Kandinsky Style Interior Design 3D Concept

This project was born from a course of applied color for interior design. The challenge was to conceptualize an abstract painting from Vasily Kandinsky into a livable interior space, adapting the colors and shapes of the artist’s work.

I started by making a moodboard with a representation of an interior space inspired by “Auf Weiss II” or “On White II” by Kandinsky, as it was assigned to me for reference. The quick early render shown below in the moodboard tests the concept of the painting as it describes the style of the shapes and adopts the main colors found in Kandinsky’s work to start approximating to the look and feel of it.

Having established a basic visual guideline with the moodboard and first render, I started to build upon it with hand drawn rough sketches using Krita to get an idea of the elements to be included, their shape, color, purpose, and visual interaction according to the reference artwork.

From the reference composition, I started to assign some shapes to a functional object that would be used in the space based on what they reminded me (like a Rorschach test) or I thought that would be interesting to see with a particular shape.

The scene and the objects populating it were created with Blender, applying a wide array of techniques: Modeling, light sculpting, UV unwrapping, texture painting, raster/procedural PBR materials, lighting, etc.

As intended with the original Kandinsky’s painting, the decoration and final composition of the scene show how the functional objects and decorative elements interact in a bold way that defies the white background that demands cleanness and order. Each element in the scene has an overlay of brush strokes to give the impression of belonging in a painting, as is the original artwork they were inspired by. Also, I added several elements that make the place look like it’s being lived on and receiving love from it’s occupants, like everyday objects and scattered small props that add messiness and life to the place. The floor panel opened up for maintenance and the nearby toolbox suggest to the viewer that there’s a story to be imagined. And no scene is complete without some imperfections like scratches, dirt and smudges to add to the realism. The final images were rendered using the Cycles rendering engine.