2012 Christmas Competition – Results

Last year’s Christmas competition saw a huge amount of entries, and this year’s is no different!

198 artists entered into the competition. Which is quite a feat seeing as I gave you less than 3 weeks to complete it!

Let’s get into it…

All Entries

Favourites

Although these entries didn’t win, they came very close and deserve a mention:

Created by niittymaa

Great use of composition to tell a story. I especially like the soft lighting and arrangement of the presents (I’ll bet that took a while), along with the paper. Very nice work overall. Great job niittymaa!

Created by thehood

What an amazing effect! This is one of the closest attempts at a cartoon style I’ve seen created with Blender. And it came very close to winning! The lighting, setting, and characters are all wonderful. Really well done “thehood”! If you ever feel like sharing the secrets to achieving this unique style, I’m sure the blender community would love you for it

Created by CarloBergonzini

A nice looking Christmas scene with an interesting story. I especially like the effect of the lights shining through the window and causing a vertical flare. Well done CarloBergonzini!

Created by Draguu (Pratik Solanki)

Another stellar piece of artwork Pratik! You came very close to winning (for a third time!?). The details really set this apart from others. I especially like the snow embedded in the wispy fur. I just wish I knew what was in the foreground! Overall this is another excellent piece of work. Great job Pratik

Created by Nathan Wilkinson

Love it! Santa’s expression really sells it. It looks like it would be perfect for an advertisement or movie scene. I especially like the beard – very believable. Well done Nathan!

Created by Nita

This one also came very close to winning! The first thought that came to mind was Toy Story 3. The same good vibes and cooky characters are there I’m not entirely sure what the story is about, but the details in the scene make up for it. I especially like the snow built up outside the window Great job Nita!

Created by Ezekiel123

Love that Christmas tree! The whole scene really works well together. I’m not so keen on the note in the foreground, but other than it looks great. Well done Ezekiel123

Winner

Created by Rangiz

Wow! Well done Rangiz!! I chose you as the winner because your scene checks all the boxes: Aesthetics, Story telling and Impact. The details in the characters are phenomenal, from the texturing on the soldier, to the fur on the mouse. The lighting and composition are also spot on.

So congratulations Rangiz, you’ve won: $250 cash + any item from the blender e-shop + $250 to a charity of your choice + a permanent spot in the Winners Hall of Fame :) Well earned.

A big thank you to everyone who entered into this year’s Christmas competition!

Unfortunately I don’t have time to go through each entry and explain why they didn’t win. But if you’d like feedback, post your image in the comments below and I’m sure the community will gladly give you some pointers.

So that’s all from me… Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! See you all in 2013

Tags: christmas, competition

About Andrew Price

User of Blender for 9+ years. I've written tutorials for 3d World Magazine and spoken at three Blender conferences. My goal is to help artists get employed in the industry by making training accessible and easy to understand. I'm an Aussie and I live in South Korea ;)

View all posts by Andrew Price →

← New Competition: Christmas 2012

Top 20 Blender Artworks from 2012 →

Pingback: Breakdown: Santa’s Workshop | Sakari Niittymaa | 3D & CGI ARTIST
Abdel

Hey I dont think you have very many tutorials concerning animation on blender. Your modeling tutorials are great but I think you should do a couple tutorials on animation! I am very interested in animation and I think many other people are. so what do you think?
Josh Faulkner

I am not able to determine if the brown stuff in front of the mouse is cookie crumbs or rat droppings and a play off of the title “duty”…Maybe the artist can clarify.
thehood

Hi, congrats to the winner and all the cool ideas and renders. Thanks for the nice comments on my Pettson & Findus recreation. Yeah, it’s a recreation of Sven Nordqvist’s art, I also mentioned that in the forum post and linked to an image of the original ( http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?274201-Blender-Guru-Competition-Christmas-2012/page16 ). Andrew, would be nice if you can mention that in your comment. Thanks!
David Stone

