Behind the Scenes: Martini Glass

Hi, Blender heads! My name is Quy, I live in Vietnam, and I’m currently working as a freelance 3D artist. I approached 3D art when I was 14 years old, but then a couple of years later, I stopped to focus on my high school studies and then University. After graduating from HCM University of Architecture, I decided to continue to pursue my 3D artist career and started to use Blender about a year ago. I’m currently a Blender lover, and most of my works are made in Blender too.

I am really into architecture, interior, and product visualization and always want to push the realism in Blender, which is a very cool and free software that has a bright future.

Inspiration

For this project, my inspiration comes from a Vietnamese song I heard many months ago named “Who?” by The Chillies. It has a sentence: “Who are you? Chillin’ alone on the bar with a Martini…?”

I quickly drew a picture in my mind that there’s a well-dressed woman with a martini glass in one hand, and she’s alone. But then it turned into the idea of the martini, left alone without the woman (since I’m not good at anatomy XD).

Modeling

I started with the basic shape of the glass based on some references I’d found on the internet. I also made a small tutorial about modeling it with three techniques on my YouTube:

I used the same techniques and some basic Extrude tool to model the rest: the table, shaker, plate, and those olives.

For the small bubbles that cover the glass, I used Hair particles with the Weight Paint tool to mask the density.

The inside bubbles were created by using Particles emitted from a circle. I’m always sure to remember to give it some size randomization.

Materials

All materials are basic, with some roughness maps from Poliigon:

• For the shaker, I used a Principled BSDF, gave it metalness, and used the rain map from Poliigon mixed with a Gradient texture to make it rough on the bottom and glossy on top.
  
  

  

  
• The plate is a metal shader with a scratches bump map from Poliigon.
• The olives are just Principled BSDF, made glossy, and with an added noise texture for bump. I also did a little bit of sculpting to make the olives look more organic.
  
  

  

  
• I used basic glass for the martini glass, and for the liquid, I added a Volume absorption with a very light yellow color and then increased the Density to make the liquid more realistic.
• The table used the wood texture from Poliigon, and I mixed it with some imperfection texture for the roughness.

Lighting

I used three light sources, 1 for the fill light from above, 1 for the key, and 1 for the back light. It’s the 3-point lighting technique with some adjustments to fit the mood and the background.

For the background, I used an image found on Shutterstock. I placed one copy of it in the background and tried to fit the perspective, and then I put some other copies of the image around the scenes for the reflections.

Final Renders

After many test renders and feedback from friends and the Reddit community, I’ve adjusted the scene and finally have a render that I’m satisfied with. I also made some color adjustments after that.

I also made a daylight concept for this one.

That’s all my process from inspiration to the final image. I hope you’ve learned something from it and keep yourself motivated. Thanks for reading!

About the Author

Quy Tran (aka. Masaru), 3D Artist based in Vietnam. Specialized in architecture and product visualization.