I wanted to limit “variables” I would play with during the whole process. This is why, I have settled on limited colour palette – dark glass / orange glow / black metal and simple plain background. Different styles, techniques and methods were plenty enough for me to explore.

I started with “locking” the camera position, general resolution and render settings, lights and guide geometry and I started experimenting. Some letters were relatively easy to do, as I was familiar with Displacement modifiers from Mantissa’s tutorials. Others took quite a while to research, by watching various tutorials for specific bits of information or readying posts of Blender Stack Exchange.

In few instances, I ended up working through different versions of a final design, before I was happy with final outcome. For example 7, 0, V, B and M, to name just a few. I even revisited certain letters, to improve initial render or to “copy and adapt” the set up on a different mesh completely.

Through experimentation, I ended up reworking few letters from scratch. In few instances, I didn’t have the right skill or approach in mind, when trying to design a particular design.

For example with 0 above. Initial idea was to have glowing smoke inside the glass mesh. But it did not work for me as much as I hoped it would. After taking a break for couple of days and working on other letters, I came back to initial smoke design and ended up doing a mixture of deformed glass, surrounding the smoke mesh. Combined with the lighting and inside glow, it added a lot of complexity to the final design.