I grew up surrounded by nature, one of the things I love most. I wanted make a piece that remembers me of the tranquility of living in a place like that. From the beginning my ideia was to work with 3D and create a stylized landscape full of nature.

I already had some ideas in mind, but i decided to make some sketches first before moving with the 3D. In the first sketch i was aiming for path towards the mountains with a river flowing in the middle, but it was to simple, there was no objective, no true life.
In the second sketch my idea was to make something like a cliff, we were on top of a rock watching the landscape with a small lake with a tree in the middle, almost like the literal ideia of an oasis, thats why i left this idea behind. In fact, i decided to abandon the use of water (both river and lake) because I realized that I was just thinking about this detail because in the final composition it would look nice, however, for me it didn't make sense within the "personal Oasis"

Since all my sketches are rough, i added some subtitles where i thought they were needed so that everyone understand what i was thinking and imagine.

On the third sketch i decided to add some clouds, I didn't think much about it, but when i steped back and looked again, i had a click in my mind. In the same moment i thought about Ghibli artwork with big clouds with angelic looks. I knew that i had to do something with big clouds with a heavenly looks, almost like we were entering in the sky. I always loved the sensation of being on the top of a mountain and feeling that i was entering in the sky, when we are so high that we se the clouds above us. With this in mind i knew that i had to make a calm landscape, with a path towards the cloud, the path to the perfect place to observe the big cloud on the sky. I quickly started doing my fourth sketch, in this i only add one cloud in the middle and added a couple of flowers. The sketch wasn't exactly like i wanted, but it was getting there.

In the last sketch i went for a bigger cloud, the other one was to small, i wanted something bigger, with more power. In this i tried to make the landscape a little bit less flat ,  more curves and with a composition arround the cloud, trying draws the eye to the cloud. My idea was to make a scenario that despite being natural had something human. The path was made by humans, with the rocks showing the right direction to observe nature, to in a way show that humans are living in harmony with nature, without environmental destruction.

I knew that the idea would come to life once the 3D started, I just wanted to have a sketch to guide me so I wouldn't be creating unnecessary assets (like the water that I ended up abandoning)

After this process, knowing which path to follow, it was easy to understand what where the main pieces that i would need to create: grass, flowers, rocks, trees and obviously a cloud. I start with the creation of a landscape in Unreal Engine 5 and made its material that allows me to paint in different colors and blend them depending on the strength of the tool, this is going to be really helpful later on.