Jewelry

01 · Brief

Traditional craft, photorealistic presentation

The commission came from a jewelry design studio based in Douala, Cameroon. They needed product visuals good enough to carry their brand on social media and their website — without a photo studio or professional photographer. The brief: show the ring, and show the traditional engravings.

Engraved patterns are difficult to photograph well. Reflective gold surfaces catch everything — the ceiling, the camera, the hands holding it. A 3D render doesn't have those problems. You control what the gold reflects, where the light falls, and how the engraving reads against the surface. That control was what made 3D the right choice here.

Twelve lights for a single ring

Modelling started from reference photos of the physical ring. The geometry was built to match the proportions exactly, then the engraved patterns were added as bump maps — more efficient than modelling the detail in full geometry, and easier to refine without rebuilding the mesh.

The gold shader used a layer weight-based material to simulate how real gold responds to different viewing angles — flatter on direct-facing surfaces, warmer and more saturated at grazing angles. Subtle surface imperfections kept it from looking too perfect.

Lighting was the most demanding part. Highly reflective materials behave like mirrors — they show the entire environment back to the camera. Getting the right reflection pattern meant placing up to twelve individual lights per scene, each adjusted manually until the result matched the brief. Rendered in Cycles, composited in Photoshop.