Dragonfly by bigbraader
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No AI - This artwork was created entirely by hand or with traditional digital tools.
Description
... a close-up experiment, trying to achieve at least some level of photorealism :)
Of course it is not "realistic" as such, since the dragonfly's appearance is somewhat (completely, that is) imaginary. But several issues have been solved to my satisfaction: The dragonfly's wings were extremely difficult to get right, I ended up with some alphaplane etc. work based on images from the web. (The dragonfly model is from 3D cafe, besides the wings, I reworked the textures.)
Also, the close-up leaves represent a "different" approach, they are modelled as terrains in Bryce, from a greyscale image based on a scanned leaf, then the textures (very hi-rez), transparency & bumps were adjusted to fit, the whole lot exported as a 3DS file, and imported into Vue, and adjusted some more.
(Bryce does several things better than Vue in the modelling area, IMO. As low as the price on Bryce 5 has dropped to now, could make it interesting for others to have it in their arsenal, and who knows, maybe you'll have the patience to produce the fantastic renders, Bryce is capable of. Not to take anything away from Vue, of course, it has several very distinct advantages over Bryce, as you know).
Other credits: Yellow flowers from Toucan.
Some brush-ups in Photoshop, mainly to despeckle the Vue DOF.
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Hope you like it, comments appreciated.

Comments (24)
Very nice composition. Very well done textures on the dragonfly. Excellent work !
amazing render.I love it
Really hard work to get this snapshot! Don't you have a camera? :-) :-) :-) Excellent work!
Holy cow, BB, this is incredible; the leaf looks so real, and the dragonfly is outstanding. Amazing image!! BRAVO!!!
Wonderful!!
Very nice work
Excellent realism. Well done on textures and methods.
Fantastic image , love the textures and lighting , very well done:-)
a well worked and well explained image..nicely done i dof my hat to you this is most excellent work...bravo
Great image and great render... It must have teken long to render cause i know those particular Toucan flowers take forever to render...
Fantastic image! Looks like a close-up photo! Beautiful work.
Outstanding work it always amazes me what Vue can do in the right hands excellent work.
fantastic work, very realistic and V for this great masterpiece ! you can try with my radiosity scene generator for THE perfet Realism !! ;P
Absolutley amazing!!! You have achieved IMHO photo realism at it's best......:)
wooooooow looks real,very real.awesome!
WOW!! Outstanding image! The wings and leaves are fantastic .. Most excellent and realistic work!
Amazing. The most realistic I have ever seen in Vue. Great artwork.
I am amazed that the leaves were made in Bryce and I wonder why Vue can't achieve this level of realism. How annoying. As to your image it's fantastic! Love your work on modeling and textures. This gets a huge vote!
Thank you so much for your comments so far - I'm very pleased that you like it - it's a "simple" composition, but it was tough to make :) Fortunately rendering was swift, 45 min.
Very cool leaf work and the dragonfly looks really great, especially the wing texture. Excellent alternate approach to Vue, it's always fun to hear about new ways of doing things in Vue. Excellent Work!
Your work in sorting out the challenges is quite excellent and intetresting. The result is a fine image and you have well achieved the photo-realism you were looking for. Vote for sure!
What you did with the leaf is inspired; this is a wonderful work and fer'sur raises the bar on Vue renders.
Wow, Bravissimo !!, well done and quite an achievmnent IMHO, realism for sure !!!
Excellent hard work! Wonderful job! I like dragon flys and I have yet to catch on with my macro lens. But I'm still working on it. I might even try one simlar to yours he he! Thank you!