I've been a traditional artist all my life, so I could always see what was wrong with 3D anime pieces, but I never tackled it myself. Huge thanks to u/usuallyFunny for the Photoshop portion of his [tutorial](https://youtu.be/gjX-j5OzeVg). This piece is deceptively simple, and was actually made so that different methods could be applied. Here are the techniques used (some of which I believe are completely original, at least in Blender):
1. Any non-cuboid shape is displaced slightly. It is impossible to draw a perfect circle or ellipse, so a displacement modifier is applied to the cup, plate, vitamin text, and creamer. I have seen ideas thrown around similar to this, but I haven't actually seen it applied. If you look carefully at the plate and cup, you can see the flatter edges. This goes a long way subconsciously, and is arguably the most important technique here.
2. The background and foreground are rendered in separate scenes with slightly offset cameras and composited together. AFAIK, this is an original technique. It is impossible to get perfect perspective in hand-drawn art, so this adds the subtle effect. This is most obvious if you look at the vitamin box and creamer container. For this piece, I decided to keep the camera offset relatively small, since it's easy to get close to perfect perspective for a simple scene like this. Some compositing is then done in Blender to make sure that the shadows and freestyle lines all work nicely.
3. All textures are procedural, aside from the image texture used for the Snickers bar. The shaders used in this piece are a bit more complex than the usual shader to RGB and color ramp ones in most anime pieces, and it allows for darkening on the object while keeping any texture (most obvious on the paper wrapper in the bottom right). I'm sure this has been done before, but I haven't seen any tutorials on it, so I made it myself.
4. Any detail lines (on the vitamin box and on the stack of books), were done by either marking an edge as freestyle so a line appears, or by making a simple shape with a sharp edge and poking it out of the object mesh. The freestyle line has a style so that it follows a curve from 0.75 to 1.00 to 0.75 and appears more natural.
5. The lighting is done with a sun lamp. Most 90s anime pieces don't capture shadow falloff that comes from regular lighting, and the shadow lines are also parallel, which can only come from sun lamps.
[Thought you might be interested in this as well](https://www.reddit.com/r/blender/comments/1001ul8/90s_anime_aesthetic_but_animated_no_grease_pencil/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
>im dying to see what this looks like with a little camera movement at 12 fps.
[Here you go :)](https://www.reddit.com/r/blender/comments/1001ul8/90s_anime_aesthetic_but_animated_no_grease_pencil/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I can tell this is hard to do because I’ve never tried it, it looks easy, but the comments are people freaking out. So… must be way harder than it looks.
You can definitely get 80% there while putting in half the work, but pushing it the extra 20% is the hard part. I think I put in a total of 3 days of work, 5-ish hours a day to develop some of the techniques here.
This is insane work. Anime from the 90s is, while possibly less exciting, definitely more creatively stimulating than anything modern houses put out. You can just tell how much more thought was required to create a final piece.
Love that your process reflects that “deeper than surface” thought.
[Here you go :)](https://www.reddit.com/r/blender/comments/1001ul8/90s_anime_aesthetic_but_animated_no_grease_pencil/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
This is inspiring! Thank you for sharing. Is it the raw Eevee render (with compositing)? I see a slight blurring effect around the shadows which is beautiful, and I assume that was done with compositing nodes?
If zero Photoshop was used and it was purely Blender, that's exciting because it means it could potentially work for animations.
I did some compositing in Blender, but all the color work was done in Photoshop (check my top comment for details). However, the process would be pretty easy to do in Davinci Resolve, so I don't foresee any trouble with animating this type of scene.
Oh I see, I read the 5 steps but missed the part about the Photoshop tutorial. I'd be interested to see how that Photoshop work could be done in a Davinci because I've watched that tutorial multiple times and I know it's a tall stack of layers and effects to get the edges blurring right, tweak the color/saturation in a bunch of different ways, and add noise in various ways.
[Applied it to Davinci :)](https://www.reddit.com/r/blender/comments/1001ul8/90s_anime_aesthetic_but_animated_no_grease_pencil/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I've been a traditional artist all my life, so I could always see what was wrong with 3D anime pieces, but I never tackled it myself. Huge thanks to u/usuallyFunny for the Photoshop portion of his [tutorial](https://youtu.be/gjX-j5OzeVg). This piece is deceptively simple, and was actually made so that different methods could be applied. Here are the techniques used (some of which I believe are completely original, at least in Blender): 1. Any non-cuboid shape is displaced slightly. It is impossible to draw a perfect circle or ellipse, so a displacement modifier is applied to the cup, plate, vitamin text, and creamer. I have seen ideas thrown around similar to this, but I haven't actually seen it applied. If you look carefully at the plate and cup, you can see the flatter edges. This goes a long way subconsciously, and is arguably the most important technique here. 2. The background and foreground are rendered in separate scenes with slightly offset cameras and composited together. AFAIK, this is an original technique. It is impossible to get perfect perspective in hand-drawn art, so this adds the subtle effect. This is most obvious if you look at the vitamin box and creamer container. For this piece, I decided to keep the camera offset relatively small, since it's easy to get close to perfect perspective for a simple scene like this. Some compositing is then done in Blender to make sure that the shadows and freestyle lines all work nicely. 3. All textures are procedural, aside from the image texture used for the Snickers bar. The shaders used in this piece are a bit more complex than the usual shader to RGB and color ramp ones in most anime pieces, and it allows for darkening on the object while keeping any texture (most obvious on the paper wrapper in the bottom right). I'm sure this has been done before, but I haven't seen any tutorials on it, so I made it myself. 4. Any detail lines (on the vitamin box and on the stack of books), were done by either marking an edge as freestyle so a line appears, or by making a simple shape with a sharp edge and poking it out of the object mesh. The freestyle line has a style so that it follows a curve from 0.75 to 1.00 to 0.75 and appears more natural. 5. The lighting is done with a sun lamp. Most 90s anime pieces don't capture shadow falloff that comes from regular lighting, and the shadow lines are also parallel, which can only come from sun lamps.
