Building Sentinels: Crafting a Retro Sci-Fi Universe in Blender and Plasticity
Sandro Bonfanti discussed the hard surface project, Sentinels, which is focused on storytelling and world-building. He explained the story, its inspirations, and how it was visually developed using a retro style for the masks and equipment of each district.
Introduction
Hi, my name is Sandro Bonfanti, and I'm a Senior Hard Surface Artist with more than six years of experience in the video game industry. Over the years, I've contributed to projects such as Apex Legends, Rainbow Six Siege, and Disney Speedstorm. Alongside my professional work, I've always had the desire to create an original universe of my own, something that could exist beyond a single artwork or render.
That idea eventually evolved into Sentinels, a retro sci-fi visual story I began developing through a series of personal 3D explorations shared on social media. What started as a standalone render slowly became the foundation for a much larger world, one that could eventually evolve into a cinematic experience, a video game, or even a film.
In this article, I'd like to share the creative process behind Sentinels, from its worldbuilding and visual identity to the workflow and artistic decisions that shaped the project.
The World of Sentinels: Time as a Resource
Sentinels takes place in the year 2073, after Earth has been devastated by an invasion from a technologically superior alien civilization. Nature has collapsed, entire cities have vanished, and humanity survives on the brink of extinction. In a final attempt to preserve civilization, the powerful Crydan family launched the Blue Whale: a colossal, ever-moving bunker train that became humanity's last refuge.
Inside the train, society is divided by a strict class hierarchy. The upper districts live in controlled comfort, while workers in the lower sectors struggle endlessly to keep the machine running. But the Blue Whale is more than a mobile sanctuary. It functions as a temporal anchor: as long as the train keeps moving, time itself continues to exist. If it ever stops, reality collapses with it.
Through the eyes of a protagonist capable of reaching back into "Old Earth," the story gradually uncovers the hidden truth behind the invasion. Each journey into the past reveals fragments of a forgotten reality shaped by political ambition, powerful dynasties, and irreversible mistakes.
Every action taken in the past leaves consequences in the present. And as the truth slowly emerges, one question remains: Is humanity fighting to survive… or simply prolonging its own collapse?
Inspiration & Visual Development
Visually, Sentinels draws inspiration from a wide range of sci-fi films, anime, and video games. One of the strongest influences behind the project is Cowboy Bebop, both the original anime and the live-action adaptation. I've always been fascinated by its balance between retro aesthetics, grounded technology, and emotional storytelling.
Other major inspirations include Snowpiercer, which heavily influenced the claustrophobic atmosphere and class-driven structure of the world, as well as Akira, whose visual language helped shape the project's retro-futuristic identity.
Rather than creating a clean or overly polished sci-fi universe, I wanted the world to feel industrial, worn, and believable, something that feels both futuristic and strangely nostalgic at the same time.
Color became an essential part of defining the project's identity. I wanted Sentinels to evoke the feeling of an "analog future": a retro vision of tomorrow built through desaturated tones, aged materials, and carefully placed neon accents.
The goal was to create something nostalgic while still maintaining a modern, high-fidelity presentation.
More recently, I began experimenting with stronger retro-inspired color palettes for the masks and equipment used by each district. This helped reinforce the visual identity of every area while also making their roles within the world easier to recognize.
Since character design is still relatively new territory for me, this unexpectedly became one of the most rewarding aspects of the entire project. I enjoy starting from a simple concept and gradually refining it into something that feels more cohesive, functional, and narratively meaningful.
One thing I learned during this process is that personal projects rarely follow a fixed direction. Sometimes a design starts with one intention and slowly evolves into something much closer to the original emotional vision you had in mind.
Production Workflow
At the beginning of the project, I approached Sentinels as if I were building assets for a real-time game production pipeline. I created optimized meshes, prepared low-poly versions, and tested everything directly inside Unreal Engine. Nomad-54 was originally developed entirely with that workflow in mind.
Over time, however, I realized the project benefited more from a concept-driven workflow focused on speed, iteration, and visual experimentation rather than strict game-ready production constraints.
Most assets begin inside Plasticity, where I establish the main shapes and mechanical language. From there, everything is transferred into Blender using the Plasticity bridge for look development, material work, and final rendering.
I rely heavily on procedural workflows inside Blender's Shader Editor, especially for plastics, painted metals, surface wear, and emissive details. This approach allows me to art-direct materials very quickly without relying on large texture libraries. Here is an example of the Shader node setup I use for translucent plastic materials inside Blender:
Rendering is done entirely in Cycles, where lighting plays a huge role in defining the nostalgic "analog future" aesthetic of the project.
Final Thoughts: The Artist's Journey
Developing Sentinels has been one of the most creatively fulfilling experiences of my career. Combining storytelling with visual development completely changed the way I approach personal work. Instead of creating isolated portfolio pieces, every asset now exists to support a larger narrative.
I genuinely encourage other artists to try building a small universe of their own, even if it starts with a single render or concept piece. The process teaches you far more than technical execution alone. It pushes you to think about storytelling, design language, mood, and emotional consistency.
Sentinels is a project I plan to continue developing in my spare time. I'm not interested in rushing the process. I simply want to keep exploring the world, improving the visuals, and sharing the journey along the way. And who knows? Maybe this is the beginning of something much bigger.
My social media:
Sentinels Art Gallery
Below is a collection of additional renders, props, and visual explorations created during the development of Sentinels.
