Wall Street: Gomorrah of the USA
Three major of things inspired me during the process of creating this illustration.
I recently came across an old calendar of M.C Escher’s work. I loved his use of optical illusions and specifically his use of the Penrose Staircase, an object that cannot exist in a 3D space.
Secondly Martin Scorsese's film : The Wolf of Wall Street. I loved his depiction of the stock brokers as debaucherous misfits living life on the edge despite having all the responsibility of safe keeping millions of investments.
Lastly I wanted to stay clear of the more realistic style I'd become accustomed to and try a more stylized feel in a more simplistic design direction. Overall I wanted it to be a tongue-in-cheek depiction of the Wall Street scene.
A quick render of the night scene concept I ended up scrapping
I began by building the staircase and trying to get the technique right from there. After I had my camera set up from a fixed angle I started expanding the scene and always refering back to my original shot so's not to mess up the illusion.
Here one can see how the illusion works. Note how heavily it relies on the camera angle and focal point.
