Bringing ideas and stories to life is one of the core passions of concept artists, yet transforming imagination into reality requires strong design and storytelling. In this tutorial, I’ll guide you through the creative process behind Astravale – Centre of Resonance Astrum, focusing on how narrative details shape architecture, motifs and environment design.
While I’ll also cover parts of my workflow using Photoshop, Blender, and PureRef (one of the best artist resources; read our article on 'how to use the image reference tool '), this workshop primarily focuses on extracting design ideas and visual language from storytelling.
Today’s digital landscape allows artists to access learning resources and artistic tools more easily. While strong execution and efficiency remain essential within a production pipeline, what truly shapes an artist’s identity is their ability to solve problems, communicate ideas and tell stories through design. To me, ‘concept’ is about communicating ideas and solutions through ideation and storytelling, while ‘art’ becomes the language used to bring imagination to life.
Throughout this workshop, I’ll share my approach to ideation, research, and the development of design language through shape exploration, architecture, motifs, spatial composition, and atmosphere to create emotionally grounded environments. My goal is to show how storytelling and design choices can reinforce the identity, culture and emotional tone of a fictional world.
01. How story establishes worlds
Establishing a story helps define the world we aim to create. During this stage, I focus on three foundations: function and occupation (what/who), culture (where) and time period (when). These elements shape the world’s identity and design direction. For Astravale, I wanted to create a European city shaped by cosmic order, where wisdom and technology draw inspiration from the sun, moon and stars during a steampunk era.
Based on these foundations, I further develop keywords that help define the project’s visual identity. For Astravale, the sun, moon, stars and time became the core themes, reflecting a society shaped by astronomical knowledge and cosmic beliefs. Since wisdom plays an important role in the city, I chose to focus on designing Astravale’s central academy hub, a place where knowledge, politics and celestial symbolism coexist within the architecture.
02. Gathering visual references
Reference gathering is one of the most important stages of my workflow, as strong design often grows from thoughtful research and ideation. Building a visual library helps establish the project’s artistic foundation and design language. Using keywords such as neo-classical architecture, Art Deco motifs, and celestial graphic design, I collect both direct references for contextual accuracy and indirect references for shape, atmosphere, and symbolic inspiration that influence the final environmental design.
03. Exploring architectural language
I begin exploring architectural sketches by focusing on large shapes and primary structures first, especially the hero building. This helps define the visual language for the rest of the environment, including secondary buildings and smaller set dressings such as streetlights. For sketching, I mainly use Photoshop’s default brushes, with slight adjustments, to quickly explore shapes, proportions, and silhouette variations.
04. Developing symbolic motifs
Graphic motifs play a key role in establishing a culture’s identity, as humanity has long used art to communicate beliefs and values. During this stage, I explore symbols and motifs that reflect the story and themes of my world. I experiment with different shapes that can fit various architectural elements, such as pillars. After sketching, I refine the designs using Photoshop’s default round brush and shape tools.
05. Finding the right composition
After developing the environment elements, I create rough thumbnail sketches to establish the focal point and guide the viewer’s eye through the scene. During this stage, I also use 3D for simple blockouts to explore layouts and compositions that best communicate the story. I avoid focusing on details too early, prioritising the overall silhouette, visual balance and larger shapes to strengthen the scene’s cinematic readability and atmosphere.
06. Sketching with 3D
This is where the project begins moving into 3D using Blender. To achieve stronger perspective, scale, and structural consistency, I approach the workflow as an environment artist by planning modular building parts such as bases, pillars, windows, and hero structures. This helps maintain both asset organisation and visual consistency throughout the scene. Rather than creating perfect models, I treat 3D as another form of sketching used to explore design ideas efficiently.
07. Thinking like Lego
The next stage is assembling the modular assets, almost like building with Lego. I experiment by repeating, rotating and combining elements to create variations for buildings and environment props. I usually begin with the main structure before expanding into surrounding buildings based on earlier sketches. In Blender, organising assets into clearly named collections helps maintain a cleaner workflow and makes scene management much easier during production.
08. Planning the environment
This stage feels similar to urban planning. I begin by blocking in the environment with simple shapes to establish the landscape, focal points, and building placement. Starting with rough townscape blockouts around the hero structure, I divide the environment into functional zones to determine suitable buildings and set dressings. I also consider material contrast between zones, such as nature versus man-made elements, to strengthen composition and create visual variety throughout the environment.
09. Composing the final scene
With the planned environment in place, I begin assembling the final scene using the established blockouts, zones, and modular assets. Terrain can be modelled manually or with purchased assets when needed. During detailing and set dressing, I imagine walking through the environment as if living inside the world itself. Thinking about the audience’s journey through the space helps create believable compositions, storytelling moments and environmental interactions throughout the scene.
10. Setting up cinematic shots
This is the final stage before polishing the artwork. For cinematic keyframes, I focus on capturing as much visual information as possible through wider camera lenses
(18–50mm). I prefer using a 2.35:1 ratio because it presents the environment on a more cinematic scale. When choosing shots, I imagine walking through the city as a visitor, asking myself which views best communicate the world’s atmosphere and story.
11. Bringing renders into Photoshop
With the final camera view selected, I render the scene and enable the Mist Pass to help manage depth and distance. I export the image as a PNG with RGBA colour, 16-bit colour depth and low compression for cleaner results. I then import everything into Photoshop, where the mist layer is useful for selecting different distance zones through greyscale values, helping improve atmospheric control during the paint-over process.
12. Enhancing atmosphere and details
This is the stage where I bring my artistic personality into the scene. Since raw 3D renders can feel too clean or perfect, I use Photoshop paint-overs, texture brushes, and photobashing to add imperfections, atmosphere and material variation. Elements such as erosion, colour and value adjustments help reinforce the world’s history and mood. For this project, I chose a semi-realistic style with painterly skies to strengthen the artistic direction.
13. Artistic final touches
Once I’m satisfied with the overall scene, I add final touches to strengthen the atmosphere and visual consistency. Using layer modes such as Overlay, Screen and Multiply, I adjust tone, lighting and mood across the keyframes. I also paint additional atmospheric effects to enhance depth and immersion. To finalise the artwork, I apply subtle noise and chromatic aberration, helping the image feel more cinematic and resemble a real captured screen.
