This is the Blender Collaboration 2024, week 48 challenge. Don’t be afraid to join, a lot of us are beginners. This is all to practice, have fun, learn, and get together.
The rules are simple. 1 subject, 1 entry, 1 week.
You create whatever object or scene or whatever you can think of that has something to do with the subject. It can be as simple or complicated as you want, all entries are welcome!
Post your picture here in this thread. At the end of the week, we start to vote. And if you are the winner, you may choose the next subject and win a unique badge.
The first thing that popped into my head when I saw “Christmas Trees” was Charlie Brown. So, getting inspired by xealstrag’s entry for Black & White, with the use of planes, I decided I wanted to try a 2.5d idea and recreate Charles Schulz’ Charlie Brown Christmas. I’ve attached a screencap so you can see the 2.5d in action as well as the final render, which is the entry for this week.
This is the final render:
This was fun but I think if I do this style again, I’m going to learn how to use the grease pencil instead of using lots of planes to create the outlines (yeesh!).
I’ve got a pretty simple tree here; didn’t put very much time into this one, but hopefully I can get in the spirit and make better artworks in December.
Admittedly, it took longer than I had originally intended, although, by the end, I got really fast at adding and extruding the planes. I then added subdivision, solidify, and displacement modifiers so it would look a bit more like it was hand drawn. I worked on it off and on during the week - I don’t know how many hours I actually put in on it.
And I love your art style. You’ve really nailed that buttery smooth, soft, rounded cg look. It’s always beautiful and fun to look at. I’m sure there’s a proper name for the style, but I don’t know what to call it.
I appreciate the comment! I still feel like there’s a lot I can improve on, especially when it comes to texturing. I refer to it as “chunky bevels”, but I didn’t even use bevels here and that doesn’t quite roll off the tongue.
We @BlenderCollab have a few days to vote. You can vote fast but also think slowly about design, colors, technique, difficulty, subject, realism, etc. Choose consciously and not on your entry.
The new subject week 49 “Sleds” has already started. The winner of this week’s “xxx” challenge may select a subject for next week 50 and win a badge.
As a rule of thumb I choose the last one, but seeing you outline effort and original image.
I had the idea that the last image was just a work view to show the outline.
Heh, the colored version is the actual render. I used the other images to show that the lines only extend around the silhouettes of the characters and were not all the way around. No worries. I’ll make sure my next post is clearer - I looked at the original post before I edited it and realized, you’re right, it wasn’t obvious.
And thank you for sending me the grease pencil tutorial. I’m giving that s go next!
That’s ok. It means I did a good enough job to fool you . I was trying to make the render look like Charles Schulz’ original image but add just a bit of 3D cell-shading.
I’m going grease pencil crazy right now, @FedPete. I am very excited to show y’all next week’s sled entry (if I can pull it off and even if I can’t, I’ll still show it). This has opened up a completely new approach to using Blender. I’ve been really timid about using grease pencil, but I’ve quickly discovered it is just like drawing in ProCreate or Photoshop.
This week congratulations goes to @mfortunato for the winning entry of ‘Christmas trees’. I admit right away that you fooled me. I thought it was the original
All elements are there and in a beautiful composition with a real cartoon style.
xealstrag - Great single Christmas tree - The shape of the branches suggests that it is actually snow, but it is colored green. Personally, that confused me.
FedPete - When I look at the other entry, I think I took the assignment too literally. The title was Christmas trees, plural. But my entry was already at the maximum capacity of my machine by using particles. I just left it at that.
Note: I don’t want to offend anyone. I try to write down positive ideas and visions in my simple use of the English language. I am also sometimes more inspired by a particular subject or solution. I’m also learning from you!
I wish I had something like this. Good idea! 
