Graphic designers will already know a lot about renders. Not 3D or C4D renders, but PNG graphics with the background removed. Many of these renders focus around a person either real(actors, musicians) or fake(anime, video games). These render graphics are then used to create other works of digital art such as forum signatures, wallpapers, and user icons.
But where can you go to find some of these renders for free download?
I’ve put together 6 handy resources which are dedicated to providing renders on the Internet. If you are a designer who likes to use renders then definitely check out this list. New websites are launching every year and I have seen much more activity with PNG renders among graphics designers worldwide.
This collection is a nice place to start locating free renders for your design projects.
The Planet Renders website has been online for years and has undergone many redesigns. I love their gallery because it includes a number of renders from many various platforms including video games, movies & TV shows, sports, music, etc. But it is also more difficult to browse through because categories are so vague, and there are so many renders in each category.
The search feature works perfectly and that is often the best method to find what you need. Each render also links back to the original author profile who cropped out the background and submitted the PNG. Registered users can leave comments and even give a rating from 1-5 stars.
Some of the highest-rated renders are also those which have been in the site for a long time. The concept of Planet Renders is so wonderful because it encapsulates a huge audience of designers from all around the world. If you are looking for a general archive of render graphics then this is the place to check.
One of my other favorite sources for online renders is Renders Graphics. I believe this website started as a French network called Renders Graphiques which then later got an English site. The entire gallery features just under 50,000 renders with new submissions added every day.
I can’t praise this website enough for building such a usable interface. Each of the categories also breaks down into sub-categories where you can search through renders for specific TV shows or video game titles. Additionally each render can be downloaded right from the landing page which also includes metadata such as the submitter’s username, publication date, and image dimensions.
Renders Graphics is my go-to source when I know exactly what I am looking for. If it’s a specific character or scene of characters I know right where to go searching. I will always recommend this place to newcomers because it’s free to signup and the quality is exceptional. I have never seen a poor-quality render from any of the website’s users.
As the self-labeled “unlimited gallery of PNG renders” you can find a lot over at Renderat. This is a completely free website gallery with PNG downloads of your favorite characters. There are plenty of categories along with tags and newest submissions listed right on the homepage.
The design itself is a little bland, yet it works nicely for this simple gallery. Renderat does not have as many features as you would expect from the other sites I have listed. But there are plenty of nice graphics along with user rankings added onto each submission to rate the quality in star votes.
Baka Renders is another brilliant community dedicated to render graphics. Signup is totally free and you can get started submitting your own content right away. It is a much smaller community but members are closer and more willing to share their own personal work. Also the website layout is much cleaner yet more sophisticated than Renderat.
One interface feature I like is the homepage sliding banner. This includes a list of the latest renders submitted into the website. It behaves more like a news ticker where you may click on any render to bring up further details.
Baka Renders has a star rating system along with a favorites system used by members. You can actually save a list of your favorite renders tied to your profile for easy access. Again downloads are very simple by just clicking the image you can grab a copy of the PNG render. Also each image is split into categories but these may also be organized into albums of many related renders grouped together.
This website is actually a Russian-based community which handles various forms of graphics sharing. But they have a specifc category dedicated to render graphics with free downloads for registered users.
This is obviously the biggest downfall because you need to create an account to have full access to downloads. Many of these renders can be found in external sources meaning they are not all user-contributed. But although the community is small there are plenty of great user-submitted renders to be found. Unfortunately the gallery is also small and thus it cannot compete with larger catalogs of render artwork in similar websites.
But if you have the time I say check them out. Russian can be pretty difficult to understand if you don’t have Google Translate but the graphic submissions are most definitely up to quality.
Possibly one of the most heavily trafficked graphics arts communities on the entire Internet, DeviantART is a great place to find renders. You can perform search queries looking for renders of a specific character or even just search free renders to download.
Many users will post their renders but not share the full PNG image. This is common because artists are not always willing to give their work away for free to the community. But there are plenty of members who have submitted their own render graphics, and you can usually download these from the artwork page itself(check the sidebar). DeviantART has a lot to sift through but you never know where the gems are hiding.