It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, but thankfully I’ve been busy working on a lot of other people’s projects!
This is one of them. A book-cover background that ended up not matching what the client had envisioned stylistically, and thus wasn’t used in the final product. Despite that, I think it has a unique visual style worth sharing!
I used Blender to model the the elements seen, put an outline modifier on everything, rendered it all out, and then did some extensive overpainting, using the lighting in blender as a layer and a reference for added details.
Whenever I’m working in this “overpainting” style, it’s always a challenge to decide how much detail to work out in the 3D portion, and how much to leave for the overpainting. There is a sweet spot in there that allows for the fastest amount of work and most consistent results, and I’m not sure I’ve yet found what that balance is (though I keep trying!)
You can see some of the output renders that I used before overpainting below. These are all rendered in EEVEE:
