How this digital artist uses kitbashing to save brainpower for the fun, creative stuff

Sebastian Luca is a senior concept artist from Romania who treats kitbashing like a sport. He throws together models, sculpts and wild ideas until something cool sticks. Sometimes the technique works, and the rest of the time the results end up as abstract experiments.

We asked Sebastian about his process for creating the piece below, which shows a flying lemonade stand in a dystopian cityscape. If you're inspired and need tools for your own work, see our picks of the best digital art software and the best 3D modelling software.

Kitbash the groundwork; that's Sebastian's philosophy for pieces like the digital art above. “I’d recommend kitbashing everything, as it skips the technical drudgery and leaves you with more brainpower for the fun, creative stuff,” he suggests.

“This piece started as a chill doodle-fest where I kitbash shapes and ideas until something vaguely coherent emerges,” he says of this piece of art. “That’s how I ended up with an overly ambitious lemonade stand floating in a dystopian cityscape.

“The process itself is straightforward: I grab generic models from the market, kitbash them into something larger, and model the custom details myself using 3DCoat and Blender.”

For this particular sketch, he rendered everything in KeyShot, though Unreal Engine is usually his go-to (see our guides to the best game development software and the best rendering software).

You can see more of Sebastian's work on his ArtStation profile.

For more inspiration, see our feature what is concept art? Also check out this Blender sketch that people can't believe is 3D.

This article originally appeared in ImagineFX. Subscribe to ImagineFX to never miss an issue. Print and digital subscriptions are available.