ASUS WS X299 Pro Motherboard — an older one, but it kept earning its place. The idea: a red room full of machinery waking up and getting ready, then the whole scene flips from red to blue as the "ready" state kicks in and the machinery deploys its cables — tendrils, let's call them, since "cables" is far too practical a word — to connect to the board. The build-up's all in the machines getting their act together — it's only at the very end that a few tendrils finally show themselves, plugged into the motherboard. Then an Intel Core i9 assembles itself from tiny pieces — a bit of flash along the way — to take its seat, because a motherboard's not much use without a brain. Stylised, deep reds and blues — about as dramatic as a circuit board can reasonably get. My side: prep, texturing and materials — most of them built procedurally in Redshift, layering detail until they looked properly expensive — then lights, animation, camera, the render, and a comp in Fusion.