30th CG Boost Art Challenge for 3D Artists - Improve your 3D Skills!
Challenge ends on Wednesday, September 22nd, 2021 at 16:00 CEST!
Winners will be announced one week later on September 29th, 2021.
For our 30th challenge, we received 161 submissions with scary, creepy, quirky and cute Monsters.
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 Tom Doizy for winning the first place!
Follow Tom:
YouTube
“Out of time or space, neither awake nor asleep, reality melts into nightmares… Can’t wait for the alarm to ring.
Yes, as many other kids I had an irrational fear of the dark as a child, and here is a tribute to this period.
I enjoyed participating in the previous challenge, Treehouse, so when this new one showed up I focused on it and tried my best.
I did the fish eye effect by pointing the camera toward a mirror sphere, so the resulting image is its reflection. The wooden floors are a particle system made with TyFlow, and the other elements were modeled by hand. The lighting was a bit challenging and required some tweaking, since the scene is only lit by the doors and the bedside lamp.
The research of ideas as well as the few technical difficulties made this work really interesting and enjoyable.
I lost count of the hours working on this image. Setting up the scene was not that long, but I spent a lot of time on small adjustments and various details, so that the final render would be as close as possible to what I had in mind.
And there is a monster… But just like the child, you certainly haven’t found it yet!
Thanks for hosting these challenges, they are a great way for me to train and improve.“
Created using 3DS Max, Vray and Photoshop.
Cedric Van der Kelen: “Great concept and execution, only criticism is the repetition in the old pictures, could’ve added something for the storytelling”
Lukas Walzer: “Capturing the REAL horror, I just love this Escheresque nightmare! You get dizzy just by looking at it!”
Ken Liang: “What an amazing render. The fish eye angle captures the paranoia of being trapped in an escheresque room perfectly. I also like how you scattered the doors all over the artwork and make the viewers look for the monster.”
Gregory Smith: “We’re instantly pulled into the narrative with this shot: it’s intense and dramatic, creating a sense of fear that really hits the topic.”
Ozana Nemčanin: “I love this interpretation of the contest theme. It’s such a fun image to look at and tells a chilling story. Expression on the character is priceless. Love the creativity shown in this work.”
Ewa Wierbik: “The idea for this artwork is amazing. I love the perspective and mood, colors and vibe. It’s like a frame from nightmare, very well executed. Even though there’s no monster here, the viewer can definitely feel unsafe. Well done!”
Darko Vucenik: “I guess this is the nightmare M.C. Escher had as a child. I love the composition seen through the fish eye lens curving the edges. There is so much detail. I especially like the disintegrating hardwood floor. His expression peering behind pulled up blanked is spot on.”
Masha Bazueva: “Absolutely great! I love the Escher composition effect and the Shining style carpet! Also, the fish eye effect conveys a super anxious feeling. Lighting, composition and colors are perfect and every element of the scene is greatly done. Since this is a challenge about the monster in the closet, I would love to see at least a hand or a shadow of that creature. Anyway, apart from this small thing, amazing work! “
We’re congratulating Kristoffer Kvamsdal for winning the second place!
Follow Kristoffer:
ArtStation
“I had an idea to make a render that looks like a somewhat bad and unplanned picture taken by a mobile phone in a completely dark room. Kind of like if you woke up at night, and you think it’s your cat in the room, and you took a picture. After this project, I feel I have a much better grasp on rigging in blender. And the dust particles were a challenge for me.
I had to abandon the idea of the monsters stealing clothes. Because I can’t seem to wrap my head around the cloth simulations in Blender as yet, I couldn’t get the clothes somewhat realistic.
The monster is sculpted in Kodon. Decimated in Blender for a quick and dirty UV unwrap. The monster was then textured in Substance Painter. The rest is more or less procedural textures.
I used Blender Kit for the bed, black table, t-shirts and towels. They were meant as placeholders, but I didn’t have time to finish modelling. The rest I modeled/sculpted. I spent about 4 to 6 hours after work every day the last ten days on this project, and it was worth every hour. 🙂
And last but not least, the painting on the wall is a display of my masterly painting skills in Photoshop. 😛“
Created using Blender (Cycles), Kodon, Substance Painter and Lightroom.
Cedric Van der Kelen: “Genuinely creepy and well executed, I’m missing a bit of dirt or dust since (especially the right part of the set) it looks a bit too clean, perhaps more elements or something to break the flat wall. Also, a light texture on your spotlights (reflection of the ceiling) can help a lot!”
Lukas Walzer: “Reminds me of the nightmarish works of Oleg Vdovenko. Flashlight lighting is always a good choice when you wanna go for that lo-fi realistic horror look, and it’s delivered perfectly here!”
