The

Making of Anastasia
By Evelyn Irwin

Introduction
For our first project we were asked to create concept art for one of the cities
described in Italio Calvinos Invisible Cities. Calvinos Invisible Cities was
published in 1972 and is known to be one of his best works. The novel is about
narrator Marco Polo giving a guided tour of 55 different cities to emperor Kublai
Khan which are all imaginary and each possess unique elements that separate
them from other cities. Calvino separates these cities into 11 different categories,
such as Cities & Memory, Cities & Desire and so fourth. After reading over a
selection of the cities as a class, we were asked to read over the remaining cities
that were given to us to choose one that we would like to create concept art for.
Whilst exploring the cities, I felt most drawn to the city of Anastasia. With it
being listed in the Cities & Desire category, Anastasia is listed as being one of
the most labour orientated cities with concentric canals and varieties of
chalcedony. Through thorough research, I have gathered much inspiration for
thumbnail sketches of all the cities, and for my chosen city of Anastasia, I have
aimed to capture the appearance inside and out of the city.

Influences
Since Anastasia is a city orientated around selling Chalcedony and other wares, I
imagined its appearance being fairly similar to countries such as Austria. Although
this is not specifically described, I envisioned the city to be somewhat woodland
based due to the fact that its inhabitance of chalcedony would come from various
caves and with the prominence of caves would come the existence of mountains
and woodlands.
I also believe there are some fantastical and renaissance elements about the city,
such as the flesh of the golden pheasant cooked and the women I have seen
bathing in the pool of a garden. I also imagined that due to the kites flying over
it, Anastasia would appear to be idyllic and rustic.
However, the fact that Calvino contradicts his constructive description to be two-
sided by stating he is not telling you the citys true essence and it enjoys
everything you do not enjoy personifies the city to be overwhelming in terms of
power. Also, the fact that you enjoy Anastasia wholly when you are only its
slave depicts that it could be heavily manmade and there is no real time to enjoy
the city because of this.

Influences continued
Most of my inspiration for the Exterior shots of the city has come
from researching into the canals in Amsterdam, the irrigation through
the River Nile in Egypt and the heavily man made renaissance
elements of cities such as those in Italy. I have also researched into
panning camera angles for how to display key elements of the city.
Most of my inspiration for the interior has come from looking at the
inside of churches and wooden lodges to capture a labour orientated
atmosphere, but I also tried to add some fantastical elements to
balance out the differences in how people view the city than to what
it actually is.

Exploratory Thumbnails

Figure 1: Trying to include the

entire city in order to not leave
out any details of what Calvino
describes

Figure 2: Testing the different

angles of how to portray the city,
along with judging how much of
the outer environment to include
so it doesnt take the focus off of
the city itself.

Figure 3: Testing how the

viewer could see the whole
city, along with testing the
kinds of textures and tones
that would need to be used to
show levels and depth.

Interior shot to test placement of figures and how

to adjust tones and colours to display either
openness or seclusion

Exterior shot to display impact of canals on the

city. Also to test whether I should add bridges
within the interior low angle shot of the city

Influences for exterior establishing shot

Influences for low angle shot

Influences for interior establishing shot

Final Designs