Last House Standing

Member : steve

Image description
Pretty Purdy and Thomas McMally finally made it off Moon-Face Island by hitching a ride on a piece of driftwood. Once they made it to the mainland they had a long trek home, but they got there in the end and now they are having a nice moment together in a beautiful moonlit night outside Pretty Purdy's old house. In this image, I've tried to convey various contrasting elements of what a city in night time looks like. For instance, you have 'old' and 'new' with the old house and the ever-encroaching new high-rise buildings. You also have the contrast between colours where you have the greyscale of the buildings, and the beautiful colours of the neon lights that can be found in a city, (see images of Las Vegas at night! Although this is nothing like Las Vegas!) To the left, Mr. Jenkins, (Pretty Purdy's owner), is having his usual evening stroll and bumps into his lifelong friend, Richard. They too, have a nice moment together talking about the usual things in life, but unknown to them, they are also contrasting in the clothes that they wear! Black hat, white hat, black trousers, white trousers, black coat, white coat, black shoes, white shoes. What a coincidence! ;)

Description of how this image was created
Well, I didn't have a lot of time with this image, so it was about two weeks work, but I'm happy with it. As per usual, everything was modelled in Wings apart from the cats (Poser) and the tree and bushes (Pov-Tree). The chimney smoke is a stack of around 800 deformed spheres. There is a light-source in the streetlight and a pale orange one in the bottom room on the left in the old house. Also in the streetlight is an area light. I found I had to do this as the original light-source had too sharp shadows. Most of the textures on the old house were made in PaintShopPro5. I really enjoyed this challenge, I hope you like it.

General statistics
No of ratings	:	14
Min. overall rating	:	15 (5 / 5 / 5)
Max. overall rating	:	54 (19 / 19 / 16)
Sum of rating	:	572 / 840
Date uploaded	:	2008-08-13 13:31:17

Specific details Note: The maximum value below is misleading as the voting system has changed. If the member votes for all the entries and has created one him/herself, there is an automatic 20/20/20 score added to the value (This encourages all members who enter to vote).
Rating type	:	Min : Max : Sum : Out of
Artistic	:	5 : 20 : 181 : 280
Concept	:	5 : 20 : 210 : 280
Technical	:	5 : 20 : 181 : 280
Overall	:	15 : 60 : 572 : 840

Comments by members when rating this image

1.   30-08-2008 I like it. The mood is pretty good. The topic is exploited in multiple ways. But technically, we have some problems. We can't see a black car on a black street in the dark. The background city looks more like drawing than computer generated, so it kills the vibe created by the amazing house. Finally, the chimney smoke is almost ugly. You could use just a bit of transparency, and it might go the other way around instantly by helping the look&feel instead of harming it. In other words, if such a decoration is not really good, it is better not to have it (unless the concept absolutely needs it). 2.   27-08-2008 Several very well executed examples of contrast, visually and conceptually. There's the obvious: the Victorianesque building admidst the modern skyscrapers. Then varying grades of obviousness, from the shuttered and non-shuttered (well, they've got blinds, but blinded doesn't sound right) windows to the figures in back and white; the shadows from the lamp to the fancy black sports car with white hub caps next to a trash dumpster. I have two criticisms. First, I just now figured out that there was a building on the left hand side instead of just a fire escape hanging in mid-air. This was aggravated by the tall building with a dome on top, which I thought was right next to the gray building behind the house. That one's probably just me. Second, the smoke from the chimney looks way too solid and/or not voluminous enough. Other than that, it looks great. 3.   27-08-2008 Inconsistent detail in the models. The modern buildings are too simple compared to the detailed house. Is it night or day? Lighting really needs work. Street light could use attenuation. More street lights and lighting in general could make this image more dramatic looking. 4.   18-08-2008 Glad to see that Pretty Purdy and Thomas McMally are home again! I hope to see more of them in the future. I have always thought night scenes to be rather difficult. I think you (almost) got it right. Maybe the shadows should be darker, even if we assume a Moonlit night. Have you used fade distance/power for the streetlight? It looks like you did not as the illumination coming from it seems too bright across the complete scene. 5.   18-08-2008 I like the ideas behind this image. Generally some great work demonstrating lots of contrasts. One thing that IMHO would be nice is if the old house had broken out of the grayscale a bit to make it stand out. Also perhaps a little more work on the tower blocks would have been good. 6.   17-08-2008 Have you ever seen the movie Stuart Little? That is what this house reminds me of :) I like the contrast you have set up with the old and new. The house in an amazing, detailed model. It's absolutely fabulous. The car is nice, too. The smoke, however, seems a bit...clunky, especially compared with the rest of the image. I would personally have used media instead, but that's me. Also, the shadows on the far left building are very blue. Was that intentional? I thought it looked rather odd. My final nitpick was the bird flying in front of the house. I could barely see it against the light stone, and it looked like an artifact until I looked closer. Nice picture, though. I am so jealous of that house. 7.   15-08-2008 There's ghostlike feeling in this image - though dark, the colors are grey (not yellowish/reddish as expected at dusk). The darkblue reflection (left) seems a bit out of place. I would have used more colors in the old house's exterior, to accentuate the contrast even more - maybe a few flowers? 8.   14-08-2008 Nice one!