CONTESTS/HORRIFIC RENDER CONTEST 4/GALLERY
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Sylvia the Zombie Slayer 3D Render, Digital Artwork by Sisu123
Sylvia the Zombie Slayer 3D Render, Digital Artwork by Sisu123
Sylvia the Zombie Slayer 3D Render, Digital Artwork by Sisu123
Sylvia the Zombie Slayer 3D Render, Digital Artwork by Sisu123
Sylvia the Zombie Slayer 3D Render, Digital Artwork by Sisu123
Sylvia the Zombie Slayer 3D Render, Digital Artwork by Sisu123
Sylvia the Zombie Slayer 3D Render, Digital Artwork by Sisu123
Sylvia the Zombie Slayer
3D Render by Sisu123
This was a fairly complex render, hope you all like it!

The Process (For Transparency):
1. I started in Daz3D. I posed Sylvia and her props and selected the clothing and hair. I also loaded in the environment "Trashed Wonderland". I added in some of the props, namely the trash cans, bin, bags, and tires. You can see my initial idea in the beginning render. I lit Sylvia with a 5-point light setup afterwards with a warm temperature, which you can see in the overlay image made in Affinity Photo. I added in blood and bullet fx in Daz, since I don't know how to do that in Blender or in post.

2. I find it much easier and intuitive to do lighting in Blender, due to light linking, so I like to render environmental projects in Blender. The problem is that Daz character skin looks awful in Blender and hairs that lack hair cards do not show up. You can see what I mean in the initial Blender environmental lighting setup.

3. I then began adding soldiers and zombies to the scene. I realized that the monsters in the background are not obvious zombies at first glance, so I added a close up at the bottom. Having this many characters in the scene overloaded my VRAM, so I had to render the soldiers separately from Sylvia and the zombies. Because the lighting is really complex (I had lighting setup groups for each character), I couldn't afford to render the soldiers with a transparent background. That meant I had to manually paint in the soldiers in Affinity.

4. In Affinity, I realized that Sylvia's lighting is horrific for the scene, since I changed color palettes from sepia to green. I rendered her again, but this time with greenish lighting. I also added an invisible light emitter ball to highlight the pistol and Sylvia's upper torso. The lighting wasn't perfect as it couldn't match the Blender render tones, so I needed to fix that in post. I also added in smoke and spark fx in post using "Ron's Light Radiance" and "Ron's Sparks and Embers", respectively. The smoke assets were a god-send in helping blend Sylvia into the scene, it wasn't realistic looking until then.

LovecraftianPenguinMon, Sep 22, 2025
Karma: 12,803
Great render! Thanks for the detailed info on the rendering and compositing process, If i ever start doing renders again i may have to add blender into my workflow.

Good luck with the contest entry.
Sisu123
Karma: 2,372
Mon, Sep 22, 2025
Thank you!
Yeah, I'm going to try and simplify the process in the future. Hair is definitely the biggest hurdle. Blender is awesome! Using Diffeomorphic to import Daz characters makes the process simple. Armoured Avian has some very helpful videos on YouTube about how to use it.
vicster56Mon, Sep 22, 2025
Karma: 78,982
Awesome scene!! Good luck!!
Sisu123
Karma: 2,372
Mon, Sep 22, 2025
Thank you! Fingers crossed!
ArtbyMelMon, Sep 22, 2025
Karma: 19,659
Awesome render! Good luck!!
Sisu123
Karma: 2,372
Mon, Sep 22, 2025
Thanks! It's my first competition!
bisonraviTue, Sep 23, 2025
Karma: 34,147
Huge work!
Sisu123
Karma: 2,372
Tue, Sep 23, 2025
Thanks! It was a lot of fun to make
Orazio IaciThu, Oct 23, 2025
Karma: 916
Great, may the best man win!
Sisu123
Karma: 2,372
Thu, Oct 23, 2025
Thank you! It's a tough competition!
Orazio Iaci
Karma: 916
Thu, Oct 23, 2025
Yes, it's true, ha ha ha, who knows who will win!
beachlegsThu, Oct 23, 2025
Karma: 9,826
Awesome image my friend
Sisu123
Karma: 2,372
Thu, Oct 23, 2025
Thanks! Glad you liked it!

Horrific Render Contest 4
Contest Entry by Sisu123

Sylvia the Zombie Slayer

RocketBoost Awardx2 [+]
Sun, Sep 21, 2025
820 Views820
48 Likes
13 Comments13

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