Ken Liang: “Where did you take this photograph?! Really great idea to capture the scene from a camera’s POV, and everything seems perfectly (or imperfectly, rather) placed for the occasion. Love the odd angle, flash lighting from the camera, the messy blanket, the mirror closet, and everything else that’s ‘boring’ and mundane that somehow collectively adds to the realism. Nice touch with the orbs too, but I feel like you can take it even further by amping it up by making the atmosphere ‘heavier’ and some extra glare from the reflective mirror. Some motion blur would help too, since I’d imagine it’ll be for me to hold the camera so still for such a shot given the circumstances.”
Gregory Smith: “This entry really hits the horror genre with its approach to this topic. The realistic value design helps to sell the scene and create an environment you’d rather not be in at this particular moment!”
Ewa Wierbik: “This is definitely very scary, but also nicely executed artwork. It looks just like a shot from a horror movie. Nice usage of DOF. Monsters look little bit plastic but overall – still scary.”
Darko Vucenik: “The choice to light the scene only with the smartphone flash is great. It gives the scene that raw found footage feel that works so well for horror themes. Out of focus foreground also adds a lot to the effect. Monsters have an ice creepy design with those biddy little eyes and oversized teeth.”
Aidy Burrows: “Getting maximum creepy vibes here, reminiscent of Oleg Vdovenko’s creepy works! 🙂 The creatures are very well done, the general layout and composition work well too.”
We’re congratulating Jan Klingner for receiving the third place!
Follow Jan:
ArtStation
“Don’t worry! The soft deep voice says. Your sorrows will be gone tomorrow. Let’s take a nice book and find some sleep.
I had the idea, to twist the classic idea of a “scary monster in the closet” and to make it a friend of the child in the bed. Also, I wanted to give the little boy a bit of personality with a lot of toys and posters in his bedroom.
All the cards, posters and toys are modelled myself”
Created using Blender and Photoshop.
Cedric Van der Kelen: “Awesomely done in composition and color use, storytelling is great! Do dive a bit deeper into hair and shading, since these are your obvious shortcomings. Take some extra time to really texture your objects instead of slapping a tillable on there, this is especially obvious in the couch and wooden frame of the bed.”
Ewa Wierbik: “Not every monster is scary and evil – very nice idea. I like the mood on this render. It’s nice that the author left the closet door opened, but I can’t imagine how this creature can fit into it. Overall, it is pleasing to the eye.”
Masha Bazueva: “This artwork is so warm! I like so much the Idea of a good monster that every night comes to read a story to that child. The lighting is well done and greatly supports the storytelling, same thing for the colors and the composition. I think that with some more work on hair and textures, this artwork would be perfect!”
We’re congratulating Melina Matting for receiving an honorable mention!
“I decided for a more realistic approach to the monster in the closet. I had the idea of a pet or something looking for food or a place to sleep. In the process, I learned a lot about character creation.“
Created using Blender, Instant Meshes and Affinity Photo.
Ewa Wierbik: “Although this artwork is not very complicated, it looks great and very realistic. The details on the giant lizard look very nice, and the lighting is very pleasant.”
Masha Bazueva: “I love the mood of this artwork and the idea of not fantasy but real life monster that ends up in a closet! The lighting, the composition, modelling and texturing are greatly done. The only thing that disturbs me a bit is that it looks like the clothes are too height and there are no other elements in the closet. To achieve even more realism, you can add more variations to the reptile’s skin texture.”
Cedric Van der Kelen: “Composition and the intent is great. There is love in the details and storytelling. Focus on surface imperfections and lighting to really make works like these pop. Great work!.”
We’re congratulating Tijn Kroon for receiving an honorable mention!
“After a few days of hearing weird sounds out of the closet. He finally gathered his courage and face the evil that was lurking within!!
This project was focused on understanding the EEVEE render engine in Blender. The fast rendering really helped with making quick test renders and trying out different things.
For the monster I chose for a weird corrupt tin robot, why? Because tin robots are freaking scary!! I never liked them when I was a kid, and even now they still give me the creeps.“
Created using Blender (EEVEE), Substance Painter and Photoshop.
Ozana Nemčanin: “I like the style of this image. Storytelling and lighting skills are impressive. The image conveys a sense of cheerfulness, although the story is quite the opposite.”
Ewa Wierbik: “I like the approach to the theme, it’s something different. The dark and shadowy scenery is very nice. Artwork is very clean. An extra plus for a nice small detail – drawing of the robot on the bat. Very creative!”
Darko Vucenik: “I like the movie like composition and storytelling in this piece. Nice look of subtle atmospheric haze. It adds a lot to the overall atmosphere. Texturing, shaders and attention to detail is great.”
Aidy Burrows: “Great use of atmospheric depth and rim lighting here to help the overall composition read nicely and separate the key foreground details. Also, good design choices for the monster in the closet.”
