Model, light, and render a Honey Jar

A free Blender project from the teachers at CG Cookie. Follow along from reference images to a finished render, then open the .blend file to see how it's built.

Includes .blend files and textures.

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Watch: Building a Honey Jar in Blender — CG Cookie tutorial

Watch it start to finish, then open the project files and poke around the lighting setup and material nodes yourself.

Five stages, one finished render.

The video walks through the whole scene in order. Each stage uses tools you'll reach for again on your next project.

Modeling

Set up reference images, build the jar with a subdivision workflow, and close shapes with Grid Fill and the Solidify modifier.
Lighting

Point lights for shape, area lights for highlights, and an HDRI for reflections in the glass.
Shading

Refraction BSDFs for the honey, procedural bubbles with Geometry Nodes, and a metallic label mixed in with a PNG alpha.
Compositing

A Glare node for soft fog glow and a warm yellow tint to pull the image together.
Rendering

Denoising, light path bounces raised to 30 for clean transparency, and Persistent Data for faster sequence renders.

CG Cookie teaches Blender with real projects, from your first model to a finished render.