Used a backdrop of a real crayon. Started with cylinder, and extruded to match.
step 2 of 8
Copied outer polys, pasted into new layer and thickened to create geometry for crayon wrapper.
step 3 of 8
A little texturing...
step 4 of 8
Created a wrapper based on real wrapper image.
step 5 of 8
Used replicators to duplicate the crayon on the center face of each poly.
step 6 of 8
Continued to create cylinders of crayons. The colors were achieved by using a gradient that drove the diffuse color for both the wrapper and the crayon which was driven by the particle ID (based off a random seed).
step 7 of 8
More of the same.
step 8 of 8
The final scene, with a light panel behind the camera. Rendered in 9 minutes with GI.