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:
