Jonas Bentzen is a freelance 3D artist from Copenhagen, Denmark, whose work blends architecture, environment design, and cinematic storytelling. With a creative background spanning comics, music, and architecture, Jonas specializes in environment design, lighting, and product rendering, drawing inspiration from urban spaces and modernist visions.
In this interview, Jonas shares the story behind his Top 100-winning entry in the Kinetic Rush Challenge. Inspired by 1920s futurism, he created a dystopian metropolis that captures both grandeur and tension. Jonas also breaks down his technical workflow, from Blender to Fusion Studio, offering insights for aspiring artists. Join Fox Renderfarm, a leading cloud rendering services provider and render farm in the industry, as we explore Jonas’s creative process and discover how he brings historical aesthetics to life with modern 3D techniques!
Fox Renderfarm: Hi Jonas! We are honored to have you here! Please introduce yourself first to our readers.
Jonas Bentzen
Jonas: Hi, so nice to be part of this! I’m 30 years old, from Copenhagen, Denmark, and I work as a freelance 3D artist. My educational background is in architecture. My expertise in 3D lies in environment design, look dev, lighting, and product rendering.
Growing up, I pursued different creative fields. I wanted to make comics, then be a musician, and finally, an architect, which means I have a pretty broad creative background that I pull from regularly. Also, that is where my love for environment art and cities comes from. It’s great to just take time to experience the spaces around me when I go for walks in the city.
Fox Renderfarm: Congratulations on winning the Top 100 in the Kinetic Rush Challenge! How do you feel about it?
Jonas: It feels great! I have been following the challenges for a few years but never had the time to make a proper submission. It’s really awesome to get into the top 100 on my first attempt, especially because there were so many fantastic submissions. It was also quite special to have Corridor comment on my render, as I have followed their channel and their work on YouTube for a long time. A nice extra touch :)
The Message © Jonas Bentzen
Fox Renderfarm: How was the scene conceived and designed? How did you link your idea to the theme of "Kinetic Rush"?
Jonas: It’s actually a world idea I have had for a while. In architecture school I was quite fascinated with a modernist called Hilberseimer who designed this crazy megacity back in the 1920’s along with an artist called Hugh Ferriss who created a lot of very interesting renderings in charcoal of skyscrapers in the same period.
Sprinkled with my sleight megalomania when it comes to cities and architecture (hence why I do 3D instead) I wanted to make a metropolis that felt like an architectural vision from the 1920’s controlled by a military state. So my main inspirations for the look and feel were from "Metropolis" by Fritz Lang (of course), but also a music video by Saad Moosajee made for Thom Yorke’s "Last I Heard". The video has this incredible texture to it and all the layers with the pieces of ash or paper. As well as a surrealist touch that I really like, but never ended up implementing in my submission.
For the theme Kinetic Rush, I wanted layers of movement - also inspired from the Saad Moosajee video. My first idea was to add rain to the scene, but during the ideation process, I remembered this scene from "Howl’s Moving Castle" by Hayao Miyazaki, where these airship-type vessels drop war flyers after the fleet has been destroyed. I really liked the idea of having these flyers thrown by the airships, as though announcing a war or something like that.
My pure ref board with references and a few notes © Jonas Bentzen
An early sketch that outlines the idea and the look © Jonas Bentzen
A rendering of Highrise City (Hochhausstadt) © Ludwig Karl Hilberseimer
Fox Renderfarm: Can you walk us through your rendering process? How did you optimize your workflow to achieve the final result?
Jonas: I assembled the scene in Blender, but as I don’t have a lot of Vram available (12 GB on my laptop) I couldn’t render the whole thing in one layer. It was not a problem though, as I needed to split it into render layers anyway for compositing.
The general workflow was to assemble parts of the scene (foreground, midground, character, simulations, etc.) in separate files and then instance/link them into the main Blender file, to optimize viewport performance and file sizes - and thereby also processing during the rendering.
I then separated the 3D file into 7 different render layers (in Blender they are called view layers): foreground, foreground fx (papers), airships, midground, midground fx (distant papers), background, and atmosphere/volumetrics. Along with a z-depth pass for making masks and extra volume effects in comp.
Volumetrics pass © Jonas Bentzen
Background pass © Jonas Bentzen
Midground pass © Jonas Bentzen
Midground fx, flyers © Jonas Bentzen
Airships pass © Jonas Bentzen
Foreground pass © Jonas Bentzen
Foreground fx, flyers © Jonas Bentzen
I don’t think I used any other passes in the rendering process as the comp was pretty simple in that regard. I did render all passes with 10% overscan so I could add a minuscule amount of camera shake, as well as some lens distortion.
Everything was rendered in 32-bit ACES to get the most flexibility afterwards and be able to adjust the exposure of each layer. Because there were so many lights and layers in the scene (and it was converted to black & white afterwards) it was quite difficult to balance the lighting properly. I therefore wanted to be able to adjust exposure and light levels for the different layers in compositing as well, to get a good sense of depth and clarity in the scene.
Rendering everything in separate layers also ensured that I could easily make re-renders and changes in the foreground or on the airships, without having to render the whole thing again.
The compositing was done in Fusion Studio, which I have come to enjoy quite a lot :)
Viewport render © Jonas Bentzen
After Fusion compositing - light balancing, extra smoke, and volume layers © Jonas Bentzen
After colour grading in Davinci Resolve © Jonas Bentzen
Fox Renderfarm: How did you blend the 1920s aesthetics with 1984 vibes in your project? Were there any specific artistic choices or animation techniques that you experimented with for this project?
Jonas: A lot of the look was achieved through the lighting.
Thanks again to Jonas for accepting our interview! Wishing new heights in your studies and professional career!
Following the success of the "Kinetic Rush" Challenge, pwnisher’s brand-new community challenge "Chasm’s Call," is here to ignite your creativity! As a proud supporter of the CG community, Fox Renderfarm is thrilled to sponsor this challenge again and provide rendering support to help participants bring their visions to life. Don’t miss this opportunity to showcase your talent alongside a global community of 3D artists!
Jonas’s Social Media:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonaslbentzen/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonas-bentzen-cg/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jonasbentzen8148
