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5th CG Boost Art Challenge for 3D Artists - Improve your 3D Skills!
A nice cool cone of ice cream, that’s what we need during summer. Just by looking at all the fantastic entries we received for our 5th challenge, we already feel refreshed.
Our jury had a good but also hard time judging all the great accepted submissions. Each judge voted for their own top 5 artworks. We also picked three random winners for the challenge raffle, see all the winners below.
Regrading the prizes, we will contact the winners during the next few days.
Congrats to the winners and honorable mentions, and a big THANK YOU to our sponsor and everyone for taking part!
Now scroll down to see the winners.
We’re congratulating Cesar Verastegui for winning the first place!
Follow Cesar:
Artstation
“I wanted some sci-fi related theme, with a cartoon alien character on it. After I draw some sketches, this idea came in. It took mostly some free time in a couple weeks. I hope you like it.“
Created using 3ds Max, Vray, Photoshop and ZBrush.
Aidy Burrows: Another tricky challenge for everyone here, in this entry though there’s a great combination of the use of theme, art design and story. Also maybe I’m biased, but I liked the amount of hard surface work! 😀 I wonder is the ‘human ice cream’ like ice creams that humans eat, or ice cream that is made of humans!
Chris Plush: This is such a cool scene and I love the balance of overly complex machinery producing the perfect simple ice cream cone. Very detailed modeling and texturing, fun characters, and great composition.
Gregory Smith: Amazing detail, combined with engaging characters and narrative; it’s a fantastic entry.
Wybren van Keulen: Talking about over-engineering! This work shines in its detail, materials and symmetry, and of course the wide assortment of flavors.
Joseph Nickson: Fantastic overall scene, really well executed from concept to execution. Material work gets an extra shoutout here for the nice variety of metals that are still readable despite the denseness of the scene.
Amina Khan: Rich and vibrant, yet no repetition of detail. A fine example of a fantastic piece!
Lukas Walzer: I have no words for this incredible illustration, with overwhelming detail and top-notch modeling and texturing. On top, it’s truly original and memorable!
Cedric Van der Kelen: You prove a talent for character creation and storytelling, but don’t overdo your scene. The detail is nice, but the piece feels busy and chaotic. Some bigger shapes, darker parts, and harder depth of field could’ve helped. Remember: less is more!
Chipp Walters: How appropriate this rendering has so much “eye candy!” Nice rendering with so many details.
Zacharias Reinhardt: It took me a while to notice the text on the machine, which adds a whole now level of creepiness to the scene. What stands out here is the incredibly detailed ice cream machine, the fitting lighting and shading. The quirky monsters give ma a “Monsters, Inc.” vibes. Great job!
We’re congratulating Darko Vucenik for winning the second place!
Follow Darko:
Website
“Come to our ice cream shop. We have new experimental flavors every Friday. Oops, I guess one of the experiments went wrong giving birth to strawberry, sour cheery swirl and chemical X ice cream monster.
As I am new to CG Boost, I become aware of the challenge a week before deadline (my dear wife found it on Facebook). I liked the topic, so I decided to join and to make the challenge extra spicy I also made it into a personal speed challenge. About 90 percent of the image was done in last 3 days. To create all the necessary assets in time for the image I relied heavily on procedural workflows for both modeling and texturing. There are also quite a few huge, totally unoptimized Zbrush sculpts. Process was fun but also challenging, requiring me to make some compromises on the originally envisioned design to meet the deadline. There are quite a few things that I would like to do better on this piece but considering the time constraints, I am happy with the end result.”
Created using 3ds Max, Zbrush, Substance Painter, Fstorm render and Clip Studio Paint
Chris Plush: I love the interpretation here, and it’s really well-made in all regards, especially the lighting and color scheme. And as a new father myself, it had me thinking ahead to the fun times I’ll have building stuff out of cardboard with my daughter.
Cedric Van der Kelen: Very nice! It tells a story and is consistent throughout the piece. The added elements all support the idea of somebody who really likes dinosaurs. Well thought trough and executed in a clear way. Only comment is even though everything hints at the moon shining through the window, the window is glowing white, and I’m not sure why.
Gregory Smith: The great storytelling in this submission really sells the image – excellent too in choice of color and set-dressing, the result is a very strong entry.
Amina Khan: Exquisite ambiance, with fantastic attention to detail.
Joseph Nickson: The heart of this piece is what stands out to me most – Keeping things simple and stripped back, the disney-esque lighting and stylized treatment of the piece give a lovely and warming glimpse into a more joyful representation of the time travel topic.
Aidy Burrows: Great interpretation of the theme on this one. Really like the detailing on the main time travel ‘machine’ with the use of cardboard, tin foil and tape. The bedroom works pretty well on this too. I liked the inclusions of dinosaur related cushions and toys, as an aside it probably could have also worked if pushed even further like a dinosaur themed lampshade and perhaps even more dinosaur toys. 🙂
Julien Kaspar: The lighting, use of color & charm is what really makes this artwork for me!
Zacharias Reinhardt: Lovely rendering! I really like the storytelling part and atmosphere in this one. I can imagine sitting in there as a kid and travel to the dinosaur age. Also, on the technical side, this image is top-notch. Love how the “machine” is stuck together with the tape and tinfoil.
We’re congratulating Sidi Abderrahmane Bouam for winning the thrid place!
