Lot 271828 - Silver and Gold

Member : Stephen

Image description
Lot 271828; a painting and original frame in Silver and Gold from the late Byzantine period. Discovered in a cave near a temple in the city of Antioch. It was found with a Bill of Sale made out to Rais Abdul ibn Abdullah a renowned merchant of the time. The object is described as an artefact from antiquity but sadly the Rais never received his purchase. We hope that he was not greatly inconvenienced. It is constructed with several varieties of gold and silver, sourced from all over the known world. The red gold has been placed as coming from the land of the Deceangli or modern North Wales. The silver in the starburst may be from Southern Africa. Metalwork shows the influence of the northern goldsmith, Warp and the halo can be traced to the religious order of “Andrew of the Orchid”. It is finely crafted with an Alpha Alpha threshold of 1 part in 10 and a Maximum Vestigium Aequus of XVI. The subject matter is contentious. It appears to be a scene of worship at a temple of Arianrhod, a deity of the Western Isles. Arianrhod was worshiped by the Treibh an Coirceog (Clan of the Hive) whose devotees were women. The artist has confounded this myth with a Greek one of sacrifice and harvests. There is no present evidence that the Mother Hive was the setting of human sacrifices. Still the rumours persist. The lot is in excellent condition and was preserved in a state that could only be described as miraculous. It is expected to exceed the current record for a sacred work by several thousand baw-bees.

Description of how this image was created
The silver panels are heightfields created from images made in Poser and some noise added in PSP. The human models were created in Poser and converted by PoseRay. The floor is a simple plane with a pigment list and the rest of the scene is CSG, made in Bishop3D. I may have gone overboard after reading Warp’s tutorial on normals. Finally the halo is a sphere filled with a media density map of a cubic Mandelbrot, the original Pov scene was supplied by Andrew a.k.a. Orchid. Public Health Warning. What ever you do, do not stare at this image for any length of time after consuming intoxicants.

General statistics
No of ratings	:	6
Min. overall rating	:	21 (15 / 1 / 5)
Max. overall rating	:	51 (18 / 16 / 17)
Sum of rating	:	220 / 360
Date uploaded	:	2007-10-19 03:50:16

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	:	10 : 18 : 82 : 120
Concept	:	1 : 16 : 62 : 120
Technical	:	5 : 17 : 76 : 120
Overall	:	21 : 51 : 220 : 360

Comments by members when rating this image

1.   27-10-2007 I'm disappointed by your re-use of the standing figure from your animation entry last round. Come on, at least make the pose noticeably different, or make the dress a different color. I also find your description incomprehinsible. Either I need to re-take some history classes, or you got really, really creative.