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Project: Archive Gothic — When Blackwood House Remembers
I built a visual archive that reimagines 1887 gothic engraving style for a modern horror universe.
Old Style: 1880s-1920s gothic book engravings, Victorian haunted house illustrations, 1928 noir detective posters — the kind found in British Library archive, black ink on yellowed paper.
New Story: THE HUNGER BENEATH (my gothic vampire novel) + DARIO VEGA Book 4: The City That Never Forgets. Story of Blackwood House built in 1887 on "Hungry Hill" — a house that doesn't drink blood, it drinks the memory of blood. After 37 years empty, it starts knocking at midnight.
Why: I wanted to show that old horror art style is not dead — it can tell new stories. I recreated the archive style in Recraft: distressed paper texture, cross-hatch engraving, but with modern cinematic lighting (red eyes in windows, storm). The city itself becomes a character that remembers.
I am an indie gothic horror author from Karachi, Pakistan — writing Inspiring World Gothic universe. This style is my book covers now live on Kobo & Google Play Books.
Built on Recraft V3.
#recraftstyleschallenge #gothichorror #archive
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The café is called Mado, “window” in Japanese: a small window to slow down in a busy day. Its barista, also Mado, wears an indigo wave apron, a round-window hairpin and wireless earbuds. She remembers your oat milk order, protects the window seats from video calls, and believes every laptop should close when the cake arrives.
Old prints, new rituals. My entry for the Contra × Recraft Archive Style Challenge.
This is beautiful Sofiia! Love how you turned your daily coffee ritual + Japan daydream into a full brand concept. The MADO packaging with that Japanese illustration style is so warm and nostalgic. Coffee tooth is real! ☕️ Hope you get to Japan soon!
What if the Old Masters designed sportswear?
While taking part in the Recraft contest, I started thinking about how to mix classical painting with modern brands. I experimented with 18th–19th-century oil painting aesthetics and thought: why not take this idea further and create an entire sportswear brand around it?
Classic art, modern athletes, contemporary fashion. A little unexpected? Maybe. But that's what makes it fun! So, I created a sportswear brand concept that brings these two worlds together. The result is right below 👇
Recraft project: https://www.recraft.ai/project/ae17a521-566c-457e-9482-d4b94157111f
Archive references:
Sick art direction
Nocturnes of 2126✨
What if Van Gogh and Whistler had painted the night of 2126? 🌙 Nine nocturnes of a future city (robot hounds, rainy delivery bots, air ferries, a tree wired with light), painted with a custom Recraft style built from public-domain paintings at The Met and the Smithsonian.
I went digging through the open-access collections of The Met and the Smithsonian looking for the night. I found Vincent van Gogh’s 1889 Saint-Rémy paintings (Cypresses, Wheat Field with Cypresses, Olive Trees, Irises) for their swirling impasto, and James McNeill Whistler’s Nocturnes (Bognor, Valparaiso) for their deep blue darkness lit by small points of gold. I blended the two into a Recraft style, then chained a second style from its results to lock in a cobalt-and-amber night palette. Nocturnes of 2126 uses that 1889 brush to paint a future neither artist could imagine: robot hounds, delivery bots in the rain, silent air ferries, AR lenses and glass houses with solar roofs, all at blue hour.
The style is public, so try it yourself 👇
day by the day work you are doing is outstanding man.