30 inspiring examples of 3D art

Rss Bot · July 4, 2017

Well executed 3D art can seriously spice up a design portfolio. The extra dimension provides an added sense of depth that is very hard to recreate in 2D. With the introduction of more affordable and free 3D software in recent years, more and more artists are creating incredible 3D art – here are some prime examples...

Click the icon in the top right of each image to see it full-size.

01. Aghori Portrait

This stunning portrait took only two weeks to complete

It's hard to believe that Aldo Martínez Calzadilla's Aghori Portrait, created using ZBrush, Maya and Mari, only took two weeks to finish. "I try to work as fast as possible," he explains. "In my experience, moments of inspiration don't last too long, so I try to go through the process of creating an image as efficiently as I can."

The meticulous groundwork of modelling and sculpting was his favourite part of the project. "I knew that in order to do a good job with the Aghori, the forms and anatomy had to be good and accurate to the reference," he reveals.

02. Summer Reading

This adorable picture is a 3D recreation of a piece by Fredrik Rättzén

Arthur Gatineau's image is based on a concept by Fredrik Rättzén, a Swedish visual development artist. "I really wanted to keep all the features and details, including the camera angle, lighting and general mood," says Gatineau.

"I did my best to match everything. As I'm faster on 3ds Max, I did all the modelling and UV work there, then I exported everything – including the camera as an Alembic – and switched to Maya."

03. Slug Race

Slug Race was built using 3D spacial data from digital photos

It may be a whimsical scene, but Slug Race is closely based in reality. Brazilian 3D artist Fabricio Moraes and his collaborator Guilherme Formenti used Agisoft PhotoScan to generate 3D spatial data from digital photos. "Photogrammetry was a technique that I had always wanted to try. So I scanned a lot of trees, rocks and ground to get a more realistic approach," says Moraes.

The pair used 3ds Max and ZBrush for modelling and lighting, V-Ray for rendering and Nuke for compositing. "I normally use Photoshop to compose the final image," says Moraes, "but this time I gave Nuke a try. I was amazed at how powerful it is."

04. The Trade

Lee's work is inspired by classical oil painting

Jacky Lee's image, The Trade, took him two months to create, using Maya, ZBrush, Substance Painter, Arnold and Photoshop. "I like the process of creating something from scratch, watching the gradual creation of the images, which become vivid and inhabit their stories and souls. This makes me very happy," he tells us.

"I think the atmosphere and composition of a 3D piece of work is very important, as well as the story," explains Lee, who studies classic paintings for inspiration. "I really like classical oil painting, and often observe and analyse each painting's mood, colour and composition."

05. Dark Forest

Javora's interest in weird phenomena informed this atmospheric scene

Jakub Javora's surreal Dark Forest scene, with its glowing doorway contrasting with the natural scene, perfectly sums up the artist's eclectic and eccentric interests. "I'm mostly inspired by weird phenomena like chaos theory, sexual selection and various religious practices," he explains.

Unusually for Javora, this scene was a pure 3D composition with no 2D techniques involved. "Some people are using the same tools and workflow without changing," he says. "I am always trying to do something extra to keep my creative spirit going and enjoy the work."

06. Chimpanzee

Guimoneau sculpted this incredible 3D chimp in just two days

This Chimpanzee sculpt was completed in two days by artist Damien Guimoneau, with a further two weeks of work going into the incredible 3D art to refine the textures and fur in Mari and KeyShot.

“Since I didn’t have a lot of time, I decided not to use V-Ray and displacement like I have done in my old projects," says Guimoneau. "I was especially curious to see how far I could go with the SSS materials in KeyShot.”

07. Bed Monster

This monster picked the wrong kid to mess with!

Digital 3D modeller and animator Aamir is the man behind this brilliant 'You picked up the wrong bed, monster!' 3D art illustration. Specialising in character and creature creation, Aamir nails the stylised look, modelling and lighting in this inspiring scene.

08. Cambot – Memory

Liang did things a bit differently to create the rain

Dong Liang is a 3D surfacing artist based in Singapore. His personal project, Cambot – Memory, shows off his talents. “Every artwork begins from a story I try to tell,” he explains. “To start with, I usually do a bunch of concept sketches to explore the design and composition while also looking for reference images. Once there is a decent sketch, I start blocking in the low-poly geometries in 3D.”

From here, Liang begins working on the detailing and lighting. This piece, however, posed a unique challenge. “The rain effect was done a little bit unconventionally,” he reveals. “I randomly instanced five different streak models onto a nParticle system to mimic the rain streaks instead of using motion blur to do so. Rendering noise-free motion blur is too heavy for my machine.”

09. Sanctuary

Adekile created this landscape with tools including Nuke, Photoshop and V-Ray

This sci-fi landscape was inspired by artist Akin Adekile’s Nigerian roots, and took him just under three weeks to complete. “I started off with a concept that I painted in Photoshop,” says the Gnomon graduate.