Follow Sidi:
Artstation
Twitter
“This is my second time I participate in the Weekly CG / CG Boost Challenge. I was looking forward to it and I finally had the chance to dedicate my time for it. I saw the winning entries for the previous challenge “Cute Warrior” and I wanted to create characters because it’s outside my comfort zone. I can say this is the first time I’m really satisfied with how characters turned out.
I also took inspiration from some lectures and YouTube reviews I’ve seen in the past about the Rockstar universes, especially the GTA and RDR universes, and how they created believable worlds that feel like they can exist even with their absurdities. While game and level design is a very different matter, I still found it a bit helpful from the beginning. I detailed as much as I could, even for off-screen elements that reflect or cast shadows on the scene (but with the time constraint in mind, so I had to find the balance and not model any unnecessary elements). In the end I believe the scene looks like an actual place that could exist in that universe.
The creation process was straightforward for the most part, but I spent a lot of time on the lights and composition trying to make it as I liked it. Even though the scene fits on the GPU, I still had a lot of crashes and out-of-memory errors during the build process, as I used a lot of fur and high-poly models and I didn’t have enough RAM.For more shots you can view the ArtStation submission.”
Created using Blender 2.8 and GIMP.
Aidy Burrows: Nice character work here, the carefree bike placement and jar on the counter all work towards the emphasis on the enthusiasm of this youngsters ice cream desire!
Chris Plush: This is a really cool scene, I could see a whole short animation around. Great composition, modeling, emotion, and storytelling here.
Gregory Smith: I really like the narrative in this scene; the composition really reads, and the characterization is great.
Amina Khan: Absolutely adorable characters, with Mona Lisa-esque expressions done to perfection. Just wish I got to see more ‘ice cream’ in this piece.
Marius Iatan: A classic diner shop with less-classic characters. Good concept and a couple of nice touches make the scene credible. Keep up the good work!
Zacharias Reinhardt: The behavior of the characters and the environment feels very natural and realistic, although we are looking at animal characters. Great use of light and atmosphere. And I really like the storytelling part in this image.
We’re congratulating Ben White for receiving an honorable mention!
Follow Ben:
Artstation
“A desperate survivor, while scavenging for supplies in a small rural town, finds himself cut off in the town’s small ice cream shop and surrounded by an ever growing hoard of the infected. Grimly wielding the only weapon he has left, his crowbar, he braces for a desperate fight, perhaps the last he will ever face.
For this project, I immediately knew that I wanted to put what I hoped would be a unique spin on the topic, taking a darker approach to the subject. If indeed there ever was a real zombie apocalypse, I think I would head for the local ice cream shop first to wait it out. I wanted to put a bit of an ironic twist on the scene, with the inclusion of the ice cream shop sign having crashed through the roof, a comical element juxtaposed against the grim reality facing the survivor character in the scene.
As far as the scene goes, it was a fairly simple setup. Spent several weeks researching ice cream shops, then modeling the props and building. Then it was a matter of setting up the composition. Went through several iterations, but I wanted to make sure that the ice cream counters in the foreground led your eyes to the center of the screen where the hero would be. I then set up several particle systems for the debris littering the scene and exported several “zombie” characters from Make Human, topping it all off with some volumetric effects. The windows and the ice cream cone sign were hand painted in gimp, the rest of the textures were downloaded from various sources. Some minor post processing was completed in Gimp.”
Created using Blender.
Chris Plush: Zombies never get old. One of my favorite parts is the creative lighting source on the ceiling. Great atmosphere and tension in this scene, and very detailed all around.
Wybren van Keulen: Ah come on guys, don’t smear the windows! I love the mood, the lighting, and the contrast of the menacing crowd outside versus the cute ice-cone guy that waves hi from above.
Joseph Nickson: The fallen ice cream mascot through the ceiling is a fantastic touch, lovely bit of detailing that doesn’t grab too much attention, but adds a whole lot to the world building of the piece.
Zacharias Reinhardt: This unexpected approach to an ice cream shop I didn’t expect. The technical quality of this render is top-notch, with all the great details. This image got it all, great focused lighting, composition and a striking story. Luckily I’m not in his position.
We’re congratulating Victor Duarte for receiving an honorable mention!
Follow Victor:
Artstation
“[There is this Italian villain ice cream seller on the beach sidewalk who have a precious and brand-new ice cream cart. The children can’t resist to the hype, but the prices, you can see it… ]
For this project I wanted to go with stylized characters instead of realistic kind of scene. So I went out my comfort zone and learned how to sculpt, retopo, rig and pose. Also, I wanted to keep materials of characters simple in order to look more like toys, and using more subsurface scattering to give that soft plastic look. As well as for example the clouds, made with metaballs and a volume shader. The floor, grass and other elements are a bit more realistic in terms of materials to give more interesting surfaces. I learned a lot and had so much fun with this one!”
Created using Blender.
Cedric Van der Kelen: Cool lighting and storytelling. The characters are very simple but work. Be careful about adding too much detail to one character (the dog) cause he doesn’t seem to fit the rest of the scene. Nice work!
Aidy Burrows: I liked how clear this image was, nice use of color and a well told narrative to the image. Interestingly many chose to combine the ice cream theme with monsters and aliens to give a hint of horror, however as a parent I recognise this is the real horror story right here!!!
Amina Khan: Incredible harmony of style and texture. Fun to look at, but also intricate in detail. Lovely work!
