Building a Painterly Snowy World in Blender (Procedural + Hand-Painted)

In this video, I’m breaking down the process behind a small painterly animated scene I created in Blender.
This project was an experiment in mixing procedural workflows with hand-painted textures, using Geometry Nodes where it made sense, and stepping in manually whenever the scene started to feel too clean or procedural. I’ll walk through my thinking behind the environment setup, texture painting, geometry node systems for trees and rocks, and how I approached lighting, atmosphere, and animation to create a looping snowy scene. Instead of focusing purely on speed or technical tricks, this breakdown is also about art direction, decision-making, and iteration.
Throughout the video, I’ll also pause to show quick renders and node setups for materials, geometry nodes, and shaders, so you can take a closer look if you want.
This was a really enjoyable project that let me combine a lot of things I like such as painterly textures, procedural tools, experimentation, and storytelling into a small animated short.
If you’re interested in stylized environments, painterly workflows, or finding a balance between procedural systems and hands-on control, I hope this breakdown is useful.
Thanks for watching!

Chapters
00:00 – Intro
00:54 – Concept & Inspiration
02:14 – Texture Painting
04:27 – Geometry Nodes: Trees
07:24 – Geometry Nodes: Rocks & Variation
09:44 – Texture Pain: Details
12:19 – Spirit Animation & Materials
16:04 – Mountains, Sky & Clouds
20:04 – Finer Details
22:21 - Final Result

Below are links to videos that are referenced in this video:
Whiskers and Worlds - A stylized short:
   • Whiskers & Worlds – A Stylized Blender Film  
How I created 4 stylized skies using world shader:
   • How I Made 4 Animated Skies Using Only Wor...  
Stylized Fire tutorial:
   • Create this Stylized Fire in Blender 🔥