[WIP] - Pumpkin contest [FINISHED]

Contests and Challenges

Hello everyone,

I  've opened this thread for the pumpkin contest!

I have a pretty accurate idea of the final picture as I started the project with a sketch.

In some words that's going to be a kind of possessed mechanical pumpkin, looking for a fresh meal (kind of toxic fertilizer).

Here is a first picture of my project. It's going to challenge myself.  Because I want ot finish it and experiment with some aspects of Blender I don't really know well.

I hope the community will enlight me on some points if needed.


Hope to be back on the project again soon.

  • smurfmier1985 replied

    Good start and cool concept! Looking forward to seeing how you progress 😊

  • silentheart00 replied

    Looks like a good start.  Fun idea!  Looking forward to updates.

  • Geoffrey ORBAN(nabro) replied

    Hello,


    Here is an update!

     I've worked on the pumpkin (baked HP to LP) and its textures, I wanted to sculpt a HP model but that was hardly possible with my low performance  computer.

    I finally used some displaced modifiers on a subdivided model to add some details. One part of the back leg is missing because I hidden it for the render by mistake.

    I started the fertilizer pot as well. I added some particles on top of it to simulate the 'grains'.


    Next I'd like to work on the ground, maybe I'll add some grass, I guess I'll have to do that with particles (I'm not really used with the particles system and etc)...

    I'd like to start the texturing of the mechanical part as well.

    Your comments and advices are welcome.


  • silentheart00 replied

    nabro Looking good.  What are those three vertical white lines in the background?  My eye keeps going to that, and I don't know if you wanted that or not.  It's drawing attention away from the pumpkin head, which should be the focus.

  • Geoffrey ORBAN(nabro) replied


    silentheart00  It's a placeholder, I'll perhaps add a fork later there. I had in mind to create one with Its handle set on the fence.

  • silentheart00 replied

    nabro Ah, okay.  Good to know.

  • Cookie Dough(cgcdough) replied

    I showed this to my friend... all they said was "Toy Story"

    I think it looks pretty cool though.

  • Geoffrey ORBAN(nabro) replied

    Here is another update. 

    Tonight I've tried to work on the lighting and the atmosphere. It's going in the direction I want.

    I edited the shader of the pumpkin, unwrapped and shaded the mechanical part, set a mist, added particles on the ground this (still needs to be textured), some grass was added manually as well.

    I'd like maybe  to add some atmospheric lighting going from the mouth of the pumpkin, maybe during the post processing phase ?

    What do you think ?

    Fortunately,  google is my friend as I don't know how to achieve it at the moment.

    A side note, It's just very boring to render the scene or to do changes at this step.

     As an example, this image took 35 min to render (2000 samples) and denoising activated. I can't wait to change my GPU!

  • silentheart00 replied

    nabro Hey, now that is looking nice!  Might take a look at the compositor and add some vignetting to really help emphasize the areas you want to be the focus.

  • yukino hatake(yukinoh1989) replied


    nabro wow really great work. I really like it. You're really a good blender artist 😁

  • Geoffrey ORBAN(nabro) replied

    Thank you for your kinds words, really !

    I'd like your opinion before going further, yesterday I had min to add some headlights coming maybe from a car / tractor in the back. This would be added with some volumetric lights, as below, except that in this case this is a quick test I did.

    What do you think ? Do you think It makes the picture more 'interesting' ?


  • Aaron Rudderham(thecabbagedetective) replied

    nabro I think it has potential but personally I'd say it's a bit too bright, because it draws attention to the car, as opposed to the pumpkin (which if that's what you want to do then by all means go for it!) It also has a sharp cutoff but as you said it's gonna be volumetrics later so that's no worries.

    Overall I think with the right tweaks it could really add a lot, and I'm loving this scene in its entirety come together!

  • silentheart00 replied

    nabro I agree with Aaron.  The lights are drawing attention away from your focus, which should be between the pumpkin and fertilizer.  Maybe instead of into the camera, it could be at an angle to the camera so it points back into the pumpkin, but you have that effect with the fence already.  I wouldn't do it personally.

  • Geoffrey ORBAN(nabro) replied

    Thank you for your comments, I'll follow your opinion. I'll continue this next week, once back to home !

  • Geoffrey ORBAN(nabro) replied

    Ok now that I'm back home, I could work on it a little bit.

    I think I'm not going to work on this piece for a lot of time, I'm getting saturated. Next step is probably the compositing.

    I've already done a quick test with photoshop.

  • Cookie Dough(cgcdough) replied

    nabro You have a pretty cool scene going on there. I like the owl in the background, it's a nice trade off form the car lights. 

  • Geoffrey ORBAN(nabro) replied

    I consider my participation as finished.

    Some things could be better but I don't have the motivation to keep working on it.

    That's time to focus on learning Blender again during my free time.

  • smurfmier1985 replied

    nabro Cool end result! This has come a long way since you started 😄 May the best pumpkin win! 🎃

  • Dragonice (dragonice69) replied


    nabro could you tell me what was your final render time with volumetrics? I'm finding my comp going veeeeeeryyy slow with that option on.

  • smurfmier1985 replied

    dragonice69 volumetrics is super slow in Cycles, so probably your render time is normal, sadly.. it's superrr fast in eevee though if you want to try that 😉