Just a heads up. I don’t really know the rules but “thehoods” entry is a 3d version of an existing 2d artwork by Sven Nordqvist from the childrens book Findus at Christmas (Findus and Pettson), http://www.amazon.com/Findus-at-Christmas-Pettson/dp/1907359052/
So at least there should be a credit to the original artist or something.
Pingback: Pettersson & Findus | 3D Art & GameDev Blog
Richard van dijk

The one by Nita looks so nice too I can see how hard it was to judge this.
pixnlove

Looking at some of these entries make me realise that making 3D Art is hard work!!!
It is easy Download Blender and hit Render (actually you don’t even have to anymore using Cycle)
but composing a decent 3D scene is another story.
So I guess well done for the 190 who downloaded Blender and for the 7 runners up and the winner of course for actually producing these amazing renders!!!
guest

I also think that http://www.blenderguru.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/dolbecke.jpg is good as well
http://twitter.com/ferretwilliams Garrett Williams

I liked Spouch’s idea of putting eyes on the presents. I really should do that next Christmas with the gifts I give :-p

Being a cartoonist, I doubt my family would be surprised. OH WAIT, I still have at least one more family get-together for this Christmas! Definitely doing that, if I remember.
http://www.vinay-sharma.com/ VINAY Kr. SHARMA

Amazing creativity.

Lots of happiness
http://www.facebook.com/bares.jakub Jakub Bareš

Hi, congratulation to everybody. Good job. I would like to ak you to send feedback about my entry. This is my first complete render ever. I would like to get better. Thank you and Happy New year Blenders!

Carlos Gomes Ferreira

Hello

I find your work very well-done specially the floor and the light coming out of the candles. I like the pages of the news paper floating around, the carton-boards.

I also find it a bit sad, and maybe your work was not displayed among the favourites because of that.
Rinsable

I am in no way one qualified to critique art work, but ill throw in my two cents since i know consructive critisism is an artists best chance for improving. The scene (as stated above) is a fairly sad one for Christmas. As for the textures, they are mediocre, but lack extra details that makes a scene stand out. The lighting may be a little too dark, as i can hardly see almost the entire left side of your render. The lighting in the window is probably my favorite part of your scene. Watch some more lighting tutorials, as i see that as the biggest improvementyou could have made here. Happy Blending!!

K

How are you do it? Awesome…
Kirill Poltavets

My “winner” is TheHood!
It’s the warmest and sweetest picture about Christmas that I saw this year!
Cheers! ^_____^
FacePalm

Blender needs better artists. =
Kevin

Hey Andrew, just wondering, why isn’t my entry displayed? And one more thing, when will be the new competition? I really love working with a theme, can really decide on what to do in my spare time
Shashank Raj

Congrats to all the winners. You guys are my inspiration. Btw, Pratik’s Rudolph is my wallpaper on mobile and Pc. It’s such an eye candy. I wish I’ll be in this contest too. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.
Robert Casalegno

It’s been a honor to be defeated (smashed, actually) from such great artists. Thank you for sharing those artworks!
jer_mon

The art of the hood thow isent really his idea he remade a hand drawn drawing ( ) from a child book called Peterson und Findus.
This is the front page of a book obviously about christmas, I think he did well but please give props?

Boirks

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3449/3735523443_814db8b207.jpg

There’s the original. Childrens books with beauty both in art and story.

It doesn’t really make thehoods piece any less great though.

Michael (MYCK3D) Kupka

Nice!
But where’s the soldier’s shoulder?
whatever

Awesome! Just awesome. So many great scenens. Personall liked TheHoods Petson & Findus the best. It really stood out
AlinB

That`s weird. I was 100% sure that Prtaik was going to win this.
Crackers

Nice entries Congratulations to the winners and Merry Christmas ~

PD: And still I don’t know how to make snow in Blender, oh well *facedesk*
Leigh

Great work everyone! I especially like the character expressions and physical poses of the mice in dolbecke’s entry. Bravo!
http://www.facebook.com/joe.ross.96 Joe Ross

I am a little sad mine did not win, but the finalist and winner are well deserved. Very well deserved. I especially liked Pratik Solanki’s entry and thehood’s entry. Those were my favorite. Good job everyone! Merry Christmas. Thanks Andrew for yet another wonderful competition.
Ivan

Hey andrew i think it would be also awesome to make a contest for all of the past winners so everyone has to make a tutorial for their winning picture (or something better?) and the best tutorial (voted by us) will win, what do you think? ^^ i think it’ll be awesome and will help the blender community alot Merry Christmas btw.

