Client Overview
Heaven Hill Brands, the renowned spirits company, approached BluEdge to create captivating visual representations for their Carolans Irish Cream line, featuring three distinct flavor variations: Salted Caramel, Peanut Butter, and Irish Cream. BluEdge was tasked with producing hyper-realistic CGI renderings of the bottles and creating artistic, whimsical swirling liquid effects to highlight each flavor, bringing the brand's indulgent and luxurious essence to life.
Project Scope and Goals
The Caralons Irish Cream project required BluEdge to create stunning, artistic renderings that showcased both the bottle and its corresponding swirling liquid in a hyper-realistic, yet whimsical manner. The swirling liquids for the Salted Caramel, Peanut Butter, and Irish Cream were designed to convey richness, indulgence, and playfulness. The bottle structure had already been established, but the artistic liquid effects swirling around the bottle had to strike the perfect balance between believability and artistic representation, visually capturing the essence of each flavor.
Tools and Techniques
BluEdge employed Adobe Suite, Autodesk Maya, ZBrush, and Marmoset Toolbag to craft the hyper-realistic 3D renderings. While the bottle had to appear realistic, the swirling liquids were the focal point, created to feel both dynamic and visually indulgent. These swirls had to stand out as an artistic representation, capturing the essence of each flavor in a highly stylized yet believable manner.
Jackie Marco, BluEdge Account Manager, played a pivotal role in working with Heaven Hill to ensure that the swirling liquids reflected the client’s creative vision. Jackie’s team developed detailed mood boards to explore various liquid textures and swirl patterns, as well as peanut butter pieces and sea salt flakes. As Jackie explained, "The mood boards were essential in finding the right swirling liquids—something that felt artistic but still true to the texture of each flavor."
The mood boards provided the creative foundation to shape the swirls’ size, texture, and motion, allowing the BluEdge team to experiment with different visual styles. This helped ensure the swirls for each flavor—Salted Caramel, Peanut Butter, and Irish Cream—felt distinct and true to the product, even though the bottles themselves remained consistent across the variations.
Unique Challenges
One of the most significant challenges was ensuring that the swirling liquids appeared hyper-realistic and whimsical without crossing into the territory of looking too artificial. “Everything is floating in air,” explained Matt Lager, CGI Manager. “It’s going to look different than smearing something on paper. We had to nail the look they were going for but also keep it grounded in realism so it didn’t look fake.”
Additionally, the swirling liquids had to feel unique for each flavor. As Bryan Martinez, Senior CGI Artist, explained, “We didn’t want to just reuse the same swirl. Each swirl had subtle differences that reflected the texture and viscosity of the caramel, peanut butter, and Irish cream. This ensured that each swirl felt unique and true to the flavor it was representing.”
Another challenge involved getting the textures and small details just right, especially for the Peanut Butter and Salted Caramel flavors. “We got very granular with the details,” noted Bryan. “We worked on showing different sizes of peanuts and salt flakes, referencing real-world textures to make the renderings feel lifelike and luxurious.”
Team Effort and Client Collaboration
Collaboration between BluEdge and Heaven Hill was essential throughout the project. Our design team led several live sculpting and editing sessions to refine the swirling liquids, ensuring that they aligned with Heaven Hill’s vision. The real-time sessions allowed BluEdge to incorporate feedback instantly, minimizing the need for extensive revisions and helping to streamline the creative process.
“The live sessions were crucial,” said Bryan Martinez. “We sculpted the swirling liquids live on-screen with the client, tweaking the shapes and textures in real-time. This allowed us to avoid multiple rounds of revisions, making the process more efficient.”
Results and Conclusion
BluEdge successfully created hyper-realistic CGI renderings of the Carolans Irish Cream bottles, with swirling liquid effects that highlighted each flavor—Salted Caramel, Peanut Butter, and Irish Cream. These swirls, while unique to each flavor, all maintained a consistent, whimsical, and indulgent tone that aligned with the brand’s identity.
The CGI assets were designed with flexibility in mind, ensuring that the client could easily update elements of the visuals if needed. The final renderings reflected the textures and feel of each flavor, incorporating small, but crucial, details like the chunk sizes of peanuts and the viscosity of the caramel swirls. Each swirl was unique, capturing the essence of its respective flavor while maintaining a cohesive artistic style across the collection.
Also, I just want to share how well the new campaign that incorporates this creative is being received. We've already had to re-order our printed POS because Sales has been pulling it twice as fast as our usage rates from last year. Thank you all again for your beautiful work!
Leslie Word, Brand Manager
BluEdge created stunning visuals that enhanced the Caralons brand by balancing hyper-realism with artistic representation. The swirling liquids provided a whimsical yet believable visual that made the product stand out. BluEdge’s attention to detail and the collaborative live sessions ensured that Heaven Hill’s vision was realized efficiently and effectively.