Creating a Dieselpunk Bar Interior Concept with Blender & Photoshop

Introduction

Greetings! My name is Nikita Gritsun, and I am a Concept Artist in the video game industry. My main education is in Project Management, but I decided to switch careers almost immediately after I completed my Master's Degree. I started studying concept art in 2016 and have been working since 2018. Most of my projects have been concentrated around start-up and mobile games projects. Lately, I have been trying to expand my skillset and break into the AA-AAA sector.

I used SketchUp when I started as a supplement to my concept work, and I started learning and using Blender heavily in 2022, taking the Blender for Concept Art class at CGMA. Since then, Blender has become my top tool for developing concepts, and I also have some knowledge in 3DCoat and Substance 3D Painter. 

Inspiration & References

I have decided to spend the summer of 2025 expanding my portfolio, and one of the most important projects I can do as an environment concept artist is to deliver a functioning, working environment, showing that I can work with both big keyshots and smaller size props breakdowns and callouts, as well as with both exteriors and interiors. It's quite a list.

The inspiration strangely came from my family's orange cat named Diesel (nicknamed Bulochka, which can be translated as Bun), and I thought that the name Diesel Cat Pub has a nice ring to it. A building like a pub (or any public place with a clear function, restaurants, smithy, church, etc) is a good choice for a portfolio project, as it is something that can be easily recognizable by the viewer, and those kinds of buildings still have space for you to solve interesting design problems.

Another important aspect for concept artists is the ability to solve problems. When we are working on our stuff, we have to make those problems for ourselves. I decided to go with a dieselpunk city aesthetic, inspired by games such as Bioshock, Dishonored, and Nobody Wants to Die. I also wanted to make it a tall, corner building, while retaining that old-style look of a pub you can find in the UK or Europe. So that was the first problem I had to solve – mix the styles in a coherent way, and make an establishment that is usually only one to two stories tall into a five- to six-story building. The corner building also made an interesting problem to solve in the interiors, as the triangle-shaped space is unusual.

When I gather references, I try to collect as much as possible from the real world. I looked at corner buildings, traditional pubs, modern sports bars, some 1940-1950s tech (that's how I came up with the tube delivery system of drinks and food), and some old diesel trains for aesthetics. I also always look up a lot of diagrams to see how things are built and spaces are organised.

Overall references:

Main references for interiors:

Examples of diagrams I collect:

Composition & Blockout

The number of floors and their rough assignment were decided during the development of the exterior. Often in movies and games, exteriors and interiors are not aligned one-to-one, as the viewer will likely not notice the difference, or there is a loading screen in between. However, I wanted to challenge myself and make the whole space interconnected, thinking about games where you can explore a space both outside and inside without interruption.

Initial plan blockout: 

When I got to the second part of my project, I started blocking out the space, looking at various diagrams of restaurants and pubs. I did not like the first iterations as they felt hamfisted with the triangular shape of the building, and later decided to lean into the triangle motif, and have the central bar and sitting layout follow it.

Blockouts variants:

Then, I tried out different visuals for the spaces, modeling various shape languages quickly and roughly, treating it like a sketch. At this stage, I also start using materials. My goal with those is to research designs, without committing to any of them yet, and to try out different mood and color combinations.

Iterations:

I like to approach my Blender files like I would do with 2D media in terms of iterations. I make several variants in the same file to compare them and choose which one I would like to carry on with, taking screenshots and overpainting them as well. I call my early Blender files "workshops," where I would have different variants and options lying around for me to look at quickly. 

Here is my timelapse for the first-floor night scene, from blockout to Photoshop: 

Creating Assets

Blockouts are also good because when you are done with them, you now have a list of assets you need to make. Blockouts help go past the "clean page" problem, because now you have a plan made out of white boxes, and you need to replace all those boxes with visuals.

In terms of modelling, I keep it rough and loose. My job is not to create production-ready 3D assets, but concepts. And in concepting, I want to move as quickly as I can, without getting lost in the technical aspects. So my topology would look like a mess (sorry to any 3D artists reading this, love you guys), and UVs are not proper, but as long as the final visuals meet my needs for the concept's purpose, it's good. I can also always finish up and correct the 3D concepts in Photoshop, by paintover or photobash. No need to be restricted by one tool, I like to mix mine to get the best result in the shortest time.

My dark secret, ugly topology:

Finishing up in Photoshop:

Work in Blender

In terms of tools, I try to keep it as simple as possible without overbloating it. I use the BoxCutter/Hard Ops add-on to streamline some Blender modifiers such as mirror, arrays, adding edge loops, etc. 

I break down my designs into smaller pieces as much as possible for ease of modelling and changes. I think a lot of beginner concept artists in 3D try to make complex shapes from a single cube (I did too), but I say divide it where you can to make the job easier. 

Another favorite add-on of mine is Group Pro to make collection instances faster. 

