1st CG Boost Art Challenge for 3D Artists - Improve your 3D Skills!
Wow, our first challenge at CG Boost was a big success! We had 127 accepted submissions!
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 Jakob Scheidt for winning the first place!
Follow Jakob:
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Artstation
“This project was a real challenge for me. I learned a lot about creature design and spent hours getting the creature feel right combined with the ship. Combining the two worlds of water and sky was a lot of fun, that contrast influenced the design of the creature and the scene in general very much. The clouds have been the most difficult part technically, I ended up painting and compositing photos, that are then projected onto alpha planes and some volumetrics.”
Created using Blender, Substance Painter and Photoshop.
Aidy Burrows: “Nice concept with equally nice airy color palette, fusing the sea and the sky, drawing parallels wherever possible.”
Lukas Walzer: “There is immediately a whole world taking shape inside the viewer’s mind, when looking at this image. The calm two-tone color palette helps selling the eccentric design of the ships, really dragging the viewer into a fantasy story.”
Cedric Van der Kelen: “The most consistent with style and surprising in originality and design. The colors match, it’s something I haven’t seen, and it makes sense to some degree. Really love this. Great work.”
Gregory Smith: “On the whole a superb entry; the design of colour and value really sells the mood of the image, whilst the subtle detail like the different poses of the head makes it a picture you want to look at for a long time. The integration of the ship’s hull with the cloud is a stand-out point for me.”
Marius Iatan: “A nice concept, good level of detail and lighting to back it up. The look and feel of the scene fits the ‘sky ship’ concept quite well.”
Julien Kaspar: “Although the artwork doesn’t excel in some areas, what makes it stand out is the quality of the ship itself. Well done!”
Zacharias Reinhardt: “I have never seen a living ship creature before. This rendering feels like a scene from a fascinating dream. Great technical execution on the ship design and shading.”
We’re congratulating Júlio Cargnin Pereira for winning the second place!
Follow Júlio:
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“I sticked to my first idea: “And after plundering the island there they go in an attempt to escape. Storms or dragons do not seem to intimidate them.”
I’m not familiar with ships, so I took many references as possible to start understanding what is a sailing ship. Then, starting block building my composition.
One of the things I’m learning in this process is the need to optmise the scene, prepare and separete the elements in passes so when we render we don’t need to waste time re-rendering that object wich has not changed making the rendering time bigger and the interface slow as well. Well, it’s important keeping the flowing of the decision taking as fast as possible. It was killing me have to wait for minutes to see a simple change making effect.
I used EEVEE for rendering due to the quick feedback on PBR and for the clouds (volume absorption shading). I’d prefer to use Cycles for light consistency but I wasn’t sure if I would be able to get the final render in time. It took me 2 weeks, not working every day but when I had time I worked exhaustively on that. It was my toughest effort putting together a CG piece with all the elements and story telling. This is the first attempt in a contest and the challenge it offers make us transcend our skills as a CG artist/content creator. Some moments I though I would give up (like other complex projects in the past) but this time I made till the end. Hard to say that it is ready, because the more I see the final result more things I think could be improved. After all, I’m happy to compose a decent piece overall so far, I enjoy looking to it, hope you do too. Other entries are looking epic, with great concepts and implementation too. Thanks for the opportunity guys.”
Created using Blender and Photoshop.
Chris Plush: “I loved everything about this scene, and every element was well done. Great attention to detail and story telling.”
Aidy Burrows: “Lots of energy in this shot, using every means of locomotion through the air possible with wings, engines and balloon, a risky move with all that fire and lightning though.”
Lukas Walzer: “A really dramatic and cinematic composition, perfectly showing off the main elements and dragging the viewer into the midst of this epic battle.”
Serhii Antropov (Hum3D): “I like that the work has a story. Also, the artist made a good composition with the right points.”
Gregory Smith: “All action in this image, with a dynamic camera angle and dramatic colour choice. The additional 2D elements really add to the feeling of movement, and provide a clear and distinctive narrative. The ship is well modelled and textured.”
Julien Kaspar: “Solid presentation and lots of details to keep you interested.”
Zacharias Reinhardt: “The great composition and the pleasing use of color and light makes this rendering a winner for me. The technical execution of the flying ship and the storytelling aspects add to an overall great artwork.”
We’re congratulating Rafael Comino Matas for winning the third place!
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Artstation
“I spent about two weeks doing this piece, It was a challenge for me to use the new Blender 2.80 in my work flow and to use as less as possible the post-processing, adding transparent clouds images as planes in the 3D scene and using the color management and curves. I always enjoy this challenge, creating a final model, with textures and environment from a blank sheet. I tried to capture a romantic future where technology meets tradition and where human beings do not forget ancient knowledge.“
Created using Blender, Substance Painter and Photoshop.
Aidy Burrows: “Enjoyed the exploration of the more vertical design choice here, nice use of color and really cranking on that contrast.”
Lukas Walzer: “An impressive and characteristic shape and a well-chosen and limited color palette thoroughly define this remarkable artwork. Definitely influenced by the master Ian McQue, this piece conveys a deep mood and reveals excellent skills in modeling and lighting.”
Cedric Van der Kelen: “The mood is consistent, and the design deserves a second look. There is character and story to some degree and the subject is nicely separated from the background. Although the details, shadows and noise might be a bit rough, so keep an eye out for that. Nice work!”
Gregory Smith: “A very simple but readable render. The design of the ship, particularly in silhouette, makes it visually interesting, whilst the composition is similarly highly effective, complimented by a strong choice in background and environment that gives the image a context outside of the subject.”
Julien Kaspar: “Great design and good execution. A captivating result!”
Zacharias Reinhardt: “This artwork convinces with a strong ship design and great texturing and materials. The dark and dirty look fits perfectly to the ship design.”
We’re congratulating Mehmet Barutcu for receiving an honorable mention!
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Artstation
“It took me 3 weeks (2-3 hour a day) for my work and I worked weekends round about of 6-8 hours. So I spend more than 50 hours for my work. I did create my ship in 3ds Max, first in low poly, then I put more edges on my flying ship.
After I finished modeling, I create some details in Zbrush and textured it in Substance Painter. My ship has round about 7 mio. polys. After texturing, I rendered my ship in 3 different versions in Marmorset (PNG format). I did put in Marmorset lights before rendering. My last steps was to build a scene (background). I first created the clouds in Photoshop with a cloud brush. Then I opened my cloud scene in Illustrator, because I wanted to reduce the color for a vector style. Than I put the new clouds into Photoshop and 3 ships over it. I worked with different brightness colors on the clouds and worked with smoke brushes to create dirty smokes for my flying ships.
In my last steps in Photoshop, I did put some adjustments layer on my work to change the contrast a bit and add a little noise on my work.
I did learn many things while working with different programs on one scene. It was really interesting and I can say, that this is my best work that I ever create.”
Created using Autodesk 3ds Max 2018, Pixologic Zbrush 2018, Substance Painter, Marmoset Toolbag 3, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop.
We’re congratulating Neil Lithgo for receiving an honorable mention!
Follow Mehmet:
Artstation
“Modelling was fairly straightforward, texturing has become fun again since I treated myself to an external GPU, as usual I get stressed over the final lighting and look – spent a lot of time going over Gleb Alexandrov’s lighting videos.”
Created using Blender, Substance Painter and Photoshop.
