The Fern Flower is one of the better known Polish legends. It’s definitely one my personal favorites, that have stuck with me since my childhood. It has always given me a sense of wonder that I really wanted to capture with this render. I’ve also wanted to combine it with the style of Czech animator and illustrator Jiří Trnka whose incredible ability to bring puppets to life always fascinated me.
This project took me a long time (in total this one clocks in at 65 hours over the course of 3 months) as it was the first time I’ve made a fully fledged 3D character. I’m super happy with it and glad that the scene is finally finished - as you can probably tell, I started working on it much closer to the summer solstice.
Made with Blender 3.3, Marvelous Designer, Adobe Substance 3D and Photoshop.
The full scene consists of around 662K vertices
4K version
"St John’s Night is the shortest night of the year. It is on this night that the legendary Fern Flower blooms somewhere in the forest. The golden flower, with its mysterious glowing centre, blooms for only one night until dawn. When the first rooster crows, the flower disappears and will not bloom again until the following year.
It is said that the path to the flower is protected by the trees and mystical creatures of the forest so that only the most courageous and noble young man might find it. The flower possesses the power to fulfil wishes, and whoever finds this flower will have all of his wishes granted."