When it comes to texturing, I keep it simple. I use textures.com and a collection of textures I have collected or made over the years. I use a simple method of utilizing a mix shader to add different details, edges, grunge, etc, approaching it similarly to how you would approach layers in Photoshop. 

For UV, I usually use either Cube Unwrap or Project from View. If the design permits it, I would also use phototextures with a project from view unwrap method. I also make my own texture sheets and combine them with a project from view method to make posters, screens, and even whole buildings for backgrounds. 

Another trick I use is adding a displace modifier, using either noise, clouds, or musgrave texture to give my models a slightly uneven look, breaking up the straight-edge 3D feeling in some places. 

Modeling & Kitbashing

In terms of kitbashing, I try to use it as little as possible, and design as much as I can myself (since it is my job as a concept artist after all). Do not get me wrong, kitbashing is great and is used in production, but for practicing concept art, I try to design (and therefore model) as much as I can myself. My rule lately, if I want to make an important portfolio piece, I would only kitbash characters and less important, secondary stuff that I do not need to design, such as cutlery, trash, food, some common items, etc.

Red outlines of kitbash pieces that I own or are free, not made by me:

Strangely, designing the lavatory was the most fun part for me. It's just not something you see done very often (because yeah, it is not a cool, epic, beautiful room), but someone has to do it, right? I think I had fun with it because I had to fit it into the whole aesthetic, and I even tried to play the sports bar angle with TVs being hung on top of the pissoirs (I am rather sure I saw it being real in some UK pub, so I looked up some references).

Presentation, Rendering & Lighting

To make my designs cohesive, I need to make design rules for myself and follow them. Regarding materials, I had two main materials - metal green and wood brown, one of them being dominant and the other one being secondary, depending on the prop. Bronze was used as an accent material.

Materials balance:

In terms of shapes, I tried to avoid harsh 90-degree angles where I can, and use various curves as transitional elements. I also try to repeat shapes and design decisions in different areas. I don't need each part of the environment to be 100 percent unique; it is good to reuse your previous decisions in shapes and materials to make the area more cohesive.

Shapes language examples:

When I set up the presentations, I ask myself what I want to convey. Sometimes concept artists will try to do too much in one image, but 3D gives you an amazing opportunity to quickly come up with several images to show off different aspects of your design.

For example, in the day concept, I wanted to show the space, so I made it day hours, not a lot of people, roombas cleaning the room, main lights going through the windows. The goal is to show more of the pub interior, while still giving it more life. The lights outline the central area, leading up to the bar and people having a drink with the bartender.

In the night scene, I wanted to show what it could look like during busy hours. As now I did not mind covering part of architecture and space design, I was setting up the crowd to try and feel natural, some people having discussions, some rowdy crowd on the left, people watching sport on the right, and a lady playing with the cat as kind of a central point, positioned roughly according to the rule of thirds. Light-wise, I changed it to interior lights, and tried to use the lights as a guiding point for the viewer around the image, trying to capture a more chaotic nature of a night in a pub.

And in my 360 shots, I wanted to show the space from the first-person view, imagining if it was a game, so I stuck to day-time, less busy hours again. 360 degrees concepts are very fun to make, especially using 3D. I say if my work is 3D heavy already, why not take this chance to do an extra piece and try to immerse the viewer into my work.

I also made this quick video for other social media (recorded me moving around the panorama), where posting 360 panoramas is impossible.

Conclusion

It took me around 11 weeks to complete this project. The main challenges for me are always the first steps – making iterations, and solving various design problems. It is also the most rewarding part. After those problems are solved, it's just a question of dividing the workflow and working on the space one prop at a time.

This project also helped me to iron out my pipelines, breaking up complicated spaces into smaller tasks to tackle.

Advantages of Using Blender

I think Blender is a useful tool in environment concept art as I can visualize the space in 3D, making it more tangible. It is also beneficial if I get to work with level blockouts from the Level design team, as I can design using real-life game measurements, gameplay rules, and space layouts.

It's also a useful tool for production, as I can get a lot of value out of one model, even if it's very rough, as I can rotate it, zoom in, zoom out, and produce concept pages needed for production faster.

One thing I would advise concept artists going into 3D is to "keep your shoulders loose." Remember that your job is to design and make decisions; remember all your design principles and core skills. Do not get lost in technical details and complicated pipelines, and jump between 2D and 3D freely. I think the best approach is the one that lets you finish your design, so use 2D where 3D can't help you, and vice versa.

Tutorial Recommendations

Blender Guru is still the greatest in my opinion, good to start going, and I recommend his videos for beginners to understand at least the basics of Blender, for example, texturing:

Max Hay also has a nice collection of easy-to-grasp tutorials, usually concerning lights, atmosphere, and overall render quality.

And I enjoy looking through BlenderVitals occasionally as they have very quick tips on all aspects of Blender, and I always find myself some advice on how to do some things faster or more efficiently.

Nikita Gritsun, Environment Concept Artist