How to Design a Frozen Chalet Inspired by the Slavic Architecture

Introduction

My name is Gabriel Nagypal. I'm a Senior Environment Concept Artist based in Slovakia. I have been working on games and movies for more than 7 years. I was privileged to work on titles like World of Warcraft: The War Within, Diablo Immortal, V Rising, Wonder Woman, Project LAX, and many more titles that haven't been announced yet.

I love the craft of designing unique and magical places. My favourite genre is fantasy, I love nature from my heart, and nothing can be better for me than designing new and original landscapes or interiors with a strong emphasis on storytelling. I cannot describe how grateful I am for the place I was born in. I was privileged to grow up near the deep forests where I spent from dusk to dawn playing in the wild.

I can vividly remember building wooden tree houses, small underground shelters where I could sleep over with friends, or how we created a dam to raise the water level so we could jump into the water from bigger heights. For a child like me, it was a great playground to have no limitations to be creative. I also played a lot of video games during winter times.

During my studies at art school, I have rekindled my passion for environments. Originally, I wanted to work as a character animator, but after experiencing The Last of Us and seeing the trailer for Uncharted 4, I found a path to follow. From that time, I was always captivated by the breathtaking Interiors and exteriors in real life or video games.

From the start of the autumn of 2025, I'm trying to find a way to create personal paintings after client work. Basically, how to find time and resilience to create instead of watching TV shows, movies, or playing games with friends. For the last few years, I was able to create portfolio pieces only when I dedicated some time off from work to do something useful.

I tried several techniques, but one of them stuck with me the most. Set up a limitation on what kind of mythology I will do, list interesting podcasts, read books about mythology, get inspired by it, and create a board of various ideas I would like to explore with my sketches. Then, during the evening, take one of the ideas and start creating whatever could fit the brief.

My goal is to have a lot of room to be creative, so in this example of doing Frozen Chalet, my idea was to explore myths and legends of Morena slavic god of death, winter, and harvest. I love winter hikes, so I wanted to use a deep snow setting with freezing temperatures. I started creating.

My goal was to just do something, not to create a masterpiece or something breathtaking, just to have fun, listen to some Slavic folk music, and get into the zone. The first few pieces were a failure, but after two, I was really happy with one I created.

It happened to be my most liked image on Instagram, so I said to myself, okay, people like it, why not go deeper and explore the focal point? The Frozen Chalet, and create an image with more thoughts, and spend not just one night on it, but a few weeks.

The Frozen Chalet

After creating the first image with Morena, I knew the story mood and setting, it would be a chalet located deep in the woods covered by the icy breath of the wild and death. You should feel snow cracking under your feet, some kind of weird feeling of something hiding behind the trees, but still, beauty and a piece of winter wilderness.

I referenced a few of the buildings from Zakopane town, located on the border between Poland and Slovakia. A place I visit many times during the year. They have a specific kind of architecture where you can feel a fairy tale touch, but still, the breathtaking craft of the local woodcarvers. I knew from the start that this building needed to be able to host several guests and travelers, so I started blocking out various shapes in a blender.

As soon as possible, I locked my camera and started designing this structure from one angle. Normally, I would design buildings like this from several angles, but this is personal work, so I want to approach this in the most efficient way possible.

The Design

My approach to designing is to simplify everything as much as possible. First, start with the most basic blockout possible is the way. Let's start with big shapes to medium, and at the end come up with details. This approach will save you several hours, and likely you will have a bigger chance of coming up with a successful design. Here is an example for starting simple:

Addons or tools I used to create intricate shapes and carved details were Circular Array, Bézier Curve, Array Modifier, and Boolean Modifier. One of the tricks I used was to place an image background behind the subject, and to use an actual photo instead of spending endless hours finding the right 3D trees for your image.

This way, you can be smart about what needs to be created in 3D and what you leave for photobashing. For snow-covered wood material, I used a simple mix of a few textures. As you can see, I did create a basic wood texture, and I'm mixing the color input with white color based on Z normal. Here is an example of a shader:

Here is an example of using a photo in Blender:

Texturing and Lighting

One of the main challenges was to decide on the lighting for this image. I had a hard time choosing how to light this chalet. Usually, at this stage, when the 3D part is almost ready, I experiment with lighting if I don't find a better way to sell the story and the design.

I asked for the opinion of a few of my friends. I trust their taste and artistic skill, so I can be certain about a choice for this image. Here is an example of color light variations:

Now is the time for the 2D Photoshop phase, I would say, my most favourite one. Here I want to bring a 3D render with flat lighting and low details to an image with harmony of photoreal areas with a lot of details and areas of rest, which look very painterly. This process is quite complicated and takes years of practice to hit the sweet spot.

Some transition areas of 3D render feel too harsh, so I'm trying to create a smooth blend between these areas. I'm always trying to zoom out from the image and check if the element that I added is helping. Also, sometimes a 3D render will give you too many details on some parts, so I need to be aware of it and simplify it.

Using a magic wand tool or selecting by color range will make your life easier. After creating a selection, I use an airbrush or something with an interesting texture. Here is an example of a final 3D render and the final render with overpaint and colorgrading:

Here is an example of last experiment for mood and light setting:

For placing photos in the image and matching the right color, I use Match color. Thanks to this tool, you can take color information from one of the layers and copy it onto your photo texture. Here is an example of match color:

Conclusion

This piece took me around two weeks of work after client work. I was really passionate about it, so I wanted weekends and time before sleep to be sacrificed for this creation to come to life. I also went on a one-day hike with my girlfriend to get some specific photos to make it more grounded in reality and capture snow-covered trees with more care.

I recommend that you go more into nature and capture the beauty around your area. Thanks to my travels, I can visually describe harsh weather much better than I would just sit on my butt the whole day looking at snowy pictures. My most valuable lesson from creating this image is to look around you more, look more closely at real-life nature, plantlife, behaviours of animals, traditions of locals, hear those made-up stories from your grandma, and visualize them.

This is what is unique about you, and use it as your strength! The most important thing for me is to start the momentum. The snowball effect is a thing, and thanks to creating something easy every other day. I was able to get to the zone dive of endless inspiration.

Thanks to this, you will enjoy suffering and will be able to create something memorable. If you would like to know more about my process, you can find a course about designing magical interiors here.

Gabriel Nagypal, Concept Artist

Interview conducted by Amber Rutherford