The idea comes from my own preference for armoury mechanisms and the radical, simple, consequence-free solutions that humans have taken to solving problems in the last century. In more detail, this form of thinking comes from the design philosophy of World War II military ordnance. Before the invention of the targeted high-speed missile, the evaluation of the armed forces of each country was almost always “the bigger the better”.
Japan built the largest battleship in history, the Yamato, which was so large that it was called a hotel on the sea, with several kitchens and air-conditioning systems, and so luxurious that it did not look like a ship for war. Britain designed the Tortoise heavy assault tank, which was too big and thick to have enough speed to be used on a real battlefield. The United States built the B-29 Superfortress, the largest bomber in the world at the time. The worldview I designed continues this design philosophy and exaggerates it to the extreme.
Ordnance armaments were city-sized and capable of destroying a country in a single blow. You may question why this outdated, wasteful, and ridiculous design philosophy and history is continued in my work, but it is because mankind is always repeating its own mistakes, and it is because this philosophy led to the destruction of human civilisation in my story.
There are numerous films and animations using this style even way before the WW2. This idea was known as BDO (Big dumb objects) among science fiction lovers, It is used to describe any mysterious object, usually unknown origin and has immense power, in a story which generates an intense sense of wonder by its mere existence.
The idea is more liberal than the one above, it doesn’t touch on some of the more sensitive topics of today’s world, but rather aims to do the best it can in terms of graphics and design. This project is designed to simply explore the beauty and limits of 2D animation, with no storytelling requirements.
The idea came from my love of action films. My project last year was about an action scene, and I think I’ve progressed so much in this area of design that it’s time to make another one to prove my progress.