Today I wanted to create a street level view of Venkarigan to establish an idea for the overall aesthetic of the city itself. The city is built from the wreckage of hundreds of ships and the scavenged supplies washed up onto the shore. Larger buildings like taverns or trade markets might be built from boats that were recovered more intact that others but the majority of buildings in the city are made from driftwood and held together with nails, twine and more nails. The Ratfolk are not well known for their skill as architects as they generally don’t settle in one area for long, once a ship stops being a ship it might as well be used for shelter but they don’t see any point in trying to create impressive buildings when the driftwood itself would once have been part of something much greater in their eyes. The buildings across the island are used as homes, taverns, trading posts, warehouses and scrapyards. The construction of the city suits the mindset of the Ratfolk, there is little to no order or reason to the layout of any buildings and more maze-like alleyways than you could ever count but they find their way despite all that, using rope bridges and traversing rooftops there’s always a way in or out of anywhere.
I was happy with the overall aesthetic I managed to create here, I wanted to capture a sense of chaos in the designs of the buildings without overcrowding the composition with too much information. I am also quite pleased with the design of the former boat-turned-building as I wanted to have something make use of a figurehead as doorway decoration.