First, choose the approach you want to work from. This could be of the three Yury showed during the previous chapter, or it could be an approach of your own. Don’t forget that you can apply the ‘Queen of the Night,’ ‘Turandot’ or ‘Medea’ concept to other types of architecture as well, if you don’t want to do a spy villain hideout!

From there, gather references for your design approach, and make some quick sketches to come up with an idea for the main shape of your design. You can do thees sketches in 2D or 3D (or both), but they should be very rough. You’ll have time to refine later!

Create the first blockout for your architecture. At this stage, consider the most important points: human scale, entrances and exits, main support structures and major shapes. You can add a simple material to your blockout at this point, but it’s not required.

Now it’s time to bring detail into your architecture, and take the design all the way through the final 3D. This is a large task, and everyone’s design will be different, so keep the fundamentals Yury demonstrated in mind, but make sure to take your time and meet the needs of your specific design. Have fun with this step as you continue refining!

Render out a ‘hero shot’ of your architecture and bring it all the way to a finished painting. Depending on your artwork and style, your needs for the paintover stage may vary, but do whatever is needed at this stage to create a finished ‘hero image.’

From there, you can create any supporting shots you choose, like Yury did to show off further angles of his design! Keep storytelling in mind every step of the way, and let that guide your angle, lighting, and mood choices during this stage.