Berry’s Adventures: Behind the Scenes

Berry's Adventures: Behind the Scenes

Στιγμιότυπο οθόνης 2026-09-03, 12.49.14 πμ

Welcome to Berry’s Adventures! If you’ve been following me for a while you might know that I am a sucker for playful, narrative-driven worlds. Today I am sharing my process behind such a world – my latest (and first!) animation project.

So, this is Berry. Berry was created for Gauntlet of Gods challenge, we were supposed to create a battle ready character. I’ve been following pwnisher‘s challenges for many years (if you don’t, you should!) but I never took part in any of them, because they are primarily about animation and I only knew how to sculpt. Honestly, I don’t know what happened this time, I literally woke up one day and said “ok, let’s do it”. Maybe because I wanted to learn Blender for so long but I always putting it off.

Pirate and his Staff – Initial Concept for the Challenge

And that brings us to Berry. Berry wasn’t even my first choice. (Sorry Berry!) I wanted my hero to be a pirate, fighting a bunch of skeletons that were closing in. So I sculpted a super detailed, as-high-poly-as-it-can-get model, but as soon as I imported it in Blender, … disaster followed. Remember, I never touched Blender in my life (well, almost, I did the ever-so-famous donut tutorial a few times, but that’s it). Temporarily I gave up. But it still bugged me (cause I never give up) and I decided to do the exact opposite of a hyperrealistic pirate-themed world – a super simple cartoonish one. And Berry was born! (- Berry: So, are you saying I am simple? – Me: Yes, Berry but beauty lies in simplicity sometimes!)

Berry is a … well … strawberry! He’s the hero of healthy food that fights against junk food. They’ve been in war forever, but lately junk food threatens to wipe healthy food off the face of the earth. But Berry forged a magical mallet-staff, and he won’t let that happen. The battle takes place on an old tavern table, where junk food is closing in on Berry (they had been fighting for some time, “dead” fries and burgers are lying in pools of ketchup), when Berry casts a spell and everything is blasted away, except for a dizzy donut that rolls lazily, when a rogue fry passes through it.

Characters

Berry and ~~friends~~ ahem, sorry I meant enemies, were all sculpted in Nomad Sculpt. Right after, everything was imported to Blender.

Rigging ang Animation

I mixed keyframe animation with dynamic elements. Since I knew nothing about animation prior to this project, I relied heavily on physics to cause a messy chaos (Actually Berry caused it but never mind!). We had the choice to use a pre-made animation, which I graciously accepted of course. I only had to tidy things up, since Barry is kinda overweight compared to a human hero (sorry Berry!).

Painting, Lighting and Rendering

I went for an ultra minimal, cartoonish style, because the concept was already cartoonish, borderline hilarious. And also because I had a deadline to catch. Colors and lighting were chosen so as to resemble a 90’s game. The internet insisted that I used Eevee renderer… so I did. Simple as that!

Compositing

Used Blender compositor for the final touches and … voila!

Conclusion

All in all, this last month was a life changing experience for me. I was humbled by such insane talent from all over the world, but I was also happy I managed to finish an actual animation project. And now I know a couple of things about Blender I didn’t know before. How cool is that?!

And Berry? Oh, I’m afraid things are just getting started! You see, he grew up on me, so much that I plan to expand his world. After all, he has more fights to win!

Not to mention that I want to animate my pirate – the original hero for this challenge. So yep, I am fully booked for the next year or two! In the meantime, keep practising. 😉