Often when you’re working in the world of 3D modeling, rendering, and animation, you just have to have some fun and experiment.
Here are a few fun images I’ve created over the years. (A bit of trivia… I believe one of these images found its way into a beta-development logo for a Fortune 100 CMS project.)
Another trivia bit…. in the 3D forums I participated in when I was learning 3D, I sometimes chatted with John Knoll of PhotoShop and Industrial Light & Magic fame. There were other artists who worked on films such as the Matrix or a number of other feature films. Sometimes we’d catch a sneak peak at fun projects they were working on, or catch priceless tips and tricks from them.
One big tip I picked up at the time was that colors in nature are seldom as saturated as we tend to pick in color palettes. So, pick the color you want, but then experiment with desaturating or ‘greying’ it out in the project for a more real appearance.