Stunning viral animation breaks the fourth wall (and Blender's UI)

Blender is one of our favourite pieces of software for 3D animation (see our Blender 4.1 review), but it's surprisingly delightful to see a Blender creation break the fourth wall and trash the software's UI.

That's what happens in a viral animation from Japanese 3D modelling artist Kensyouen_Y. The piece starts with an artist working on an anime girl, only for the character to take on a life of her own. She leans out over the UI and starts playing with the settings herself, changing her clothes and then whipping through changes in hair colour by treating colour wheels like a set of turntables, eventually causing Blender to crash.

Kensyouen_Y's delightful latest gem has already gained over 19 million views and over 450,000 likes. The animation is so perfectly executed, and the character has so much personality that it makes the breaking of the fourth wall through Blender's UI feel very convincing.

We've seen glimpses of the same character before as the artist has shown us behind-the-scenes look at the work on creating her, including how her hair was made using Maya.

See our roundup of the best blender tutorials if you want to build your own skills in the free software. We also have a roundup of the best laptops for 3D modelling (see the best deals in your area below).