Articles 888
![TopBanners15083101.jpg](http://blendernews.org/xe/files/attach/images/112/834/010/a877da9b39750bcf0903c5f466b79386.jpg)
September 1, 2015 8:00 AM
by Editor in Chief
Who are these "unknown" artists posting top notch renders without prior "test" renders that befit those of the "newbies?" Check out the comments of this week's winner.
How, then, can you too qualify for this award? Please have in mind that this award is reserved for those that are on par with or that excel top notch works published by artists and studios. If such work does not appear during a given week, this award is not being given to anyone. So please submit your best work to www.blenderartist.org or to the Member's Gallery of this site, or Contact Us to show where your work is available on the internet. It doesn't have to be a Blender render, internal or Cycles. Any other render engine is fine as long as Blender was used as a part of your workflow.
So, it is with great pleasure that www.BlenderNews.org introduces to you the winner of the Render of the Week Award for the week of August 31, 2015: Henrik Debner.
Title: Zen Garden
Genre: Environment Design
Renderer: Cycles
Final Work:
![ROTWA150831.jpg](http://blendernews.org/xe/files/attach/images/112/834/010/98cdfb9ca2eb4bd3414a36a33d1ce17d.jpg)
Geometries & Textures
![ROTWA150831MO1.jpg](http://blendernews.org/xe/files/attach/images/112/834/010/ad75191f86aadd0ff310bbb3753dcf37.jpg)
About Me:
I'm a young guy in my mid-twenties, hailing from the small country of Finland, northern Europe. I'm currently starting my fourth and last year of studying 3D-animation & visualization in Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences.
About "Zen Garden:"
This was fun to work with. I gathered inspiration from Japanese gardens and by looking at the buildings of a great Japanese architect Tadao Ando.
I wanted to make a scene which, in a harmonic way, would involve simple architecture but also a lot of natural elements. The render should feel like a well-composed photograph, so I played a lot with different lighting scenarios and camera angles. The square aspect ratio felt like the only way to go with this one.
The garden is surrounded by concrete walls, with one entrance and an open roof for maximum natural light. Visitors could sit on the benches by the entrance and take a relaxing moment.
Blender was used for modeling and Cycles for rendering this scene. To light the scene I used an HDR-image (credits to: www.hdrlabs.com). "Image-based lighting" gives usually the best/most natural end result. Finalizing and post-processing was done in Photoshop to add various effects: a couple of tree branches on the foreground, and an image for the background.
1. http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?377162-Zen-Garden
2. http://www.hdrlabs.com/