Creating a Cozy Neon-Lit Hand-Painted 2.5D Scene Using Blender

Introduction

Hello! I'm Darya Kuts, a 2D freelance illustrator from Russia. For the past seven years, I've been creating small commissions for my followers. Five years ago, I completed the From Stylizations to Cinematic course in Maya, but after a year of studying, I completely burned out.

Later, I came back to 3D – not for complex modeling, but to create quick blockouts for my illustrations. That's how I stumbled upon Aleksandr Iwaac's Blender 2.5D course. Many of the technical solutions in my project, Jawscat, came from his guidance. This style felt like the perfect match for me – a mix of drawing, simple yet striking scenes, and a relatively low barrier to entry.

Inspiration & References

I've always dreamed of finding a place that feels truly cozy, like the tavern at the start of a DnD campaign or a quiet pub out of a novel. For me, that place turned out to be Jawsspot in Kemerovo.

I started sketching the musicians there, and over time, a distinct style emerged – one I genuinely enjoy working in.

At one of the charity concerts, the bartenders wore caps and masks, and that's when it hit me: cats!

Composition

Originally, I wanted a camera flythrough of the entire bar, but to meet the deadline, I had to limit myself to just the key bar counters.

The final scene covers only about 30-40% of the actual bar space. I began with a blockout and brought it into Procreate, which made it easier to plan the lighting and roughly place the characters.

Alongside that, I worked on color drafts.

I kept testing the mix of 2D and 3D elements, trying to find the right balance.

I knew from the start that I wanted the final result to look like a rendered animation. That allowed me to skip clean topology, retopology, and UVs. I modeled in low poly, adding bevels and subdivisions when needed, as long as it looked good, ran smoothly, and didn't strain the system.

Texturing

I made sure the texture scale stayed consistent and seams were hidden.

I worked in stages: first blocking in base colors, then adding details in Photoshop, and finally painting rough, hand-painted strokes. I mostly stuck to the same few brushes to keep the scene visually consistent, slightly punk, full of detail, but not too chaotic.

Also, when importing, I sometimes encountered a white outline on some textures; I fixed it with the following settings:

Near the end, I completely reworked the wall and the lower part of the bar counters. I created a procedural brick texture, baked it, and touched it up in Photoshop. Final touches were hand-painted.

Almost all 2D textures were emissive, meaning they didn't respond to lighting, so I had to manually blend them into the overall lighting and shadow environment. I edited them in Photoshop as well.

Hand-Painting

I drew the characters in Procreate using my usual process: a sketch, line-art, base colors, shadows (Multiply), lighting (Overlay), and details. Each character had a bold background color matching their vibe.

The main reason I chose Blender was the Grease Pencil tool. It gives a fantastic effect, but you have to be careful with it.

It's better to create several separate objects than to draw everything on one layer. especially if you're adding noise, which can heavily affect performance.

Also, don't forget to check “Z Pass”—otherwise, you might run into issues during rendering!

Lighting

Right at the blockout stage, I added lighting to identify the main focal points. I kept adjusting them throughout the process.

At some point, I ran into the dreaded "Shadow Buffer Full" error.

I had to cut down on the number of lights, tweak the settings, and ended up upgrading my laptop with more RAM.

To reduce foreground contrast, I added a light fog.

Tutorial:

And, of course, what's a scene without particles? A bit of dust makes everything come alive.

Tutorial:

To add more visual interest, I added stylized reflections to certain objects.

Tutorial: 

You can see this best on the floor:

I also added a light noise outline; it gave everything a more comic-esque feel and helped unify the characters and the environment.

Tutorial:

For the camera lens, I went with a 35mm focal length; it's better for interiors than a 50mm. I used the Depth of Field setting for added depth. For Grease Pencil, DoF had to be adjusted separately; and I barely touched the compositor—just turned on Bloom.

Conclusion

The whole project took around two and a half months of my free time. Now that I'm more confident with Blender, I'm sure it would take half the time to recreate the same scene.

If you're a 2D artist, I truly recommend diving into 2.5D first as your gateway into 3D. Even if you simply separate your artwork into layers, import them into Blender, and add a few effects, the parallax alone will make the scene feel more dynamic and immersive. From there, you can naturally start learning the interface layout and basic hotkeys, and you'll know if you want to go deeper.

Thanks for reading!