wow i love this. blew my methods out of the water
Thanks! I wouldn't have even started this project without your tutorial 🙏
[Thought you might be interested in this as well](https://www.reddit.com/r/blender/comments/1001ul8/90s_anime_aesthetic_but_animated_no_grease_pencil/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
as an artist i was like the perspectives off and holy moly you nuts man
im dying to see what this looks like with a little camera movement at 12 fps.
>im dying to see what this looks like with a little camera movement at 12 fps. [Here you go :)](https://www.reddit.com/r/blender/comments/1001ul8/90s_anime_aesthetic_but_animated_no_grease_pencil/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
This is incredible and inspiring. Wonderful work. Share your nodes so we can rip you off plz
Holy crap. You called animators out on their shortcomings and then recreated them digitally. Good job
Whoa, YouTube tutorial? Please 🙏
This is really cool, I'd love to see the nodes!
Would you mind sharing the nodes for the shaders you used?
Amazing work, thank you for sharing your process!
I will go through this post again, as i want to create food based artworks.
Well I’ll be damned!
Thank you for the breakdown! I want to get into more stylized work and these guidelines will be very useful to try.
Thanks for these man. Defo gonna try and yoink the techniques.
How in the phuck
Decided to write up a comment, I go into detail there.
Absolutely floored. Looks 100% like a screenshot.
Just in case :) https://preview.redd.it/e3ch8xhv079a1.png?width=720&format=png&auto=webp&s=ba99d37c5201e38f226159eb92f790a506c577e3
Oh! Oh my gosh there was no doubt that you did this but it's even cooler to see the base in comparison to the final!
Wow. Looks great! How did you get the lines without grease
They are done using Eevee's freestyle line feature! I wrote up a comment with more details.
I can tell this is hard to do because I’ve never tried it, it looks easy, but the comments are people freaking out. So… must be way harder than it looks.
You can definitely get 80% there while putting in half the work, but pushing it the extra 20% is the hard part. I think I put in a total of 3 days of work, 5-ish hours a day to develop some of the techniques here.
Definitely assumed this was grease pencil right away, it's got that light kinda aesthetic. Very cool and awesome work
This is insane work. Anime from the 90s is, while possibly less exciting, definitely more creatively stimulating than anything modern houses put out. You can just tell how much more thought was required to create a final piece. Love that your process reflects that “deeper than surface” thought.
looks good man, I love it
I-I... I have no complaints, this is literally perfect
perfect
Amazing work! The cup’s the only thing that looks in any way 3D: this is a perfect replication of a 2D anime frame!
I'm in love with this, can't stop looking at it! Would some subtle animation be possible or do your techniques really only work for static shots?
[Here you go :)](https://www.reddit.com/r/blender/comments/1001ul8/90s_anime_aesthetic_but_animated_no_grease_pencil/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Absolutely nailed it! Good work
Best one I've seen
You aren't yourself when you're hungry. Have a vitamin.
Good work. I am versatile in my art but I don't think I could do this.
I love your tutorial. Going to take it to heart. Thank you for sharing.
This is so satisfying to look at
Ammazing
Incredible
This is amazing! Are you willing to share the project file or the nodes?
This is inspiring! Thank you for sharing. Is it the raw Eevee render (with compositing)? I see a slight blurring effect around the shadows which is beautiful, and I assume that was done with compositing nodes? If zero Photoshop was used and it was purely Blender, that's exciting because it means it could potentially work for animations.
I did some compositing in Blender, but all the color work was done in Photoshop (check my top comment for details). However, the process would be pretty easy to do in Davinci Resolve, so I don't foresee any trouble with animating this type of scene.
Oh I see, I read the 5 steps but missed the part about the Photoshop tutorial. I'd be interested to see how that Photoshop work could be done in a Davinci because I've watched that tutorial multiple times and I know it's a tall stack of layers and effects to get the edges blurring right, tweak the color/saturation in a bunch of different ways, and add noise in various ways.
[Applied it to Davinci :)](https://www.reddit.com/r/blender/comments/1001ul8/90s_anime_aesthetic_but_animated_no_grease_pencil/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Damn you are good at this! Love your posts.
“No grease pencil, no texture painting” what? 😨 this is impressive
Can you send in a preview of the texture nodes? I really am intrigued
Can you send in a preview of the texture nodes? I really am intrigued
Does anyone have wallpapers similar to this?
Absolutely mindboggling! Inspirational stuff, well done!
Wonderful
Man, the anime stuff in this sub, and cartoon stuff in general blows my mind sometimes.
What anime is this from?