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9/20/25

"The 3rd Dimension"

Recently, I dropped off a bunch of children's books at my local Little Free Library. Although I am (obviously) not a child, I buy children's and young adult graphic novels time-to-time to see what cartoonists are making for those age groups. There are surprisingly a lot of good stories out there! A lot more than we had when I was a child for sure. Anyway, a week after dropping off the books, I went back to the Little Free Library to see if they were taken...and most were! Only a couple were left behind, which is awesome! As I was rearranging the books and going to close the door, however, I spotted something that piqued my interest. That something was "3D Wonderland", a book of CGI art and optical illusions from 1993.

Cover of the book '3D Wonderland', which depicts 90s era CGI dinosaurs and UFOs

"3D Wonderland", published by Tokuma Shoten Publishing Co., Ltd.

While I'm pretty sure the book is aimed at kids, I was intrigued by its 90s era CGI, which I admit I miss a bit in the year 2025. Taking a look at some of the pages, I discovered that these CGI art pieces are presented as optical illusions, with the viewer being made to unfocus or cross their eyes to achieve a 3D effect (indicated by parallel arrows and crossed arrows, respectively, in the corner of the pages). I decided then that this book was something people online might be equally intrigued by, so I decided to showcase a few page spreads. After doing some research online, it might be that these are the first scans of this book available online. That being said, I apologize for the uneveness of some of the pages in these scans; I was trying to avoid damaging the book.

90s era CGI images of cats sitting around a TV and then a cat with an accordion

CGI art by Maki Takiya. The artstyle for the models in Katamari Damacy is reminiscent of this work.

90s era CGI images of sunfish among chains and then squirrels holding hearts

CGI art by Eiichi Misaka. The titles for these are interesting (click the image to zoom in and see them).

90s era CGI images of sumo wrestlers

CGI art by Ma-mi Dava. The sumo wrestlers are made almost entirely of sphere meshes.

CGI transformation sequences showing people turning into beasts and people of other genders

CGI transformations by Kan Dava. That skeleton is scary!

After looking over the art in this book, I decided it would be cool to make my own 90s-esque CGI art! I also needed a new banner for this part of the site, so I decided to incorporate the model I made into said banner. I then opened the book once more and looked back to some of my favorite pages for art inspiration. While I really liked Maki Takiya's angular cats and pastel colors, I was extremely intrigued by Ma-Mi Dava's sumo wrestlers, which were made mostly out of sphere meshes. This is an interesting way to convey the convex curves of the body, as well as portray muscle and mass. After finding my inspiration, I opened up Blender and got to work.

Screenshot of the Blender 3D creation program. A model of a cartoon hyena is being worked on.

I started by adding sphere meshes for the head and body to the scene. Using the scale tool, I changed their shape to be longer or flatter. Eventually, I created enough spheres to make the model look like my fursona. I also added some cube meshes and scaled them to make the book they're holding; you can't make a book out of spheres lol. After applying materials to the meshes, creating a light source, and adding some planes to simulate a green screen, I rendered the scene as an image.

Render of a CGI hyena holding a book surrounded by green

After I saved my image, I took it into Photoshop CS6 to cut out the model from the green screen, add some cool effects, and make it into a usable banner. I added the classic "Bliss" desktop background from Windows XP for the banner background (unfortunately at a low-quality resolution), then I threw in an "Outer Glow" on a few of the layers and put some 3D text in the front. After all that, I saved the banner as a PNG and added it to the site.

Banner showing a CGI hyena holding a book with text that says 'My Journal...'

While not perfect, I think the banner is pretty cool, and it was fun trying to replicate early 90s CGI! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I also hope you enjoyed this dive into the world of early CGI works and the forgotten pages of "3D Wonderland". If you can, consider taking a stab at making your own 90s-esque CGI art! It's fun, and Blender is a free program (which is the best type of program, in my opinion)!

Okay then, everyone, have a good night, and I'll see y'all later! Bye!

-Mewy