The assignment was to create a city illustration with several different buildings, and other elements.

I created a limited color pallet with an emphasis on soft, almost pastel colors.

First, I created assets which I would repeat to create my city. Trees were composed of a few simple and rounded shapes. The light and dark greens doubled the variation.

In order to lay out buildings in a convincing manner, I started with the ground, and marked the footprint of each building as to avoid overlapping. Different elevations creates more visual interest.

It was also at this stage that alderman were elected and district lines were drawn.

I made several building shapes which allowed for experimenting with many roof lines. Both the walls and windows have two colors to best show the direction of light.

Each cloud is built from an ellipse that I brought into perspective, then overlapped with a circle. The path finder tool allows for a convincing half sphere, and when stacked, adds more variety.

I used a gradient for the sky, and simple forms for buildings in the environment. The curved shape adds to composition, and light atmospheric perspective helps with depth.