I was away yesterday, so it's gonna be a bit tight. But I don't plan to leave my desk till this is done :P

Music of choice for times like these~ 

Good luck to everyone finishing their entries today!

This is actually a few days old now, but here is the final composition. 
As I mentioned in the previous updates, I learnt aloooot of 3D, but it's nowhere near enough to proper translate the mood I have in my head into an illustration. SO back to good old freehand drawing.

I changed the comp a bit to feature a clearer fore mid and background.
Whilst there's still a lot I like about this scene, it's not capturing the feeling of a dense, organic and explorable environment quite like the one I see in my head.
I shall be drawing up some new compositions and making the final choice between the two very soon!

I messed around with a load of geo-node pipes.
honestly they feel quite random to me, and in general I'm starting to feel like 3D is an upward battle for me at the moment!
If I'm to use it properly in the future I think I need to have my designs clearly established before using 3D at all.

I learnt alot about Blenders geometry nodes, made my first procedural models and also my first 3D trees!

It was fantastic to learn these new skills, though I'm still finding it very difficult to control the 3D scene in terms of composition, colour and contrast.

I've been building lots of stuff in Blender and experimenting with the fish-eye camera. It's a little hard to use and I'm not sure if it's the direction I'll take, but it's one way to achieve this expansive view of all levels of the city

With the macro structure of the city in mind I found that coming up with interesting illustration ideas was much easier since there was now a clear goal. In this case, it was to really highlight the verticality of a city built above the 'eco bed'. The extreme angle allows for all of the layers to be shown off at once, and give a sense of immersion into the environment, as if you were there as a tourist.

My main issue however with this piece is how limited the view of the city above is.
 

Been fleshing out the world with some more concept sketches.

I've now got a much better idea of what I want to include in my final illustration, largely focussing on the tiers of the city.

Doing some colour sketches to find the vibe I'm looking for.

This was really all about making the scale feel huge. I like where it's going but I now need to find the balance between this exciting scale and the intimacy of the previous sketches

Current thoughts~

Class of kids experience and learn outside of the classroom. learning resources are quickly accessed wirelessly

The environment could be like a botanical garden, or an industrial hydroponics plant.
Either way adult workers can be shown doing the sorts of jobs the kids are learning about; interactions, teaching/showing them various skills.
 

Could include some small robots/drones. These could be used for all sorts of tasks and run on a very powerful general AI. This AI would have to run externally so the drones rely on low latency 5g internet to receive that information.

finding new ways to convey the maintenance idea 

I'm still sorting through the ideas I have for this look into the future, but one thing I want to hone in on is the human experience. In this case looking at what sort of work, relaxation etc. people would be participating in day to day.

I'll admit that this sketch is very much a proof of concept, and formed as a deliberate parody of another artwork I made recently, but the energy I want to portray holds true.

Will be sketching out more ideas soon!