Andrew Price

Sounds cool in theory, but in actuality not everyone wants to share the secrets behind something that they slaved over for hours on end, and nor should they. The blender community now has more than enough tutorials out there to satisfy the masses. The only thing stopping others from achieving the same level of results from these entries is patience and a little bit of elbow grease

David Morrison

Andrew, thanks for hosting these contests. They are an inspiration to the Blender community.
Jay

Disappointing. Pratik’s is definitely the best entry up there.

sparazza

no storytelling at all for me

http://www.facebook.com/matt.pietsch1 Matt Pietsch

can anyone show me how to do the evergreen trees. A link would be fine
Daniel

Just found it … and love it .. and share it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyzJ4InbTvU

Guest

Haha nice video, thanks for the re-share

http://www.facebook.com/orlydelcarmen Orly Del Carmen

Great entries… very inspiring.
Congrats to all winners!
Giovanni Lucca

For the first time i did not agree with the chosen winner of a Blender Guru Competition. Not that the winner wasn’t good. But the art of the Pratik Solanki is stunning in all aspects! Maybe the story telling isn’t that clear. But it seems that the reindeer have escaped to have your own Christmas holiday…

Giovanni Lucca

…even the art of thehood with your impressive carton style render, and powerful story telling… I bet a lot of you didn’t passed the christmas night alone with your cat… that’s sad!

Swalscha

Christmas is about share and family love. Thehood makes this perfectly in the spirit of Christmas : someone who has nobody except a cat could do that.
Nice job everyone and have a happy new year !

Owldude

Hmm, my entry was late, but I thought even if they didn’t win late entries would show up in the list. Mine didn’t…? But seriously, awesome job everyone! The finalists are some of my favorite renders yet. =)
dolbecke

Congratulations Rangiz! And merry christmas to everyone !
Daniel

Great Job everyone ! Merry Christmas and happy Blender Time in 2013 !
Duckhands

i called it on the winners lol good work guys, i hope i can get up to that level of skill soon.
PrinterKiller

You didn’t mention that the fur on the winner’s mouse was made with the new strand patch for Cycles! Cycles!!!

Owldude

I suppose that’s why it won…with the fur down so easily he (if it’s she then sorry) could move on to the other elements almost immediately.

Genius

hey guys i found out the secret to the story telling part. Put a huge white over black font under your picture explaining it, in a non blender program! Genius!

Nita

Congratss Rangiz.. i like the story and render is amazing.. Thank you so much Andrew for mention and appreciation.. Good job everyone.. merry christmas..
syed

Ok, seriously, Prtaik Deserved ONce again…

esistgut

I agree.
Wycky

and what’s about idea?
Andrew Price

It was really good, but I actually preferred the story and cheerful theme of Rangiz’s entry. But to each their own.
Pratik doesn’t mind not winning. He does these competitions for fun and actually feels bad for winning too many That’s why the last few comps he asked for his entry to be excluded from winning anything.

http://www.facebook.com/max.berends.3 Max Berends

LOVE! The results of this contest! Great job to all participants, Congratz to the winner offcourse but also the the finalists. Pettson and Findus’ Christmas by Thehood Was absolutely my favorite! I love that story and it hold great sentiment XD And if people do not know the story it’s an absolute must watch during this Xmas with your Girl- / Boyfriend/ Children haha. Another Merry Christmas and a happy newyear to everyone!
Circle_D8

Lots of high quality art!

2012 Christmas Competition – Results

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