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Fan Spotlight: Jason Chester’s ‘Reimagined Tomb Raider Low Poly dioramas
Feb 25, 2024
Jason Chester is a 3D artist inspired by his passion for Tomb Raider. For Jason, the impact of the game and its iconic character, Lara Croft, extends beyond mere entertainment. The influence is deeply personal, ranging from being the catalyst to meeting his girlfriend and even driving him towards a career in 3D art. Eventually, this influence led him to the role of a lighting artist for the Tomb Raider I-III Remastered.
Today, we are excited to highlight his remarkable ‘Reimagined Low Poly diorama’ level series for Tomb Raider I, II, and III, showcasing iconic locations from the series presented in a unique diorama style. Jason has chosen three renders from each game to feature in this showcase, and walked us through the process of bringing these incredible renders to life below.
“Back when I first started learning Blender in late 2019, I needed a project to test how much I'd learned, and I came up with this idea for these 3D dioramas to ‘hone my skills’ so to speak. I was inspired by the works of artist Polygon Runway and also the art style of Lara Croft Go. Originally, I only intended to do caves, but after a positive response from the TR community online for the first one, I did one diorama for every level of the game.”
“Essentially my process for the design was listing out the levels, and then the most iconic rooms, followed by sketching out my ideas by hand. For the first game I only really focused on one room, but you'll see as the games go on (especially TR3) I included a lot more.”
“Something fun I wanted to do for the Tomb Raider II renders was include the dragon secrets hidden throughout the renders so that they would be a bit more interactive than just a pretty picture. Honestly, some I hid in really tough places and I definitely can't remember where I put them all myself but it was a fun little extra task to do at the end of each build. I did a similar thing in the TR3 renders but rather than the dragon statues, I came up with 3 original ideas for artefacts based on each areas location and made them look like the meteorite artefacts, like I think I had a crown and staff for the London levels and then some statuettes for the India levels, that sort of thing.”
“All in all, this project really taught me a lot about the basics of 3d modelling, texturing, and lighting in Blender and helped set me up for more advanced environment artwork. I do want to say a huge thank-you to the Tomb Raider community for all the kind words said on these projects, it was a huge help that kept me motivated to keep on building!”
You can follow Jason’s work on these platforms:
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