By Alina Khan on Behind the Scenes
INTRODUCTION
Hi, folks! I'm Angela Marchesani from Italy, a teacher with a degree in architecture, a field that sparked my passion for creativity and digital innovation.
My CGI adventure began at university, where I had the opportunity to immerse myself in a wide range of graphic and design software—from Autocad to Rhinoceros, through Twinmotion and all the way to the pillars of the Adobe suite like Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects, not to mention Cinema 4D. This path allowed me to dedicate my thesis to the historical and philosophical aspects of digital representation in architecture, a field that inspires me daily.
During the last years of my university education, in the Architectural Communication course, I had the opportunity to experiment with motion graphics applied to architectural video projection mapping. This experience, first as a student and then as a tutor, not only enriched my technical knowledge but also marked a fundamental bridge towards the professional world, allowing me to work on a broader stage through digital art projected onto real architectures.
I started using Blender in 2016. Today, after a break from 3D, I have rediscovered this extraordinary software with renewed enthusiasm, which has allowed me to further expand my skills and explore new creative frontiers. Today, I define myself as an 'architectural visualiser' and '3D illustrator,’ with an unstoppable passion for motion graphics.
INSPIRATION
The inspiration comes from the intersection between European modular architecture and Eron's vibrant art, combining 3D and 2D digital techniques in a creative exercise that challenges the boundaries of architectural representation.
Modules as a creative alphabet
The project's starting point was creating a pattern of modules for a facade inspired by the modular architectures that stand out in the pages of industry magazines. Before immersing myself in the design, I set up a Pinterest boardto collect images that could serve as a visual reference vocabulary. This collection of shapes, structures, and patterns catalysed my creativity, guiding me through conceiving a facade that was not only functional but also narrative.
The mood: urban life at sunset
The idea behind the project was to capture the essence of urban life, with a particular focus on the hours of sunset, when the city is tinged with warm colours, and life flows calmly, on foot or by bike, in urban parks. This moment of the day, when the light creates contrasts and long shadows, offers a rich natural palette of inspiration to represent dynamic scenes of daily life, an entire movement.
Ink: the influence of Eron
To bring this scenario to life, I was inspired by the work of Eron, particularly his painting "Painting 24822" (spray paint on canvas, 100 x 120 cm, 2022), a perfect expression of his ability to combine photorealism with stylised figures. Eron's art, visible on his website, plays with perceptions and blurs the boundaries between reality and representation, profoundly influencing the way I chose to represent people in my urban scene: not with meticulous details, but with ink blots that capture the essence of movement and life.
A dialogue between shapes and colours
This project represents a continuous dialogue between the precision of architecture and the expressiveness of art, between the rigidity of modules and the fluidity of ink. It is an exploration that offers a new perspective on the potential of digital modelling to tell complex and vibrant urban stories.
Exploring New Creative Boundaries
This project demonstrates how digital art, through the fusion of diverse inspirations, can innovate architectural visualisation and urban design. Art evolves, offering new perspectives on cities and inhabitants and stimulating creators and observers to imagine different realities.
PROCESS
The technical specifications of my setup:
- PC laptop Dell XPS 15
- Processor: Intel® Core(TM) i7-770HQ @2.8GHz
- Ram: 16 GB
- Graphics card: Nvidia Geforce RTX 3060 connected externally with Thunderbolt 3 port
- Softwares: Blender 4 and Cycles - Affinity designer
I used Blender for modelling and rendering and Affinity Designer to draw the ink figures.
Modelling
In Blender, I modelled the various architectural modules of the building separately. This approach allowed me great flexibility, facilitating experimentation with different compositions until I found the perfect one.
Subsequently, I arranged the two buildings in a line, inserting a covered meeting place between them, an area that I wanted to function as an urban green lung and a meeting point between the structures. Despite my wishes, I had to reduce my expectations due to hardware limitations that did not allow me to insert too many polygons in the scene. Without the use of particular optimisations, I prioritised the natural objects placed in the foreground.
The digital mise-en-scène
Once the composition was defined, the next step was to position the cameras and identify the scenes. This allowed me to capture the most expressive angles and define the project's narrative point of view. With the surroundings created, I could bring the context to life, inserting the buildings into a larger urban environment that enhances their presence and interaction with the surrounding space.
To further enrich the scene, I used the BagaPie addonand the BagaStreet assetsfor urban furniture, populating the surrounding areas with elements that add realism and detail to the project. The grass cover is also created with the Bagapie addon, but it is not compatible with camera culling and requires several steps to optimise it (using different weight maps for each camera).
Free tip: I had the easiest and optimised results with Gscatterfor another work.
Lighting and materials
Lighting plays an important role in every scene. For the physical sky, I used Blender's Sky Texture node, enriched with other noise nodes mixed to create a convincing cloud effect.
For the materials of the objects, I chose to use the Principled BSDF node, which offers a wide range of options for the required realism.
Digital ink and urban life
Finally, the ink material was created in Affinity Designer, where I drew the different actors of the scene with a graphic tablet. These figures were then imported into Blender as "Image as Plane,” strategically positioned in the scene and rendered to bring the environment to life.
Combining digital illustration with 3D modelling in a unified workflow has transformed my workflow, paving the way for visual storytelling beyond simple graphic representation. Creating a scene that not only reflects the essence of urban life but through a highly personal and distinctive lens has increased my curiosity to experiment fearlessly and constantly seek new ways to bring my artistic visions to life.
RENDER: Architecture and Ink
I hope that the account of this creative process can serve as a beacon for other artists in the field of CGI, encouraging them to explore, innovate, and, above all, to tell their own unique stories through digital art. Thank you for reading!
About the Artist
Angela Marchesani is a teacher and an architect from Italy. She deals with architectural visualisation and 3D illustrations, and is passionate about motion graphics.