“My favourite part was when I put my image into Nuke and Photoshop,” he says, because “I was able to take advantage of the render passes, adjust the brightness and contrast, and add additional textures and effects... All those trees and vegetation can slow my machine down, but this was alleviated by using V-Ray proxies and minimising polycount.”

10. Welcome to Paradise

This final year project by 3D animation students at the University of Hertfordshire was created over eight months. “We spent the summer discussing the story and created some rough concept art, but it was only in the final year that the project took off,” says Veronika Epsteina.

The animation is inspired by a piece of concept art created by the artist Gennaro Grazioso, which portrayed small nomadic people with big robots. “A storyboard was created, and based on that, a really rough animatic – where we filmed ourselves playing out the scenes. This helped with the editing, to get the timing and camera angles right,” says Epsteina. “One of my favourite shots to work on was the reveal of the alien planet. We knew it would be one of the most important shots in our film so we put a lot of time and effort into it.”

Next page: 10 more great 3D projects

11. Muhammad Ali

Salah says: “Anatomy has been the biggest challenge, but also the most enjoyable challenge.”

This six-month Muhammad Ali project was completed during artist Mahmoud Salah's Think Tank mentorship programme in 2016. “To push myself to do my best, I had to choose the greatest role model in pushing oneself – Ali,” he says.

In a breakdown of his approach, Salah says: “I started with modelling, sculpting, unwrapping and texturing in a T-pose. As soon as I got to the posing stage, I did a lot of sculpting again, particularly on the torso... I used 3ds Max and V-Ray for rendering and Hair And Fur for the hair.”

12. Apex the Robot

Claver based Apex on artwork he found online

Artist Alvaro Claver created Apex the Robot over four months, putting into practise the skills he learned from training with one of the world’s best texture artists, Justin Holt. The piece was based on artwork by Dan Jones.

Claver pinpoints learning how to texture in Mari as the most challenging part of the project, but says that it was also very rewarding. “There is nothing you can’t do, combining [textures] with good, proper masks and baked maps,” he says. “My workflow involved creating multiple channels for every material including diffuse, specular, gloss, and bump.” Claver rendered in V-Ray and had “an HDR very similar to the location where I took photos of the sculpture.” As he edited the video in Premiere after comping, he says, “It was so nice to see Apex come to life!”

13. Hover Car Garage

Suyang Wang poured lots attention to detail into this scene

“I spent four weeks on this project – almost 100 hours of modelling and 50 hours of texturing,” says Rico Suyang Wang, from China, who’s studied at Gnomon School of Visual Effects, Games & Animation in Hollywood. The concept was inspired by Alejandro Burdisio’s work: “He is one of my favourite artists and I have always wanted to bring his designs into 3D with a realistic style,” says Suyang Wang.

The biggest challenge was making everything look convincing and functional in 3D, explains Suyang Wang. “I modelled the scene in Maya, textured in Photoshop and rendered with V-Ray. I spent a lot of time blocking the scene and defining the mechanical details. For the texturing, nuance is crucial and reference is key. My mindset is very simple: when I feel something is wrong, I know it must be wrong, so I change it very quickly.”

14. Waiting for the Bus (Leech Girl)

Steiner's piece certainly does make you look twice

“The goal for this project was to study and introduce Substance Painter into my workflow, and also to test Marmoset 3,” explains Mariano Steiner, a character artist and digital sculptor who created this piece in two months. “I wanted to provoke a weird feeling when the viewer sees it,” he reveals. With its realistic setting but unusual character, it’s certainly a piece that will make you look twice.

“In my personal work, I always try to input a bit of what I’m excited about in that moment, and always try to push the level in some way,” he adds. With Steiner finding inspiration through movies, games and toys, as well as nature and space, it sounds like he certainly won’t be short of interests to fuel his imagination.

15. Fight Like a Girl

Rocha Prates says that a good story inspires her work

Self-taught illustrator and graphic designer Aliel Rocha Prates shows what it really means to fight like a girl with her boxer artwork based on an original concept by her friend Rayner Alencar. Taking 12 hours to create, Rocha Prates’ determined fighter was an exercise in getting the pose and character right.

“I also enjoyed reproducing the lights and reflexivity of the slightly wet skin,” she explains. “The composition and post- production in Photoshop takes longer for me. I like to explore all the possibilities, you can completely change the mood of an image by just editing it in Photoshop."

16. D.va Maintenance

Collignon says: “I create a Logline about an idea, then I brainstorm the idea, gather references, create all the assets, compose it, then I’m done!”

Belgian illustrator and concept artist Antoine Collignon mainly works in the entertainment industry for films. Completed in just eight hours of his spare time, D.va Maintenance is a piece of fan art based on the Overwatch first- person shooter computer game.

“I loved compositing this image to make it feel powerful,” Collignon explains. “The painting process was also super fun to do because it brought some life to a synthetic 3D base model.”

