Stefan Große Halbuer

Nostalgia Refuge

Added 2025-02-24 15:30:03 +0000 UTC

Some new and unreleased art for you guys today!

Serif, the team behind Affinity Designer, asked me if I could create an isometric artwork in the app. I've tested and used Affinity already a while ago, and it was cool to work with it again for another drawing.

I thought it was a good opportunity to make another isometric room. For this one, I imagined what my dream apartment would have looked like in earlier years, so it's a nostalgic mashup from the glorious 90s.

The trickiest part was to create density and layers in the vertical layout, without too many overlaying elements. Of course this is no realistic interior study, but it's supposed to at least look like someone could actually live there. Maybe I'll do another artwork some time, with even more stairs and levels and go full isometric MC Escher.

Another interesting part was the lighting, as I imagined a big window on the front right side of the scene. I wanted some late afternoon natural light, and the visible windows were too small to let enough sun beams in, so I went with this:

I'm very happy with the results, however it was a lot of work figuring out the shadows. Once again I really wished for a 3D model while mapping out the shadows 😅