Post Apocalyptic Vehicle - Initial Mood boards + Visual Direction

Now that my high concept has been defined, I can explore the avenues in my high concept visually to create a atlas that will inform my blue sky sketching. The first thing I felt I needed to nail was the environment that my vehicle will be in, since I am not from Scandinavia and having a wealth of imagery for what will be one of core obstacles of my concept is key.

Environment Mood board

In this mood board I focused on what the Scandinavian wilderness in particular looks like, and a majority of the areas are either open fields with bumps and rocks scattered, or are Fjords with tall trees either side. I searched for environments from the game Horizon Zero Dawn in order to get reference of both snowy mountains and tribal settlements similar to what I expect my concept world to have (mostly wooden structures), and has very little infrastructure other than trodden paths. From this, I know that my vehicle needs to be an off road vehicle with a protected underside from rocks, and potentially needs to be raised suspension because of crossing fjords.

I also looked at Viking environment concepts to see if there were any structural commonalities that I could draw from, and to help build up what the main base would look like as Viking-Tribal. Most of these structural patterns were arches and tall rooves, as well as statues of gods in stone. I may use this inference as a extra step and to make a basic environment/garage for my vehicle to sit in once I have designed it, and it helps give a lot of context as to the level of tech for my tribe.

Next, I needed to define some of the scenario limitations that will impact the functionality of the vehicle:

Scenario Restrictions mood board

In this mood board, I explored a key concept I wanted to show: Renewable fuel production. The core idea was using solar power and water to create hydrogen fuel, so I looked at implementation of solar panels on vehicles first. This led me down the path of looking at flexible solar panels, and the creation of artificial leaves. These leaves have been theorized to be used to fake ivy on buildings or to make artificial solar house plants, and the overlapping of the artificial leaves reminded me of army camouflage nets. I think I will explore both large panels on the roof of the vehicle, and smaller leaf shaped panels to act as camouflage on the vehicle. I also looked at rainwater collection, and this didn't lead anywhere particularly exciting. Most rainwater collection is done with large underground tank systems or through garden water butts with gutter systems, so I may add a large tank and subtle gutter system on the vehicle but this will be secondary to the solar panels. The idea is simply to give an idea that the vehicle can produce its own, but the main base would have most of the production running full time.

I also did some research into how feasible solar power is in countries like Sweden and how they currently mitigate any problems, and came across an article stating that a area around the Baltic sea's Gulf of Bothnia is actually sunnier than Germany (Solar Power at the Arctic Circle, 2011) , which makes solar power a lot more feasible than I expected.

Finally, I researched what Norse mythological aspects I could add to the vehicle since the cause of the world's destruction was a mythological event, and I assume the characters in my concept would follow this religion fanatically in order to have survived the Ragnarok cataclysm.

Norse Mythology Mood Board

I found it surprisingly hard to find varied references to use on this board, as there is not much concrete or understood about old Norse mythology since the Christianization of Scandinavia wiped out most of information apart from rune stones and stories that made there way especially into Germany. What I did find was some repetition of the Algiz (protection) symbol which I plan on using as engravings or viewing holes in the armour of the vehicle, and some other more complex shapes that could inform the patterns. I thought the Web of Wyrd symbol looked fitting for the shapes of the solar panels on the car for instance, or for a banner to put somewhere. The naming of the protection rune of "Elk" also made me think about putting an elk skull on the car as an extra tribal touch. 

The twin ravens have stories of Vikings using ravens as scouts when sailing, as the ravens would fly to find land for he sailors and were often meant to be Odin's scouts that reported back to him, so some crow feathers, skulls and other imagery will also be used.

I was interested in how Viking weapons could be implemented onto the vehicle too, as aggressive shapes to act as spikes keeping the Draugr horde away for instance.
These runes and symbolism will make their way to inform the shapes of my design drastically, so I will refer to this page frequently for inspiration.

The next step is beginning the concepting of the vehicle itself, perhaps making a mood board of types of off road vehicles and rally cars to then use when blue sky sketching.

References:

nordicenergy.org. 2011. Solar Power at the Arctic Circle. [online] Available at: <https://www.nordicenergy.org/article/solar-power-at-the-arctic-circle/> [Accessed 13 November 2021].