📎 Redirected from the Writing Resources Page
Note: Please see the Writing Resources Page for overall navigational notes on my directories.
I always wanted to make some sort of environment focused resource directory, mainly as an artist and for world building. Similar to the other post, I wanted to make a directory for my artistic and writing needs with a focus on environmental settings and world building. Overall, my goal is to start incorporating more original and non-abstract backgrounds into my art.
I may end up separating the world building and the environment and place them into a different blog post, so please watch out for any potential moving.
🏞️ ENVIRONMENTAL SETTINGS AND WORLD BUILDING 🌎
TABLE OF CONTENTS
🔳 World Building
▪️ General
▪️ Colours
▪️ Generators
▪️ Mythological Creatures
🔳 Environmental Settings
▪️ General Environment & Settings, Inspiration
▪️ Natural Environment
▪️ Man-made Environment
▪️ Environment-related Artists
▪️ Background Art Resources
🌎 WORLD BUILDING
📝 Note from Blazi: This is a fantasy-adventure focused compilation list, but can be used in general anyway.
🌎GENERAL
🏷️ Guides, tips, prompts
- The Ultimate Guide To World-Building: How To Write Fantasy, Sci-Fi And Real-Life Worlds Written by Claire Bradshaw in Fiction Writing
- Worldbuilding: the Master Guide (with Template)
- Worldbuilding: How to Create a Believable World for Your Fiction Characters
- Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions: Physical and Historical Features
🌎 COLOURS
🖼️🏷️ Colour terms for describing physical traits.
- HTMLcolorcodes
- Wikipedia: List of colors (A-F)
- Wikipedia: List of colors (G-M)
- Wikipedia: List of colors (N-Z)
▪️ [Can also navigate to color topics] - The Psychology of Colors (Interior Design)
- PerBang️
▪️ Colour conversion tool, it can give a name to a selected colour!
🌎 GENERATORS
💡🖼️🏷️Generators relevant to environmental settings and world building
- Coolors
▪️ For generating colour palettes - Fantasy Name Generator
- Fantasy Name Generators
▪️ Has more options than the above, such as locations and company names - Name Generator
- Word Unscrambler
▪️ Word Combiner - Fantasy Map Generator
- City and Town Name Generator
- Fractal World Generator
- Random Landscape Generator
- Terrain Generator
- Town Generator
- Legendary creature names Generator
- Monster name Generator
- Fruit and Vegetable name Generator
- Landscape 2.0 Random photos
- Random lists (objects)
- Random buildings
🌎MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURES
🏷️ Inspiration, subject exploration
Wikipedia
- List of legendary creatures from Japan
- List of Greek mythological creatures
- List of legendary creatures by type
- Lists of legendary creatures
- Mythic humanoids
- List of Philippine mythological creatures
- Chinese mythology
- List of cryptids
- Fearsome critters
- Lists of angels
- List of beings referred to as fairies
- Human guise
- Therianthropy
- Shapeshifting
- List of hybrid creatures in folklore
- List of alleged extraterrestrial beings
- List of deities
- List of mythologies
- Folklore
- List of flying mythological creatures
- List of theological demons
- Lists of fictional species
- Mythology-related lists
- Lists of legendary creatures
🏞️ ENVIRONMENTAL SETTINGS 🏞️
🏷️Focus: Prompts, visual inspiration, topic exploration, ideas
📝Note from Blazi:
▪️ This is something where I struggle the most in, is knowing what to do for my backgrounds rather than knowing how to make a background (landscape focused, rather than abstracts)! I have made a large list of links to explore for ideas in this section for this purpose.
🏞️ GENERAL ENVIRONMENT & SETTINGS, VISUAL INSPIRATION
🖼️💡🏷️ Inspiration*, prompts, tools, topic exploration*
Topic Exploration and Resources
- Category: Landscape
▪️ Topic exploration from Wikipedia - Scenic Design
▪️ Topic exploration from Wikipedia - Subterranea
▪️ Topic exploration from Wikipedia - List of light sources
- Design your Landscape by Marc M.
