Teras Trials Shot 1 Breakdown (Patreon)

The only truly 3D object in this scene is the manticore model, everything else is handpainted and inserted as a flat image into the 3D scene.  This can be tricky because of shadows, lighting, clipping, transparency, and so on, but with enough practice this can be an easy way to build a good looking scene provided you have the requisite skills .

I had a very patient and understanding client who encouraged me and let me experiment. Another benefit of this approach is that it is easy to modify elements of the scene, like the colours, size, quantity of clouds, etc. You can do this in 3D too, but being flat image planes, high detail weighs down the file very little.  Perhaps the greatest benefit of having such a low-poly scene allows me to render again and again relatively efficiently until I'm satisfied with the result, which was an important part of this process.