Creativity meets practicality. Having two monitors saves a lot of time — it makes it much easier to visually navigate while adjusting and moving things around. In the lower-left corner of my first monitor, I keep a rendered view of the scene. This allows me to see changes in real time while I make adjustments on the second screen. The uppermost book is intentionally tilted, resting against a fallen branch to disrupt the balance slightly while still maintaining fluid harmony between the three. Controlled chaos.

For the lighting, I used an environmental HDRI called niederwihl_forest_4k.exr from PolyHaven. With the help of the EasyHDRI addon by Code of Art, importing EXR files became a breeze — freeing me to focus on building the world rather than setting up complicated fill, key, and backlights. A forest EXR file brings a natural quality to the light. Niederwihl Forest is naturally overcast, which softens the entire scene and adds a layer of subtle enchantment — making it feel more magical and alive.

Adding Assets

Sometimes, creativity isn’t about modeling everything from scratch. Most studios kitbash — or use pre-made assets with commercial or Creative Commons licenses — to work faster and smarter. But it still takes an eye for detail and narrative precision to arrange a scene that feels fluid, storied, and visually compelling.

For this piece, I used assets from Botaniq and BlenderKit to build out the foliage. The book covers were designed by me in Photoshop. Some of the butterflies required editing — their wings were mirrored with the Mirror Modifier to allow for slight movement and variation, making them look as if they had just landed… or were slowly creeping toward the books. In The Magicians, the Beast is known for two visual motifs: moths and butterflies. I thought to myself — why can’t butterflies be intimidating too?

The remaining flora was placed strategically. I aimed for a delicate balance between harmony and overwhelm — and I believe I found it. A pinecone rests just beneath the uppermost book. Ferns and other scattered plants offer places for butterflies to land. Moss, lichen, branches — it all comes together to create a scene that feels lived-in, as if you could smell the petrichor rising from the forest floor.

Fire Particle System

To bring the scene to life, I created a simple fire particle system designed to mimic drifting embers. I started by building a separate collection with three small planes. In Edit Mode, I adjusted random vertices to give each one an irregular, ember-like shape. I assigned them a bright orange-red emission shader, turning the emission strength up to 1 so they’d glow properly in the dark environment.

Next, I added a new particle system and assigned the ember collection as the instanced objects, setting the particle count to around 3,000. To direct the movement, I added a force field angled toward the upper right, giving the illusion of wind carrying heat through the scene. I also placed three emitter planes just beneath the books to act as origin points for the embers, and set them to be invisible in renders to preserve the immersion. The result is a gentle upward flow of particles that feels natural, cinematic, and subtly enchanted.

Rendering with Cycles & DOF 

HSL — Hue, Saturation, & Lightness

When color grading this scene in Lightroom, I focused on enhancing emotional contrast rather than simply boosting color. The reds and oranges — essential to the fire motif — were shifted ever so slightly to lean warmer (+5 hue on red, +40 saturation, +67 lightness), giving the flames on the book cover a sense of living ember without overpowering the forest around it.

I muted and cooled the greens and aquas to let the foliage settle into shadow — shifting hues toward blue, reducing saturation, and darkening lightness. This gave the vegetation a hushed, nocturnal quality. The blues and purples in the butterflies were carefully preserved, gently brightened to keep them visible, but not so saturated that they stole attention from the book. Every adjustment was made to guide the viewer’s gaze from firelight to forest, from magic to mystery.

色相 (sè xiàng) = Hue

饱和度  (bǎo hé dù)  = Saturation

明亮度  (míng liàng dù)  = Luminance

At this stage in my Lightroom journey, I mainly worked with global adjustments — meaning I brightened or darkened the entire image as a whole. I haven’t fully explored local exposure tools like radial filters or masks yet, but I’m looking forward to learning how to guide the viewer’s eye even more precisely in future edits. For this scene, the global exposure paired with targeted HSL shifts gave me enough control to achieve the mood I envisioned: soft embers, hidden shadows, and a focus that feels cinematic rather than clinical. 

曝光度 (pù guāng dù) = Exposure

对比度 (duì bǐ dù) = Contrast 

高光 (gāo guāng) = Highlights 

阴影 (yīn yǐng) = Shadows 

白色色阶 (bái sè sè jiē) = Whites 

黑色色阶 (hēi sè sè jiē) = Blacks 

Why Color Dodging?

The titles needed to glow. I used Color Dodge on a low-opacity brush to gently enhance the titles' luminosity, making sure the reds felt radiant even in the cool, forested atmosphere. It creates a subtle emphasis that pulls the viewer’s eye directly to the book covers, without overpowering the frame.

Curve Lifting

I isolated the mushroom layer and added a gentle Curves Adjustment, lifting the highlights just enough to give them a soft, natural glow — like the kind you might catch in bioluminescent fungi or faint forest light. It gives the scene a magical realism, as if these mushrooms aren’t glowing because of light… but because they belong in this world.

The Gradient