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Description
Theme Music and Video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8FPz8…

The Infinite Village is a grand design concept that stretches across a continent, a continuous village that is never more than a few hundred feet wide and is often only a road with houses and other small buildings on either side. Gates separate distinct regions from each other, and also from forest and wildlife preserves which line either side of the village. Each gate is a work of art in itself, incorporating stone, brick, wrought iron, terra cotta, and other details. Every adult has a key, and the key operates all the gates. When a child grows up, they receive a key in a special ceremony, and are thereby granted access to all the rest of the village outside of their own section, as well as forest preserves.

Crime is almost non-existent, since life is very good for all villagers, so safety is mostly related to walks in the forest and possible contact with animals. The village has fields with mixed crops, dairies, chicken coops, orchards, and other agriculture arranged all around it continuously. Food is plentiful. It is traditional along all parts of the Infinite Village to put baskets of easy to eat produce such as fruits and nuts out along the walking paths for locals and travelers to munch on as they walk.

Each distinct region has a unique architecture controlled by a grand master of architectural design, who is mature, wise, talented, considered a master builder, and hand chosen by a special council. He or she is in charge of designing many of the buildings, as well as appointing junior architects of merit to design some structures. The building style and construction materials is governed by availability of local materials, with limited use of anything non-regional, the climate in the region, and any special considerations needed for strength and safety, such as consideration of earthquakes, forest fires, storms, etc. Special emphasis is placed on "verticality" to achieve highly desirable visual beauty and optimum density. Most buildings should be between 2 to 4 stories tall, plus towers, steeples, etc.

Safe and peaceful travel experiences are paramount to the people of the Infinite Village. Special emphasis is placed on pedestrian travel, bike paths, and travel by horseback. Cars and trucks are considered a necessary evil and use of such is strictly limited. The village is built for people, not cars! Some segments of the village are deliberately primitive and feature obsolete transportation modes and other old-fashioned technology such as electric street cars for travel between regions, small steam engines pulling 5 to 10 cars, water wheels, wind mills, hot air balloons, etc.

As a piece of art, The Infinite Village is not only a grand architectural concept, but a test bed for my own skills as an artist, as it incorporates a number of themes that I've been tinkering with over the last year or so, including elaborate and detailed villages based mostly on Northern European town architecture but also borrowing bits and pieces of Asian, Scandinavian, fantasy, and other styles of architecture, steampunk and fantasy-inspired female fashions, beautiful mountain ranges, especially those of the American Southwest, dramatic skies and clouds, landscaping plants, trees and forests, domestic animals, and finally, still life scenes. As such, it represents an intense challenge to effectively blend all these disparate elements and weave them into a seamless whole, all the while expressing a complex architectural and social philosophy, and, hopefully, keeping things focused by not over-complicating the scene.

This drawing is quite small, on a 8 and half by 11 inch piece of paper, done mostly in very sharp lighter pencils such as H through 4H, with just a little bit of HB, especially in the foreground. All the architecture is fantasy, completely designed by me. The young ladies outfits are designed by me. The mountains are influenced by those found in New Mexico. The dogs are sketches of my own dogs, drawn just a wee bit smaller along side the young ladies than they actually are. The one to the left is a chocolate labrador retriever, the one to the right a mix, possibly boxer with Rhodesian ridgeback.

This is a work in progress and I might be updating this file in the future. It will get more detailed and shaded darker. Enjoy!

Note: File changed on 4-4-2016
Larger file size, better quality, substantial shading and additional definition since last file submission.

Description
Theme Music and Video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8FPz8…

The Infinite Village is a grand design concept that stretches across a continent, a continuous village that is never more than a few hundred feet wide and is often only a road with houses and other small buildings on either side. Gates separate distinct regions from each other, and also from forest and wildlife preserves which line either side of the village. Each gate is a work of art in itself, incorporating stone, brick, wrought iron, terra cotta, and other details. Every adult has a key, and the key operates all the gates. When a child grows up, they receive a key in a special ceremony, and are thereby granted access to all the rest of the village outside of their own section, as well as forest preserves.

Crime is almost non-existent, since life is very good for all villagers, so safety is mostly related to walks in the forest and possible contact with animals. The village has fields with mixed crops, dairies, chicken coops, orchards, and other agriculture arranged all around it continuously. Food is plentiful. It is traditional along all parts of the Infinite Village to put baskets of easy to eat produce such as fruits and nuts out along the walking paths for locals and travelers to munch on as they walk.

Each distinct region has a unique architecture controlled by a grand master of architectural design, who is mature, wise, talented, considered a master builder, and hand chosen by a special council. He or she is in charge of designing many of the buildings, as well as appointing junior architects of merit to design some structures. The building style and construction materials is governed by availability of local materials, with limited use of anything non-regional, the climate in the region, and any special considerations needed for strength and safety, such as consideration of earthquakes, forest fires, storms, etc. Special emphasis is placed on "verticality" to achieve highly desirable visual beauty and optimum density. Most buildings should be between 2 to 4 stories tall, plus towers, steeples, etc.

Safe and peaceful travel experiences are paramount to the people of the Infinite Village. Special emphasis is placed on pedestrian travel, bike paths, and travel by horseback. Cars and trucks are considered a necessary evil and use of such is strictly limited. The village is built for people, not cars! Some segments of the village are deliberately primitive and feature obsolete transportation modes and other old-fashioned technology such as electric street cars for travel between regions, small steam engines pulling 5 to 10 cars, water wheels, wind mills, hot air balloons, etc.

As a piece of art, The Infinite Village is not only a grand architectural concept, but a test bed for my own skills as an artist, as it incorporates a number of themes that I've been tinkering with over the last year or so, including elaborate and detailed villages based mostly on Northern European town architecture but also borrowing bits and pieces of Asian, Scandinavian, fantasy, and other styles of architecture, steampunk and fantasy-inspired female fashions, beautiful mountain ranges, especially those of the American Southwest, dramatic skies and clouds, landscaping plants, trees and forests, domestic animals, and finally, still life scenes. As such, it represents an intense challenge to effectively blend all these disparate elements and weave them into a seamless whole, all the while expressing a complex architectural and social philosophy, and, hopefully, keeping things focused by not over-complicating the scene.

This drawing is quite small, on a 8 and half by 11 inch piece of paper, done mostly in very sharp lighter pencils such as H through 4H, with just a little bit of HB, especially in the foreground. All the architecture is fantasy, completely designed by me. The young ladies outfits are designed by me. The mountains are influenced by those found in New Mexico. The dogs are sketches of my own dogs, drawn just a wee bit smaller along side the young ladies than they actually are. The one to the left is a chocolate labrador retriever, the one to the right a mix, possibly boxer with Rhodesian ridgeback.

This is a work in progress and I might be updating this file in the future. It will get more detailed and shaded darker. Enjoy!

Note: File changed on 4-4-2016
Larger file size, better quality, substantial shading and additional definition since last file submission.