/cafe hybrid shop, as I had plenty of ideas in my head of how such a shop could be intergrated into the wizarding world; floating teapot and teacups, magic-infused cakes, pastel window frames and maybe an animated 3D sign/asset attached to the shop, depending on how I plan my time.
Pinterest/PureRef research boards
With this concept in mind, i jumped onto Pinterest to gather a multitude of PureRef boards exploring my chosen shop idea further, aswell as retrieving more Victorian/Dickensian imagery so I had sufficient references to start designing my shop.
Diagon Alley
My analysis of these buildings is essentially the same as what I said in my analysis of the Diagon Alley walkthrough video. A few of picture I have noticed are from the town of Hogsmeade in Harry Potter rather than Diagon Alley, however the premise of the design is rather similar. One of the shops in Hogsmeade, Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop, is similar to the kind of shop I would like to create (pictured top right) - I didn't realise this was a pre-existing shop until I started creating these moodbaord so it will certainly be useful to reference whilst designing my shop, especially being able to look at the shop display in closer detail when creating mine.
Another thing to note is the signage pictured in the moodboard is made from wooden planks, as seen by the weathered graphic printed ontop. The signs hang over into the street, joined onto the building by an ornate piece of black steel; they also contain graphics and typography related to the shop, which I will most likely implement with my own signage. Names of shops are adorned onto wooden beams/architrave where the top of the shop floor would be, using a unique font to convey the personality of the shop, something that will be important to consider while designing my shop.
Classic Dickensian/Victorian buildings
This moodboard brings together a collection of 'classic' Victorian London houses, often slightly decrepid and depressing looking due to the washed out colour palette of the brickwork. As with the Diagon Alley buildings, there is a strong sense of vertical symmetry implemented with the window placement, aswell as a heavy focus on brickwork as the main construction material.
The majority of these images have a stone foundation, from which the building is contstructed upon, therefore stone slab stairs are needed to lead from the pavement to the door. Another notable detail is that the detailing is focused on the shop front, whereas the floors above, which assumably could be housing, have less detailing and look more copy and pasted compared to the bespoke shop front design of the first floor. This is evidently to pique customer's visual interest to the store front, usually with assistance from the tall windows, bold typography and bright coloured window frames against the dull brickwork.
Embellished Dickensian/Victorian architecture
I put together a separate PureRef board for these buildings compared to the one prior as they are substantially more embellished and detailed. Creating a whole building with such levels of detail would be unplausiable for this project, however I found a lot of these details extremely visually interesting and subsidized that incorparating these details sparingly into my design will advance the individuality of my shop.
A common motif with these images is using archways in a variety of structures - window frames, doorways, porches and even in signage. A combination of different shapes are used throughout these different structures observably stimulating for the eyes as we trace the outlines of them, creating flow through the building; spires, gable rooves, brackets supporting extruding structures, chimneys and balconies. Variations in story size and extrusion is also a large factor in making these structures seem more carefully built than the more dreary looking Dickensian buldings as seen prior.
Non-IP buildings
I collated this moodboard to showcase buildings/structures that didn't quite adhere to the Harry Potter/Diagon alley intellectual property but had certain detailings and aspects that I am keen on integrating into my shop design. For example, a few of these images contain foliage/hanging baskets overhanging from the shop front in order to spruce it up and bring a sense of freshness to the store - I think this would work well in a shop on Diagon Alley since a lot of the buildings look quite miserable at points, therefore some greenery added to the shop could be reminiscent of what Diagon Alley looks like during the summer time in an ideal world where Death Eaters aren't trying to kill everyone.
I also admire the funky shapes of the window panes in these images, once again bringing about an originality to the shop front. The colour schemes are appealing too, with more saturated coloured brickwork than the dreary colours in the first moodboard.
Signage/Prop design
As seen from the walkthrough of Diagon Alley, signage is essential advertising for any shop. Signs spring out onto the street and catch streetwalkers's eyes as they venture along the pavement. Furthermore, this means potential customers may make split-second decisions on whether they want to enter your shop dependant on the aesthetics of the sign outside, meaning good sign design is crucial for a theoretical shop.
What I like about these images is that they encapsulate the atmosphere of the wholeshop into one small structure. Adding 3D elements to signs adds another layer of appeal since the norm, at least as far as I am aware of, are flat 2D signs. Aspects such as bold text, (fake) gold plating and intricate metalwork allows the customer to catch a glimpse of what the shop is like inside, welcoming them inside. A few of these designs have lights directed towards them or around them, which also helps to draw attention especially during darker hours.
As stated in the 'choosing a shop' section, being able to play around with physics and incorporating 'magic' into this scene will be engaging to play around with in regards to signage, as I could have something like a floating teapot or cake as my sign since there is technically no need for a post to attach it to the wall if a spell is suspending it in the air.
Interior design
Interior design is something for me to consider later on when I make the decision whether to create an interior or not, however this board helped me visualise what kind of atmospheric vibe I wanted my shop to have in general; thsi will help we design/plan the exterior of my shop by adding details hinting to what's to come inside. The interior designs may look complex and visually messy at first glance, but on reflection this wouldn't be too difficult to achieve as many of the assets have a strong sense of modularity to them - take the cabinets in the bottom left, or the tin can display on the shop floor in the middle of the moodboard. Items can be easily duplicated without much difficulty once created for the modeller. However, as I said, this is something for me to consider at a later date so I won't go too deep into analysis at this point.
References:
McCabe, Bob (2018) Harry Potter : Page to Screen : the Complete Filmmaking Journey. Updated edition. London: Titan Books.
Theme Park Shark (2020) Diagon Alley (relaxing walk) universal studios Florida | harry potter world full walking tour 2020, YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LUNshGrLrk&t=131s (Accessed: 26 Jan 2023).
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