▪️ Resource: This article is excellent as a prompt and apply design considerations in your environment
🛠️ Resources: Tools and Software (Free)
- RoomSketcher
▪️ Create and design your own floor plan and home; you can also furnish it as well! I haven’t tried this out quite yet. - Planner5d
▪️ Similar to RoomSketcher - SketchUp
- 13 Best Free Landscape Design Software Tools in 2019
▪️ Self-note: Check out later
🏞️ VISUAL INSPIRATION
🖼️💡🏷️ Aesthetic inspiration on the environment. Both from real life and fictional work; blog posts are also featured in this.
- See the post here
🏞️ NATURAL ENVIRONMENTS
🖼️💡🏷️ Topic exploration, resources, physical geography, nature terminology (not including animals and insects)
📝Note from Blazi – Guiding questions to think about:
💡What should I add to my background?
💡What are some interesting things that can be found out there in nature I can add to my scenery?
💡What are some terms I can learn and know about (and be reminded of) to further in my searches for visual inspiration?
- A-Z List of House plants
- Database of Common Names of Plants
- Natural Landscapes
- 300 Flower Names and Types with Pictures
- Meaning of Flowers
Wikipedia Lists
- Physical geography
▪️ See Geography Topics and Earth science - Glacial landform
- Category: Mountains
- Volcano
▪️ See Volcano types and topics - Aquatic ecosystems
- List of plants by common name
- List of garden plants
- List of rock types
- Flora by continent
- List of Garden types
- Bioluminescence
- Category: Geology-related lists
- Patterns in nature
🏞️ MAN-MADE ENVIRONMENTS
🖼️💡🏷️ Topic exploration, resources, architectural terminology
📝Note from Blazi – Guiding questions to think about:
💡What should I add to my background?
💡What are some interesting man-made things or objects can I add to my scene?
💡What are some terms I can learn and know about (and be reminded of) to further in my searches for visual inspiration?
General
- Types of building
- A Guide to Basic Brick Patterns for Patios and Paths
- Roof Types (Roofing Materials & Shapes Ultimate Guide)
- 🖼️ Processed wood patterns
▪️ Visual inspiration - Traditional Japanese Houses
- Traditional Vietnamese Architecture
- African Architecture and Design
- The Magnificent Mud Architecture of Mali
Wikipedia Lists
- List of furniture types
- Design-related lists
- Lists of buildings and structures
- Dark-sky preserve
- List of building types
- List of nonbuilding structures
- List of architectural styles
▪️ By time era and continent. - Portal: Housing
▪️ See Rooms and spaces of a house - Category: House styles
- Category: House types
- Category: Interior design
- Category: Rooms
- Infinity pool
- List of garden types
- Garden ornament
- Garden furniture
- List of garden features
- List of roof shapes
- Machiya
🏞️ENVIRONMENT RELATED ARTISTS
🖼️💡 Inspiration: Pages that are dedicated to artists, architects, and photographers.
I’m working on a compilation, stay tuned!
🏞️ BACKGROUND ART RESOURCES
🖼️🏷️ Art focused resources for drawing the environment and backgrounds.
📝Note from Blazi:
Please note this is a different type of list from the Art Resources Directory, as I want this to be focused in on tips/things I normally do not see around in general, explores beyond the basics, focuses in on the non-abstract, and not just rendering (E.g. How to paint water).
- Background Tutorial Part 1, Sketching and Planning, Part 2 by @ghostchiryou
▪️ Although this does talk about how to construct a background, I placed these links here as the tips mentioned in Part 1’s Planning section are very useful to think about! - (Art Tutor) How to Choose the Best Background for Your Artwork by Bob Davies
Background Tutorials by Thomas Romain
- Digital Interior Design
- Detailed Buildings
- Street Design
- Eye level in Scenes
- Shadows in backgrounds
- Lens types
- “How to draw characters in your layout, at the right size”
- Eye level position
- How to draw street slopes
- “How to use photographic material as a layout to help you draw a futuristic city”
- “From the animator’s layout to the final background”
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