Turning Post-Soviet Dacha Into Mech-Inspired Space

Introduction

I'm a Concept Artist from Belarus. I started in CG at Wargaming as a promo artist, and I've been freelancing since 2017. At first, it was mostly illustrations, matte paintings, and atmospheric concepts. For a long time, I worked on Warhammer 40,000 illustrations. I started doing concept art specifically in game development, which is what interests me most, around 20.

From 2020 on, I worked on a large AAA project for several years, but unfortunately, it was shut down. Sadly, I can't disclose what I'm working on now, or for the past few years, due to an NDA. But in my free time, I sometimes try to do personal projects. I'll tell you about one of them, Dacha.

The Dacha Project

The idea didn't come together right away. I wanted to make some huts and buildings on a broken robot. But initially, I didn't know what setting it would be. Sci-fi, tribal, or something like that. Since this is a personal project, and I did it in between jobs, everything was very drawn out. This often happens. Ideally, I would have dedicated several full days to the project, but that wasn't possible.

I'm not an expert on mechs, and when the idea popped into my head, I decided to look at references, browse Pinterest, and throw them into a folder. I made a few scribbles with a pen in a notebook. And then I modeled a robot blank in 3D. Sometimes I collected references for the intended mood and atmosphere. But as I say, it was all drawn out, and ideas changed.

Since I'm not very good at creating bright, cheerful scenes, I decided it would be a good challenge to make something bright and cheerful. And when I came to this decision, it became clearer to me what setting to work in. You know, the sun, the village, the vegetable garden, it's all optimistic, not gloomy. I made different sketches in different moods, but decided to go with a brighter, most cheerful one.

Workflow

I slightly modified the robot and its structures in 3DCoat and threw the model into Blender. I don't think it's worth stopping at the modeling process, as it's an auxiliary process. I was simply creating a base for the future concept. The model is quite rough, but it looks good. That's enough. This particular work didn't represent a scene where it would be practical to assemble an asset of ready-made elements, so I modeled it as a whole object. However, some details were separate to allow for some flexibility in subsequent scene construction in Blender.

In Blender, I placed the objects, set the lighting, and added materials. I like to do this right away so I can see how everything works together. It doesn't have to be perfect, but just to get an acceptable overall look. At this stage, I took a few screenshots and quickly overhauled them in Photoshop. I ended up with several color options. In some, I used Photoshop, and in others, I worked more with brushes. But I always tried to use one main reference for the atmosphere, it's important.

Then I showed the sketches to my wife, and we chose the one we both liked. I then went back to Blender and slightly modified the scene. I used some ready-made Sketchfab and BlenderKit models, which really helped.

I'll also add that composition is important to me. I always try to ensure the shot is harmonious and balanced, so that the chosen angle highlights the subject. The most important thing is unity and integrity. All elements of the composition should work in the same direction, serving the expressiveness and the idea you've chosen. Different compositional schemes, rules of thirds, guidelines, the golden ratio, etc., all of this should be in your head.

I wouldn't say this piece is particularly technically accurate; I wanted to get it done and post it. So I used both Photoshop and brushes. It's not perfect in places, but it's appropriate for the concept, although it could have been polished a bit more.

I'll go back to the beginning a bit. I need to talk about the word "dacha" itself. It's a very authentic phenomenon in the post-Soviet space. People were given small plots of land, and they built garden houses on them. No heating, no toilets, just cold water and electricity. They worked and lived in these houses in the summer and came back on weekends. Now, of course, things have changed a bit. But a dacha is precisely that kind of place without amenities where you come and dig in the garden beds all weekend. You don't live there; the house is only for spending the night. Usually, such houses are located next to each other, and the neighbors are also nearby, there are no fences between the plots, but in my case, the house is single, and the neighbor's is visible only in the distance.

Conclusion

Typically, this kind of work takes four days. Gathering references and rough modeling is one day, and the second day is assembling the scene and sketches. Then I refine the scene a bit, render, and overpaint. Four days, sometimes five. But in some cases, things turn out faster. But that's the ideal scenario; in this case, the work stretched out over several months, maybe even half a year. The sketches sat in a drawer for a long time. But if you put it all together, I think it would still take four days or so.

Now I'll talk about the most important things: which lessons and books helped me. I can recommend Shaddy Safadi's YouTube tutorials. Jama Jurabaev has perfect courses for Blender and 3DCoat for Concept Artists. Books by Edgar Payne and Andrew Loomis will also be very helpful.

Sergey Vasnev, Concept Artist

Interview conducted by Amber Rutherford