Week one - Research and reference gathering

The first thing I did after reading the brief was come up with a first impression idea of what I wanted my shop to be themed and what it would sell. My immediate thought was to create a magical plant shop, I thought this would be quite a good idea since it will challenge my skills in Maya and keep me motivated since I love plants and the idea of sculpting a magical shop full of them. I started by creating a basic Pure ref document with some reference images of Diagon Alley which would help me with the design of the outside architecture and overall theme.

I then started collecting reference images and information of some magical plants. I want the plants I am including in the shop to make sense, for example maybe having a planter of Mandrakes in a sound proof box to relate to the movies and the information known about them. Depending on space within the sculpt and time limits I want to include as many plants as possible to give the feeling of them over running the shop, I will also be doing this by having alot of training plants along the walls and furniture.

To add to my architectural accuracy when it comes to designing a Victorian styled shop. I also put together a small refence sheet of some Victorian shops (including plant shops) that linked to the Diagon Alley shops and would help me in the concept design process.