Behind The Scenes: Dieselpunk Fly-in

There are several scenes I have yet to add to this series and one of them was drive-in cinema. I finally felt a bit low poly last week so I started to prepare the new sequel. If you're not familiar with diesel punk, it stands on the premise of dystopian futuristic setting, where old design and culture meets advanced technology. It is often mixed with war background and authoritarian regimes.

I mostly focus on the culture and technology mix, because I really enjoy design and aesthetics of the first half of 20th century. What's more, the image of vintage cars parked in the drive-in surrounded by neons is just amazing.

Wait, why are we talking about cinema, if there's a fast food joint on the render? Let's find out :D

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I started to explore some references and began by gathering some cool car ideas. I moved from 30's car designs I used before into 50's, because I had this bulky sleek coupe in mind. After that I researched some drive-in cinema and felt I need some more art deco architecture.

There were two images, that completely took over my original idea. Circular fast food place and art deco bar. I really wanted to incorporate those ideas, but it simply didn't fit, so I scratched the whole thing and decided to do a fly-in fast food. Sometimes it hurts a bit to completely change the direction, but I guess there always be time for another Cloud series render :)

I have to admit, this kind of isometric circular sketch was a lot of pain. But then again, it's not about the sketch, it's about its purpose. So I've blocked out the building a bit and broke the composition by adding up a valet parking space, so it looks a bit more interesting and connects the building with the car a little bit better.

As you can see, in the end I went for a perspective shot, but this isometric view worked very well. The only thing, that was a bit problematic, was the car angle and I didn't want to lose all the details I already created.

I was happy to see, that the combination of the fast food building, with the art deco bar on the roof really works and went ahead to create the scene in Blender.

So that's it for the latest diorama illustration and I hope it will help you in your own work.

See you in the next one! :)