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Winners Announced
September 2019

Alchemist Challenge

7th CG Boost Art Challenge for 3D Artists - Improve your 3D Skills!

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Overview

Alchemist Challenge winners announced!

For our 7th challenge, we received 130 submissions with dark caves, magic portions and old alchemist!

Our jury had a good but also hard time judging all the great accepted submissions. Each judge voted for their own top 5 artworks. We also picked three random winners for the challenge raffle, see all the winners below.

Regrading the prizes, we will contact the winners during the next few days.

Congrats to the winners and honorable mentions, and a big THANK YOU to our sponsor and everyone for taking part!

Now scroll down to see the winners.

How to participate

First of all, choose your side.

Description
Prizes
Rules
Deliverables
Judging Criteria
Description
Prizes
Rules
Deliverables
Judging Criteria

Further questions? Find more info in our FAQ section.

Participate Now

Submit your work.

Select your arena *

Please submit the following two files:
1. A screenshot or clay render of your 3D scene
2. Your final render
Please use the following naming convention for your files:
Final Render: Your_Name_final (e. g. "Zach_Reinhardt_final.jpg")
Screenshot/Clay Render: Your_Name_wip (e. g. "Zach_Reinhardt_wip.jpg")

Thank you!

We will review your submission and then add it to our submission folder above. If your submission is invalid or missing something, you will be informed in a timely manner.
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Jury

Get to know our jury.

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Get feedback and improve faster with our community.

Post your work-in-progress renders in our community and get constructive feedback from the CG Boost team and other members.

FaQ

Frequently asked questions.

Where do I ask questions about the challenge?
Can I update my entry after I submitted it already, if I notice a mistake?
Can I share my artwork online before the challenge is over?
When I win the challenge, can I get cash instead of the prizes?
Can I enter both categories at the same time?
Jury

Get to know our jury.

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Winners: Pro Arena
Winners

Let’s see who has won in the Pro Arena.

Let’s see who has won this challenge.

Finalists

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Winners

1st Place

Darko Vucenik

We’re congratulating Darko Vucenik for winning the first place!

Follow Darko:
Website

Darko about his entry:

“Grow my little homunculus, grow! An alchemist is staring at his rapidly developing creature with the pride of soon to be father. That will indeed be a creepy kind of a family. Idea of growing a miniature human with superpowers was always one of the more wacky ones, even in the world of alchemy. But hey, wacky ideas make for interesting images.“

Created using 3D Studio Max, ZBrush, Substance Painter, Fstorm render and Clip Studio Paint.

Clay Render

What our jury says:

Lukas: Wow! Amazing picture! Everything is focused on the two main characters, which are done extremely well in terms of modeling and shading. I especially admire the eerie atmosphere created by the complex volumetric lighting inside the glass sphere.

Julien: I don’t often see entries with this much care and work put into the characters. And the way they are lit and the environment they are put in is very fitting. It pretty much has it all from aesthetics to storytelling.

Cedric: Interesting color use, original and eerie. The lighting looks off. The hand is logical but the contrast with the face In tone is jarring. Some green reflection from the vial would’ve helped the scene a lot.

Gregory: I’m really curious about the storyline of this shot; it draws in the viewer and provides a different take on this topic. It’s accomplished in many ways technically, too.

Marius: A complete render: the right (slightly dark) feel, well-realized characters, good lighting, lots of details and a clean image. Congratulations!

Aidy: Another impressive piece from Darko, superbly well executed, great technical skill on view with the characters and the materials. Good use of the theme too, a very intriguing story and evokes an excellent ominous mood.

Wybren: Great attention to detail. Outstanding work on materials and lighting. Just look at that necklace and the fabric of the hoody. Great work! To me the background is the only thing that brings the image down just a little bit.

Chipp: Great sense of drama and wonderful composition. Textures and attention to detail make it a winner. Stunning skin and expressions.

2nd Place

Vjekoslav Kiraly

We’re congratulating Vjekoslav Kiraly for winning the second place!

Follow Vjekoslav:
LinkedIn

Vjekoslav about his entry:

“The story was to make a medieval alchemy laboratory, I waned it to look like it’s in the middle of experiment, but our mighty Alchemist forgot a few ingredients, so he had to run off with haste! Hope nothing will burn or explode in the meantime?“

Created using 3D Studio Max, Fstorm render, Marvelous Designer and Photoshop.

Clay Render

What our jury says:

Lukas: We see everything in this image from quite a distance, yet nothing gets lost and the overall texture of all shapes and materials is very smooth and pleasing.

Julien: The amount of detail in this environment is staggering and the lighting & composition is really doing it a service. For this one I really had to look at the WIP image to make sure that some of those details were not just faked. Wonderful job!

Gregory: Here’s an environment with a real sense of place – the attention to detail is fantastic, and all those details help to describe the alchemist that must work there.

Aidy: One of the few entries without a character though it isn’t a big drawback as the environment does all the storytelling here and it does it very well. A good combination of modelling, texturing and lighting makes this a pleasure to allow the eye to roam around and explore the details.

Chris: The atmosphere in this one is great. From the design and layout, to the moody lighting and grungy textures, this seems like a perfect depiction of a medieval alchemists’ lab.

