02/02/2020: Having settled on the overall aesthetic, I've been focusing on finding references for the shop. In the project brief we were told to use 'Dickensian' buildings: this more refers to the specific era when Charles Dickens was alive, as opposed to a style of architecture. I've therefore been looking specifically for 19th Century London buildings, along with general 'Steampunk' machinery and aesthetics.I've put some of the references I'll be using below, along with some initial sketches of my shop. Considering I have a corner shop, I can be more creative with how the windows and walls have been built, and I already rather like the potential look of the place: I particularly like the rounded-tall-narrow look, as it makes the shop look more imposing and formal without actually making the shop look out of place. My whole reference sheet is here.
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This drawing, called 'Over London by Rail', by Gustave Doré, was taken from an article about the horrible living conditions of London's poor. I decided to use it as a reference partly because it does a wonderful job of showing the roofs and chimneys, but also because it is a handy guide as to what not make my shop look like.These buildings are cramped, small and uncomfortable; J.K.Rowling's fantasy world is meant to be a far cry from this real world squalor. I can use this as a guide to ensure my shop does not end up looking too close to this estate.
This is a photograph of the Shambles street in York, a location which seems to be an inspiration for Diagon Alley. This photograph was taken by Peter K. Burian and used on Wikipedia (which is conveniently where I took it from).The Shambles itself was apparently a market in the 14th century, before it was moved. The overhanging floors of the buildings are a motif which can be seen in some of Diagon Alley's buildings, and the shop signs seem to be similar, too.
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This clock is a model being sold on eBay, and a few other websites, which is apparently modelled to be Steampunk. It seems to be suitably steampunk to me, although I do notice a lack of anything steam-related on its frame.I intend to use this as a reference mainly for the kind of stock the shop will sell: I won't need to model the whole interior, since I'll be doing the shop on my own, however I will need to create some merchandise for the window, and I need a guide as to the overall aesthetic of the shop. This clock, I feel, is a good guide: it isn't magical looking, but as a base model it is both functional and stylised, and gives me a few ideas off the bat (for example, the doorway into the shop could be round, or craved to look like cogs, or actually be made of cogs etc).If I was going to make this clock magical, I would follow the same kind of description Albus Dumbledore's watch has: I would add more hands, and perhaps have a star or a planet instead of the bell. The difficult part is making the thing magical without completely obscuring its purpose: a magical watch still has to look like a watch. I'll put some sketches of merchandise down below, with my sketches for the shop.
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Reference gathering.
Updated: Apr 24, 2020
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