When starting out this series of blogs, dove into the following question: How do you create immersive worlds in an ecosystem different from what we are familiar with?
I wanted to explore how we can depict future, past and alien life – how far our science goes and when we need to rely on our imagination to depict these worlds. What the best method is not only translate it into fiction, but also what needs to be kept in mind to immerse our viewers.
I went about this by creating an ecosystem for a different planet – Jupiter’s moon Europa – and tried to tackle the topic through a concrete example. Hereby, I created a series of illustrations and faux biological entries on different animals and the ecosystem they live in. Originally, I wanted to use this as basis for a comic of some sorts, building up the basis for an immersive world and then introducing it through a story that’s meant to engage the viewer. As I started with this worldbuilding project though, I realized it would take up much more time than I thought in the beginning, so I cut back on the comic idea. I wanted put my focus solely on this for the time being and even then, I don’t feel like I’ve expanded upon this project to its full potential.
I’ve also received feedback on what I’ve done so far – I tried to integrate it into my last two entries, go back and see how I can fix some of the errors I made. But if I want to go about this worldbuilding project seriously, I think it’ll be good to do some more research, familiarize myself more with biology and the like so I have a better foundation to approach the subject.
How much of this will flow into the final project I’ve yet to see. It depends on what I want to create with it; a comic, an illustrated encyclopaedia, informative posters, etc.. I’m also not sure if this is the exact angle I want to use for my Master’s Thesis. So I think for this summer, my goal is to lay everything out and decide where exactly I want to take this idea.
