--- title: Breathtaking 2D-Looking 3D Animation of a Butterfly on a... description: Blender artist Levi Magony, known for making 3D scenes look 2D, returned after a nearly year-long break due to burnout with a new animation of a butterfly... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/breathtaking-2d-looking-3d-animation-of-a-butterfly-on-a-skeleton-niqztlqgb twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Breathtaking 2D-Looking 3D Animation of a Butterfly on a Skeleton | daily.dev og:description: Blender artist Levi Magony, known for making 3D scenes look 2D, returned after a nearly year-long break due to burnout with a new animation of a butterfly... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/breathtaking-2d-looking-3d-animation-of-a-butterfly-on-a-skeleton-niqztlqgb og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/nIQZtLqGb.png og:image:alt: Breathtaking 2D-Looking 3D Animation of a Butterfly on a Skeleton og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Breathtaking 2D-Looking 3D Animation of a Butterfly on a Skeleton **[80 LEVEL](https://daily.dev/sources/80lv)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Blender artist Levi Magony, known for making 3D scenes look 2D, returned after a nearly year-long break due to burnout with a new animation of a butterfly landing on a skeleton and blooming flowers between its bones. The scene combines separately built skeleton, butterfly, and flower assets, with butterfly movement driven by Geometry Nodes and Spline Parameter. Subtle skeleton movement comes from a Displace modifier with a rotating empty object as texture coordinates, and the painterly look is achieved with a compositor paint filter whose seed is animated using '#frame/8' to vary the appearance every 8 frames. A tutorial on the shading node setup may be released in the future. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How do you make a 3D Blender render look like a hand-painted 2D animation? A painterly look can be achieved by applying a paint filter in the Blender compositor and animating its seed value. Typing '#frame/8' into the seed field changes the painted appearance every 8 frames, creating a hand-drawn, flickering texture similar to traditional 2D animation, as demonstrated in Levi Magony's butterfly-and-skeleton animation. _Explore more Blender compositor tricks like this on daily.dev for artists chasing a painterly 3D look._ ### How can I animate subtle organic movement on a static 3D mesh in Blender without rigging it? Subtle organic movement can be added using the Displace modifier combined with a noise texture, using an empty object as the texture coordinates. Rotating the empty object every few frames (every 8 frames in this technique) varies the noise pattern over time, producing a bumpy, breathing-like motion on a mesh such as a skeleton without any bone rigging. _daily.dev collects workflow tricks like this for Blender artists building unconventional animation rigs._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Breaking Down Creation Of Flower In This Blender Animation](https://daily.dev/posts/breaking-down-creation-of-flower-in-this-blender-animation-uk5uxnfkc) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Artist Shows Painterly 3D Animation Created in Blender](https://daily.dev/posts/artist-shows-painterly-3d-animation-created-in-blender-onyzzdiyo) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Watch Bones Move In This Fully Rigged Blender Skeleton](https://daily.dev/posts/watch-bones-move-in-this-fully-rigged-blender-skeleton-r7zhd7tsz) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Artist Showcases Stunning Hand & Cloth 3D Animation Made in Blender](https://daily.dev/posts/artist-showcases-stunning-hand-cloth-3d-animation-made-in-blender-vp6gubgp4) · 80 LEVEL · 3 upvotes · 1 comments - [Have a Look at This Hand-Painted-Style 3D Portrait Made with Blender](https://daily.dev/posts/have-a-look-at-this-hand-painted-style-3d-portrait-made-with-blender-wbpgdo1iy) · 80 LEVEL · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#3d](https://daily.dev/tags/3d), [#blender](https://daily.dev/tags/blender) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/breathtaking-2d-looking-3d-animation-of-a-butterfly-on-a-skeleton-niqztlqgb) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Breathtaking 2D-Looking 3D Animation of a Butterfly on a Skeleton","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/breathtaking-2d-looking-3d-animation-of-a-butterfly-on-a-skeleton-niqztlqgb","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/breathtaking-2d-looking-3d-animation-of-a-butterfly-on-a-skeleton-niqztlqgb"},"datePublished":"2026-09-30T10:55:07.100Z","dateModified":"2026-09-30T10:55:29.256Z","description":"Blender artist Levi Magony, known for making 3D scenes look 2D, returned after a nearly year-long break due to burnout with a new animation of a butterfly...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/0efec9b9e61bc574e84ddecacecd4f7a?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/0efec9b9e61bc574e84ddecacecd4f7a?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"80 LEVEL","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"80 LEVEL","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/78eebcd76c154e6bbfd565fed7dc4093","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/80lv"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/breathtaking-2d-looking-3d-animation-of-a-butterfly-on-a-skeleton-niqztlqgb","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"3d,blender","timeRequired":"PT3M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"80 LEVEL","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/80lv"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Breathtaking 2D-Looking 3D Animation of a Butterfly on a Skeleton"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/breathtaking-2d-looking-3d-animation-of-a-butterfly-on-a-skeleton-niqztlqgb#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How do you make a 3D Blender render look like a hand-painted 2D animation?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"A painterly look can be achieved by applying a paint filter in the Blender compositor and animating its seed value. 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