Obscura (Shores)

Posted on January 27, 2026

I couldn’t resist the temptation to do a “from the ground” render of “Obscura“.   I thought about using Blender for it but decided to go back to VUE because I haven’t found a good way to render shoreline interactions in Blender yet.   To be fair, they are a bit wonky in VUE as well but at least it’s wonkiness I am used to.

As you can tell I am fond of rendering these types of scenes from a beach.   I like the reflections from the sky object but more than that I like the feeling of looking out on the universe when standing on a beach at night.   I also feel like beaches make for nice desktop backgrounds when you are stuck at a desk 🙂

Hope you enjoy it. On to something new now.

Obscura

Posted on January 21, 2026

After working in Blender for the past few months learning how to make landscapes and interiors I wanted to see if I could also use it to create a space scene.  Recently I’ve been using Cinema4D for these and I still own a license for the program, but I thought this would be a fun project.   

I created the nebula first and rendered it as a spherical map which I then used as a background for the planetary render.     I thought the scene could use a little depth so I added some foreground nebula elements which are probably not very realistic scientifically but I liked how they looked in the end 🙂

I hope you enjoy it!

The Gardener (v2)

Posted on January 10, 2026

I went back to the drawing board and did a second render of “The Gardener” with a few changes to the lighting. In the first version (now in the Pickle Jar) I used a spot light to illuminate the tree.  In the new version I’ve changed the scene so I could use a sun light filtering through an opening above.   The light looks less conical and, hopefully, more like my original renders from the early 2000s.   The new lighting also provides more of the diffuse green light reflected from the tree into the mist (an effect which is not possible with VUE).

Moving on to something new now 🙂

The Gardener (2026)

Posted on January 6, 2026

“The Gardener” is a theme I’ve explored quite a bit in my 25+ years of rendering.   The first version was created in 2000 using World Builder.   I revisited the theme using Lightwave in 2002.   In 2004 I took the theme to outer space with “Atrium” and went a little crazy in that direction in 2012.    As I’ve been learning Blender recently I thought it would fun to revisit the scene once more using these new tools but take things back to their roots (pun intended).

One major difference between the original versions and this is the addition of columns.    I chose to add them primarily because nowadays I am committed to creating ultrawide and multiscreen versions of my work whereas in the early 2000s I only worked with the 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio.    Otherwise things are very similar to the early version but with upgraded textures, geometry and lighting.   I hope you all enjoy my first render of 2026!

Repose

Posted on December 22, 2025

One last winter render for 2025. I thought it would be interesting to do a winter counterpoint version of “Reawakening” attempting to capture the quiet mood of the forest after a snowfall.   Where the spring version is busy with new life, this scene is about the world at rest.     This duality of the seasons has always fascinated me and I’m glad I live in a part of the world where I can experience it every year.   Rendered using VUE.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday!!

EDIT 12/23: I’ve posted a new version that dials back the snow on the tree trunks a bit. It did look a little fake 🙂