17. One is the Loneliest Number

Morrell's awe-inspiring portfolio includes this beautiful, intricate piece

This awe-inspiring, sci-fi 3D art scene was created by digital artist and designer Stefan Morrell. With a clear love of the genre, this talented artist's portfolio is full of beautiful, intricate sci-fi landscapes – but this gorgeous piece is our favourite.

18. Prom Night

Riciotti captures this young lady's nerves and anticipation perfectly

3D generalist Mickael Riciotti lets the 3D art do all the talking in this inspiring illustration 'Prom Night'. Capturing this young lady's nerves and anticipation of her big night perfectly, Riciotti's brilliant piece is a far cry from (and refreshing change to) much of the busty female-inspired artwork you see.

19. Stroll in the Swamp

Guebels created Stroll in the Swamp using 3ds Max, ZBrush and Photoshop

Anthony Guebels specialises in creating promotional artwork, used for the marketing of the different brands of the studio. A personal project, Stroll in the Swamp was created with 3ds Max, ZBrush and Photoshop.

20. Magician

Liu hopes to be a top CG artist one day, he says

Chinese artist Ruiheng Liu took four months to complete Magician. With its realistic textures, excellent use of light and considered composition, this piece showcases Liu’s many talents as a 3D artist.

A lot of work went into the face in particular. “I considered a lot of factors, like his experience and feelings,” Liu reveals. “I wanted an image where people could read a story from his face. I did several different versions and picked the one I liked the most.”

Next: 10 more 3D masterpieces

21. Space Girl

Space Girl took Gonzalez several months to complete

Carles Gonzalez has worked for several companies and titles, in videogames and film. Gonzalez worked on this 3D art piece Space Girl in his spare time, with it taking him several months to complete. "My favourite part of the creative process is the sketching and initial stages," he says.

22. The story of courage, betrayal and love!

Forget Godzilla – Fatzilla is here!

In this inspiring example of 3D art, motion designer Yaroslav Primachenko used ZBrush to model this cool character, 3ds Max for preparing the rest of the scene and retopology, V-Ray for rendering and Photoshop for the scene's post-production effects.

We also love his everyday renders collection, especially the gold female face, Shattered.

23. Level 10

A combination of 3ds Max, ZBrush, V-Ray and Photoshop helped to create this cool 3D image

Toni Bratincevic is the senior environment modeller for a major videogame company, but has experience in all aspects of 3D, from rigging and animation to final compositing. This particular piece of 3D art took him around four to five weeks, working, on average, two to three hours a day on it.

24. Sunny Sunday Morning

Alexandrino's room looks relaxing

Tiago Alexandrino specialises in creating architectural visualisations for private clients. Taking just five or six days, he created this perfect, relaxing Sunday 3D art scene using 3ds Max and V-Ray.

25. Ebola Virus

Kashpersky’s Ebola Virus is as beautiful as it is malignant

Medical artist Alexey Kashpersky has won international competitions in scientific visualisation, and his beautiful 3D art rendering of the Ebola virus is a fine example of his skills. "I wanted to transform Ebola into something fantastic and something that had its own unique character," he explains. The image took him three months to complete, with everything modelled by hand.

26. Southern ground hornbill

This ultra-realistic Southern Ground Hornbill was created using tools from multiple 3D software packages

No, we haven't included a rogue photograph to trick you, this is really 3D art. The stunning Southern Ground Hornbill image was crafted entirely in 3D by artist Léandre Hounnake. The realistic render was achieved using a combination of Sculptris, 3ds Max, Mudbox, V-Ray, MultiScatter and Hair and Fur.

27. Rebuild

Freelance 3D and concept artist Neil Maccormack created this cool character using Lightwave and Photoshop

Neil MacCormack is a freelance 3D and concept artist based in Geneva, Switzerland. His online portfolio is full of awe-inspiring 3D art, but our favourite is this cool robot character, which he created using Lightwave and Photoshop.

28. Teacher's Nightmare

We love the attention to detail in this scene – the target on the teacher's back is our favourite addition

This pair of mischievous-looking characters were created by modeller Omer Messler and 3D generalist Adi Cohen. The entire scene was created using 3ds Max and Mental Ray renderer. Working together was a new experience for the duo, but as two minds are greater than one, they managed to complete the detailed piece of 3D art in just two months.

29. Far Far Away

Peter Nowacki used 3ds Max, V-Ray and Marvelous Designer to create this image

Two years in the making, Far Far Away is a celebration of children's imaginations created by Warsaw-based artist Peter Nowacki. "Children are now focusing on videogames instead of playing outside and I wanted to showcase a time when their imaginations were all they had," he explains.

30. Stan 'The Man'

Hakim Lie created this ultra-realistic portrait of comic book legend Stan Lee

From a comic book character to a comic book legend, this amazing 3D art portrait of Stan Lee was created by Andrew Hakim Lie. The talented 3D artist produced this image using 3ds Max, ZBrush, V-Ray renderer, and Photoshop, for the final part of an intensive CG course.

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