With this piece, I wanted to pay homage to the Old Republic, one of my personal favorite eras of Star Wars. I also love looking back on older games and re-imagining what their visuals could look like today. Ralph McQuarrie, the original Star Wars visionary was lastly of course a big inspiration.
I leveraged tech from Unreal Engine and their Quixel suite to speed up my production. Here was my initial render out of Unreal 5, along with some adjustments inside of Photoshop:
I also spent time exploring thumbnails traditionally. I personally think much better with a pencil than with digital tools.
During the collapse of the Rakata Empire, the warlords unleashed weapons of terrible destruction that threatened to drive our species to extinction. In the devastation's aftermath our ancestors locked the knowledge of such technology away in the temple so it could never be used again.
I explored patterns and foliage, my favorite of the patterns ended up on the temple facade. The plants were re-used throughout the composition saving me some time while still fitting the hand painted aesthetic.