Anatomy of the Inn Courtyard

I thought I'd explain the creation of a little scene I've been posting excessive screenshots of on twitter. Apologies if you're sick of seeing this shit but I'm still so taken with it all. 

First off we have the Inn. So far unnamed, but envisioned as the PC's first base of operations in Burku. A place to store some stuff, sleep to heal, eat fried pupae, and gossip with the locals. 

I'm not sure if this will be the final look of the Inn. A part of me wants to copy some historical buildings and make it look more "real", though admittedly this building started as an attempt to imitate the style of Byzantine-esque structures that survived into the 20th century in parts of Eastern Europe. 

I was unable to resist the urge to add random spikes or simplify some shapes so it has veered off considerably, but maybe only loosely taking inspiration from my references isn't so bad. We'll see, as the locations pile up. 

I admit that playing Pentiment and a little bit of Kingdom Come: Deliverance made me want a nice outdoor courtyard for the Inn. Open air but enclosed by walls, listening to the birds and insects chirping, watching the occasional daeva writhe through the air on its way to the war just outside the valley--In a word, a place to vibe.

There are going to be stone reliefs, murals, engravings, etc. throughout Burku. Several civilizations have come and gone, and bits of their art remains. Here we have some scene depicting a god of Death (presumably, seeing as it has a skull head and carried a broom in its hand, a symbol of death's power to swee aside all human endeavours) approaching a couple carrying wine jugs. Behind them, a figure supplicates itself to another figure now headless. 

The reliefs here were made by tracing multiple pictures with the knife tool in Blender, combining images from them to make this little mural. Here's some of those pictures used for that purpose: 

(the collage above is by Jan Svankmajer)

The stone mural is a conversation starter, but I wanted more bits of ruin to give the proper vibe. Random chunks stuck in the ground, some serving as tables or places to sit and then random pillars. 

The random pillars based on no particular style (just had the thought that I should make a few ornate/fancy pillars along the lines of something you might expect from Greco-Bactria and then use them as decorations in ruined temple locations, etc.) but thrown around to suggest that those rocks are lumps of old broken down temple. That the Inn is squatting on the foundations and people are drinking amid  a previous civilization's works. 

The pillars also provided a place for me to put lights. Big torches just make me think of dungeons and castles (and fire hazards) so I decided to go for something based on pictures of rush lights I've seen. Rush lights were a type of cheap candle more or less, and in some of the examples they emerge from little cups to catch the melting fat or wax.

Here the lights are on iron fixtures drilled into the old pillars for late dinners and parties. I'll probably throw a few candle holders or something of the kind on the tables, and maybe an ornate sort of table lighter, for use with the pipes the drinkers at the Inn will be smoking. There are "Joy plants", a variety of euphorics, soporifics, and similar things to stuff into pipes (which will give bonuses, of course). 

The furniture was also made without much reference, but it's a pleasure throwing together furniture on the spot. It was made in the same sitting as the rush lights, pillars, mural, and other decorative elements of the courtyard. 

To give some life to this scene we have a diner and his lucky mug, a few plates of sauce filled pastry and some fein bug pupae cooked in the chrysalis. A Burku delicacy, the pupae gathered in the hundreds as cast offs of the process of harvesting their juices for the purposes of creating powerful drugs that drive the valley's economy. 

The diner here is Gyuri. Gyuri here is fairly wealthy, a part owner of the Inn itself. He's an example of a fairly typical Burkouse man: dark haired, fair skinned, a thick mustache and eyebrows that meet in the middle (a sign of puissance and good breeding). He wears an expensive and heavy nasal piercing in the shape of a spider (one of the symbols of a local guerilla saint, Araguin, who once waged war on the invaders from Darlung, Arzhuria, and of course, the hateful Lizards). The piercing is inspired by a few Mesomerican pieces I've seen (Incan, specifically), to show the varied empires that have come and gone through Burku. 

I plan to make position a few others diners there (an excuse to make more fully dressed villager NPCs) and hand it off to my collaborators to get it ready for Unity. 

If there's a type of post you'd like to see from me please feel free to comment, as I'm honestly never sure what's entertaining or what's me just rambling about some detail that may entertain only myself.

Thanks again everyone for your interest and patience in this project. I feel like we're finally reaching a stage where there's good stuff to show you and I plan to do more little devlog-ish posts like this here.