The journey of the house

 The first step

The first draft of the house I made was very square and did not have many levels so its overall silohette was hard to read and not appealing to look at. It also would have been hard to make it look like a house with a shopfrount as it only had one level.

It also looked more like a small cottage than a townhouse structure which is what I originally wanted .

The second step

This wasnt a drastic change but It was a key change for improving the overall shape of the building and that is adding a side piece which makes the building asymmetrical which in turn results in a much less boring product in the end. But still the model looked a bit too stumpy still and box like

I also tried to make the roof look more realistic in this version as in the previous version it looked more like a tin cover than something with more of a structure like a tiled roof.

The third step

Here I fixed the issue with the shape looking too stumpy and also having more of a distinct shopfront due to the multiple levels, i also added a stone half base as I had seen this in quite a few of the houses in the research I conducted. The beams were made thicker as the ones in the previous model were too spindly and the thicker beams properly framed the house.A bigger window was added on the bottom level at the front as a way to properly define it as a shopfront and give it some more personality.

This is also the point I put in and organised the majority of the props for the diorama.

The fourth step

This was the final tweaks stage were I did mostly smaller changes, for example I made the roof more detailed and gave it layers so it would look less flat when in the unreal engine. I also made the entire structure a tiny bit thinner so it towered over more, like the buildings in The Shambles that I researched earlier on and was inspired by. 

The fifth step (feedback response)

This was the last bit before I put it into the Unreal engine and it was all about colour. The plaster on the house was too pale and it did not complement the purple undertones of the rest of the house, to fix this I messed around with the saturation of the texture until it looked more like aged parchment that fresh paper. It looks darker on the 3ds max model as I found that the wall texture was much brighter when hit by the lighting in the scene so I compensated for that a bit. I also went in and made the front door slightly ajar so that when I put it in the engine I could have light pouring out of it, this makes it seem more lived in and lively. Some extra beams were also added to corners were there was just plaster meeting plaster as it didn't look right for it to just be completely bare.