Amina: It’s a great culmination of all the right things, just the finish on it gives a lacking feel.

Wybren: A classic still life with a lot going on. Even if there’s no one in sight, the image breathes life and story. Coupled with atmospheric lighting and a whole lot of modeling work, this is a beautiful image.

Zach: The mood, atmosphere and lighting of this render fits perfectly to the topic. The well composed amount of high quality details invite you to explore each corner of the room with care. Great work!

3rd Place

Peshang Ahmed

We’re congratulating Peshang Ahmed for winning the thrid place!

Follow Peshang:
Artstation

Peshang ​about his entry:

“Alchemy was both interesting and challenging topic to work on. The story behind this creature is a transformed alchemist that did an experiment and now reversing it back to be a normal person. Amount of asset to be prepared and tested out in the scene was something I enjoyed very much while the lighting gives another dimension to the whole story. I was learning Blender and found about this CG Boost Alchemist Challenge and tried to sketch something in Blender and I ended up making an artwork from it.

3Ds max was the hub, all the assets made in Maya and Zbrush, textured in Substance Painter and rendered by Corona render.”

Created using 3D Studio Max, Substance Painter, Corona Render and Photoshop.

Clay Render

What our jury says:

Lukas: Crazy amount of details here and very good work on the character that adds a unique twist to the alchemist topic. Also, the shapes and colors are distributed nicely, making the image overall feel very balanced.

Wybren: Most entries in the alchemist theme are up to dark things. This guy however is clearly having fun, together with his little helper mouse. The attention to detail to the surrounding is astounding. Strangely the chaos is orderly and it does not distract from the main subject.

Julien: Overall this artwork is incredibly well done. The only thing holding it down is the lighting and lack of focus for the viewers eye. I still enjoyed looking at all of it though.

Marius: An original take on the theme, with a non-human character. Good level of detail, clean scene.

Chris: Ah one can only wonder what crazy ingredients alien alchemy would call for. This is a very cool render, well-made in all regards.

Honorable Mention

Radek Kościukiewicz

We’re congratulating Radek kościukiewicz for receiving an honorable mention!

Follow Radek:
Artstation

Radek about his entry:

“Sometimes such things happen in Alchemy school. A moment of inattention, wrongly measured proportions and it is getting messy. Sometimes the mess has tentacles…”

Created using Blender EEVEE.

Clay Render

What our jury says:

Lukas: A very unusual viewpoint and a very unusual style! I’m always a fan of well delivered stylized approaches and this one does it damn well! I especially like the stylized spiky particles on the tentacles.

Cedric: Nice story, color and lighting. The drops feel a bit out of place and would’ve preferred some more story elements. Nice style!

Gregory: A strong composition with striking cinematic lighting within a cohesive style made this entry stand out for me. The color subtlety and design also really work well.

Chris: This render has a really awesome style and story to it, and I’m curious to see the rest of this beast that the students at the school likely cooked up.

Zach: This one stood out for me, since it was a complete different take on the subject. It reminds me on Hogwarts from Harry Potter. The composition and especially the lighting in this one is phenomenal. The flying particles is a nice little touch which ads to the story. This render shows that you can get great looking results even without using any textures. Great job!

Honorable Mention

Laura Llimós

We’re congratulating Laura Llimós for receiving an honorable mention!

Follow Laura:
Website

Facebook

Laura about her entry:

“Alchemist experiments, explosive substances and a cat chasing a mouse. What can go wrong?

With this idea in mind, the main purpose was to make something simple, an apparently static scene where the chaos is imminent, caused by some alien characters. It was about that moment before the disaster, just before the explosion.The project took me 2 weeks, and I learned, above all, composition. I focused on movement. How could I achieve it without losing the center of the scene? I tried several poses for the cat and the mouse until I found a composition and pose that fits with what I wanted.The image was made in Blender 2.8, rendered with Cycles. Light adjust done in Photoshop.This is my 3rd entry for CG Boost Challenge, and I feel I’ve learned some skills with each one of them. The entire project has represented a real challenge, and I am satisfied with the result. I hope you like it!”

Created using Blender (Cycles) and Photoshop.

Clay Render

What our jury says:

Cedric: Superb framing and lighting. The glare, DOF and lens distortion/dirt however obscure too many details. Nice work!

Chipp: A funny scene showing a cat chasing the mouse and spilling some chemicals into the bowl beneath. I would’ve like this better had there been a bit more motion blur and some sense the mouse was in fact trying to get away. The render is excellent and I really like the color toning. The brick texture seems a tad too small.

Wybren: A bright and playful scene with a story. Classic action – reaction, great work!

Gregory: This entry is fantastic on so many levels, particularly in providing a really engaging and funny narrative that’s easy to read, combined with a very clear link to this challenge’s topic.

Zach: Great composition and storytelling here. I love the motion of the cat and that you can clearly imagine all sorts of things that could happen the next moment. Only the fire effects could have used a bit more brightness and power. Other than that, great render!

Highlights: Training Arena

Let’s see how our newcomers have performed.

Raffle Winners

Learn who’s won our raffle.

Winners

The sponsors and supporters of this challenge.