This is going to be a background piece in my hydra scene. It’s a colonial green algae called volvox. A hydra can be up to 100 times larger than one of these so I’m going to have a bunch of tiny volvox colonies in the final scene.
Brightfield illumination:
Darkfield:
Light setup is very basic right now as it’s still a WIP. I was surprised what a nice render can come from such a simple model. I mean it’s nothing but a couple of icospheres. Man I love Blender.
Here’s a new render. A volvox is releasing her daughter colonies.
Hi,
I always find that the “Brightfield llumination” renders (whatever this means) are better than the “Darkfields”
Very interesting (and unusual works!) you are making ehre, Eva, even if I couldn’t even guess what Hydras and Algae are. 
OlivS
Hmmm, I might try another brightfield for the volvox, but I’m pretty sure the final scene will be darkfield.
BTW brightfield and darkfield are two types of illumination that can be achieved with a compound microscope. Both effects can be produced in Blender with surprisingly realistic results.
Anyway, here is some more algae that will be in the scene:
And another one: a desmid called cosmarium.
I just LOVE pondlife…
Any plans to do some animation?
I would just love to see a Blender-based Akryls-type animation…
Wow, this is neat! Are you making them by just making 3d shapes transparent? Or by ‘drawing’ the profiles/cross-sections?
That last one looks like a photo. I’d also like to see a final brightfield render. Maybe two final versions, one bright one dark?
Cheers,
b01c
Thanks for the comments! 
Yeah, I love pondlife too and I plan on making many more organisms, hopefully more complex ones in the future. Haven’t thought about animation yet. Algae don’t really do much, but I guess I could just move the camera through and around them. Gotta take a look at Akryls.
They are very easy to model. I start with the basic shape, then duplicate the mesh or parts of it and scale it so I have an inner and outer layer. Then I add transparent materials and simple textures. Subsurf and arrange. Voila!
The volvox uses dupliverts to get those little dots all over it.
Back to work now, I’ll keep them coming.
These are really cool. I’ve always like microscopes, microscopic images, and 3D images of things you can see from a microscope. Keep them coming.
Paradox
Eva, these are ace. They getting quite realistic. Any chance of a ctenophore (i think thats how its spelled)?
Thank you Paradox!
GCat, thanks. Ctenophore? Not in this scene as this is all freshwater life. I am going to move on to more complex organisms later but I’m trying to stick with things I have seen with my own eyes and a ctenophore is not one of them. My next project might be a rotifer or gastrotrich but I haven’t decided that yet.
The picture is getting quite green so I thought I’d add some brown algae. Here is a diatom. It is only going to be a very small piece in the scene so it doesn’t have to be perfect.
I think I have enough algae now… what this scene really needs is a worm or some ciliates 
Hei Eva, these are really cool.
Are you a specialist about microorganisms (or whatever you write it in english)?
Env
Well, I wouldn’t consider myself an expert. Microscopy is just one of my hobbies but I can’t get very good microscopic photos with my digital camera and I don’t want to invest in more expensive equipment so I thought I’d just make my own pictures in Blender. The scene is finished now, you can see it in the finished projects forum.