Combining History and Fantasy
By Feng Zhu
BUILDING WORLDS
For decades, both Hollywood and video games have used historic settings as backdrops for building imaginary worlds. This timeless approach will always be a solid foundation for entertainment design. If you are learning, this is a very effective way to produce work.
From the mystical Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt to the Samurais of Feudal Japan, historic cultures spanned across the globe and left us with vast amounts of creations. These designs took hundreds and sometimes thousands of years to conceive, built and perfected by their creators - and they all available for you to use.
Popular games using historic settings as backdrops.
USING HISTORY
Instead of starting from zero, which often results in soulless designs (especially for students), build your worlds and stories on existing historic cultures. Remember this formula: 90% based in reality, 10% your own design.
Here are some great examples of mixing history and fantasy done by my design team and internal training artists at FZD Films.
