Ben Crowder

“Hatchery,” a new piece done in Blender, with some Photoshop post-processing:

I was going for something more whimsical/alien with this one.

Here’s the first test render:

Not too different from the final piece — the core idea is there. A few renders later, we’ve got a background and slightly better lighting:

And that’s where the piece sat for months. Last night I decided to finish it up, dropping the depth of field a bit, adding more to the background, and moving the camera to make it a little more interesting:

That was the final render. Still not enough, though. I pulled it into Photoshop, did some color correction (more contrast, less green and slightly more red), added some faint texture, and then added the cameo effect around the edges. Voila:

Once again, art is all about iteration. First tries are rarely good. You have to keep plugging away at them, tweaking and polishing and revising until, in the end, you get something worth keeping.