City of Mars

The next big scene change in Red Rising occurs when Darrow sees the city of mars for the first time. He is taken aback by the massive skyscrapers whose tips tickle the sky, ships of all types flying seamlessly through the air, and life crawling every inch of Mar’s surface; the very same Mars he had been told had yet to be terraformed.

This scene is where Darrow fully experiences the lie the Gold’s told Red’s for hundreds of years fall apart. To capture the magnitude of the feelings he was experiencing, a grand city was drawn, one that seemed beautiful and distant. Seeing the sky for the first time in his life was an emotional moment for Darrow, so clouds were made into a major focal point of the piece to bring the attention of the reader to the sky so viewers would feel the same awe Darrow had.

Making the piece

First Step - collect the words

For this piece, the first step was the same as the one taken for the Mines of Mars. After thoroughly reading through the descriptions, I collected these quotes describing the city:

”The city is one of spires, parks, rivers, gardens, and fountain. It is a city of dreams, a city of blue water and green life on a red planet that is supposed to be as barren as the cruelest desert.” (67)

”Men and women fly. They shimmer Gold and Silver. Those are the only Colors I see in the sky. Their gravBoots carry them about like gods…”(67)

”Beyond them, ships flit through the air along beacon-lit avenues. Small ships, ripWings, as Dancer calls them, escort the most intricate of air yachts. On the ground, I see men and women moving along the lower levels–Yellow, Blue, Orange, Green, Pink, a hundred shades of a dozen Colors to form a hierarchy so complex, so alien, I scarcely think it a human concept. The buildings through which the path wind are huge, some of glass, some of stone. But many remind me of those I’ve seem on the HC, those buildings pf the Romans, made this time for gods instead of man. Beyond the city, which stretches nearly as far as I can see, Mar’s red and barren surface is scarred with the green of grass and struggling woods. The sky is blue, stained with stars.” (68)

“The streets of Yorkton, the city, are a strange place at night. Luminescent balls of light line the sidewalks and streets. HC videos run like liquid streams along parts of the avenue in this high-tech sector of the city” (74)

“Garish lights make the night almost as bright as day.” (74)

I associate clouds with a place full of water, life, and beauty. Since Darrow would have been seeing the sky for the first or second time in his life, I wanted the sky to be one of the main focal points of the drawing to relate to his experience. Next was to depict buildings much larger than any skyscrapers we have. To create scale in this drawing, the buildings were pushed further back on the horizon line and the lights of smaller buildings scattered across the floor gave a size comparison for how large the skyscrapers were.

A good tip to remember when trying to show scale, small or large, is to give a size comparison in the piece with something the audience can recognize and estimate the actual size of. This gives them a measurement to understand how large other objects in a drawing are.

Second Step - brainstorming

Thumbnails for this piece were a bit messier. I wanted to explore how I could depict the sheer size of the skyscrapers while showing some part of Mars to remind readers of the planet this city was on. Especially because the descriptions made it seem like Mars was very close to looking like Earth.

Third Step - greyscales!

I really liked how the scale was easily understandable in the thumbnail on the right, so I selected that as the final composition. Then, I began fleshing out the details of the buildings and depth using greyscale.

For the rooftops, instead of individually drawing out every rectangle at a difficult perspective, I opted to draw rectangles and then use the perspective tool to change the angle of the shapes to simplify the drawing processes. You can see this method in the speed paint video at the bottom of this page.

fourth Step - colors + details!

Just like the Mines of Mars piece, colors are added to the greyscale by using a multiply layer and putting down base colors with the spray paint tool. After, details are built up by using brushes of different sizes.

In a piece where the objects of interest are so far away (the skyscrapers), it is not necessary to draw every detail. For example, you can see the the main sky scraper in the middle of the piece does not have every window or crevice drawn. Instead, by using shapes and lines, you can create details without putting in much time. Bocks and lines symbolize windows where people have the lights turned on inside. Another example is the lights of all the buildings on the bottom of the painting. A simple droplet spray tool can be used to create the illusion of lights instead of drawing out every individual building and light. You want to spend your time and energy adding details to the places you want viewers to spend more time looking. In the case of this drawing, it was the sky and skyscrapers. You can see most of the details are included in those sections of the drawing.

watch the painting process

I have provided a speed paint for you to be able to watch the painting process. Enjoy!