Gee..It’s been 7 months since I’ve updated my blog. 2012 is near, whether the prophecy is true I don’t really know but I just want to wrap up some of my updated demo reel first.
The first piece that I’m in the process of in the making right now is just pretty simple yet complex. Back to basic I guess, just go back to fundamentals of arts and painting. A Still Life piece, an obstacle that most artists struggling with. It’s very basic stuffs, where you just paint or render any still objects (usually food, porcelain, etc.). As it easy as it sounds, it’s not actually that easy.
To capture the soul of still life painting, I need to have a good composition of staging, lighting and texture. Still life painting is also gives a set of challenges because there are mix of different materials such as combinations of organic and inorganic at the same time. In CG terms, that means I have almost whole array of CG challenges that I need to tackle starting from diffuse, reflections, refractions, SSS, displacement and soft shadowing.
I just finished the first part, which is blocking some main objects in terms of compositions. The fruit plate is modelled by Jeremy Birn included in www.3drender.com for doing lighting challenges. This I admit has been my best model for learning lighting and rendering. For the rest I modeled them myself.
Still quite a more to go. I plan to add organic plants, maybe flower or so (since I got a pot in there for a reason :p) . Candles, cloth or background objects.This work hasn’t been edited yet, is a straight render fresh from Houdini’s Mantra.
Cheerio!!
OtakAtik 
It’s actually a great and useful piece of info. I am happy that you simply shared this useful information with us. Please keep us up to date like this. Thank you for sharing.