CrabAuthor Productions - Sketchbook

Hello everyone! This is my new sketchbook. A lot, if not all, of these images are from before I joined the forum.
Thumbnail Image:


“Abstract” - 8/27/2016


“Blender” - 7/22/2016

(Sorry about it being a .jpeg image)


“Morelull Trio” - 12/5/2016

Morelull belongs to GAME FREAK.

The background image is an HDRi from the sIBL Archive, a great place to get free HDR images.


“Reuniclus” - 8/14/2016

Reuniclus also belongs to GAME FREAK.


1980’s-style chrome - 9/5/2016

This was rendered in the Blender Internal engine during my very brief non-photorealistic phase (which I may still be in). It’s based on a material from the Blender NPR website.


“Virus Wasteland” - 3/29/2016

Sorry again for the .jpeg image.


Finally a new image! Unfortunately, these are not actual Sierpinski fractals, as I modeled them myself. Still, I’m quite pleased with the end result. Everything was made in Blender and rendered with Cycles at 1,500 samples.


This was created yesterday. I was playing around with bevels based on a thread I saw a while ago. The shapes remind me of foraminifera and radiolarians.


3/31/2017

This was a test render I did for my custom Refractive shader. I also used a lot of metallic shaders, as you can see.

My Refractive shader is based on a shader created by a Youtuber called Sirrandalot, and my metallic shader is based on a Blender Guru tutorial series on physically-based rendering.

If there’s anything I could do better, especially in regards to my materials, please let me know!

I am not really good at telling the difference to the default shaders just from this image, but what I can tell you is that the metallic shader looks really good at that tree-shaped object on the right. :wink:

I also like your other renders, by the way, especially the 1980’s-style chrome one. The materials create some beautiful contrasts. :slight_smile:

Wow! I love how a complex scene like this can be expressed so simply

How do you mean?

This is one of my personal favourites. It’s based the character Neil from Rev. Awdry’s Railway Series, who is a Neilson 0-4-0 box tank locomotive.

Here’s the front,


and here’s the back.


I’ve actually rebuilt this model several times. Here’s my earliest version from when I had just started to learn Blender.


Yuck! Look at the wheels!
Just to be clear, “S and M” stands for “Sodor and Mainland.” I changed the logo in the new one to avoid innuendo.

I saw Beauty and the Beast twice in theaters (go watch it; it’s beautiful) and I was inspired to make a tea set based on the redesign of Mrs. Potts. I know teapots are practically cliché in CGI nowadays, but this was actually pretty challenging for me to model.


Wireframe view with no subdivisions


Solid view with matcap and three subdivisions


Final render - 4/5/2017

I’m back! I’ve decided to shift my focus for the time being; instead of modelling vehicles, creatures, et cetera, I’ll be posting more abstract/surreal artwork with a particular focus on materials and textures. Here’s a test of my new diamond material.


I based the material on this YouTube tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sk6RFcORd0, but I made a few tweaks. The image was rendered in Cycles at 2000 samples and lit with a single point lamp and an HDRi from the sIBL Archive: http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/archive.html.


Just for kicks, I decided to recreate one of Turner Whitted’s early ray tracing demos, circa 1980. It’s incredible how far art and technology have come in the last 37 years. I continue to be awestruck by the advances in computer graphics, but there’s something about the early tech demos and experimental cartoons that I absolutely love.

I downloaded a test build of Blender 2.79 so I could play with the Principled BSDF, and I must say I quite like the results it produces. Of course, good lighting helps a lot.


“Color Crazy” July 13, 2017


“Snow Monkey” July 19, 2017


“Fruit Smiles” July 23, 2017


“Solosis” 09/29/2017

I’m doing Blender and I’m still alive!

School’s been keeping me away from Blender a lot, but I mess with it when I have the chance. This was a quick render I made with the Principled Shader and Denoiser. I love those features! This was rendered at 125 samples, and in my opinion it looks better than others that I’ve rendered at 1000+ samples in the past. As usual, the environment is an HDR from the sIBL Archive. Solosis is copyrighted to GAME FREAK and Nintendo. (I really should stop modelling Pokémon.)

My latest piece: meet the Utah teapot’s mutant cousin!


Funny story: I actually redid this image three times. The first time I rendered it, I was using an HDR image of a beach for the environment, and the teapot was white; this was pretty ugly because the teapot blended in with the background. The second time, I felt like the teapot didn’t look enough like porcelain-my material had a Roughness value of 1.0 and a Clear Coat value of 1.0. I tweaked the settings and finally had it the way I wanted it.

I hope you all like it, and if there’s anything I can do to make it look more like porcelain, please let me know. I’m using the Principled BSDF.

Also, while it would be a worthless teapot, my sister thinks it would make a great planter.

1 Like

looool, that teapot is fun! :smiley: