Behind The Scenes: Iron Man's Garage (Patreon)

As you maybe know I like to do a movie and pop culture inspired artworks. Partly it's because I have always enjoyed recreating my favorite movie stuff even as a kid. But to be completely honest, partly it's because it can attract more attention on the social media as well and bring more people to your portfolio. But there is a difference in the mere copying of something and creating unique artwork that takes the theme and brings a fresh perspective.

First of all, I always want to do my own thing. Since I often create dioramas and isometric room designs, this is my go to format for expression. But I'm not taking an existing scene and remaking it exactly. I will take some time to research and gather multiple insights and try to identify the things, that make it recognizable and special for me.

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I've set myself to explore the Iron Man's garage on Pinterest. I didn't want to create the full Stark Lab with multiple Iron Man suits and high-end equipment simply because it would take a lot of time to make. Even a single suit. Instead, I've searched for a first movie reference, where it's all raw and there are cars parked alongside some equipment. And when I saw the hot rod, I knew what I'm gonna make.

I've gathered some more images for the equipment reference and to set the mood for colors and lighting. I wanted to get close to that vibe, but give it my own signature.

The sketch was important mostly because the original garage is large, with multiple vehicles and lot of free space. To make this work as an isometric room, I needed to find the nice composition, where all the key elements are quite large to catch the eye, but at the same time there is some room to breathe. 

So you can see how the stylization can work not only with some particular model, but the composition and layout as well. You just search for the essence of the space and compress it leaving out all secondary stuff.

I've chosen the hot rod, robot hands (controlled by Jarvis), worktable with some blue glowing monitors and some more props like the toolbox. The rest was just organizing it in a way that looks pleasing. As you can see, I've changed the composition in the final render a little bit, but that's almost always the case, when everything is at place and you can see your vision with colors and lights.
That wraps the insights for the isometric Iron Man's garage illustration this week. Thanks for reading and I hope it will help you with some of your projects.

See you on the next one!