The water shrine
“As was her custom, Malena made the arduous journey across Ashman’Rak’Sh, the “Devil’s Anvil”, to Varu’Mandira where her clan’s water shrine was concealed, deep in a cave, lit only by the noon suns. On Wesdraken IV, water was life, and a tree found by open water was deified by all, for that gave them life and that was their god…”
Technical aspects: “Stalking”, has been the most successful of my artwork to date, winning the Bryce Select Gallery Award and the Digital Artworks Award. “The water shrine” is the next picture in the series about Ashra Malena’s adventures.
With each new bit of artwork I push the envelope and attempt something new that I have never tried before. “The water shrine” does just that. My first challenge was the creation of a realistic texture for Malena’s sacred cloak. It had to be semi-tranluscent yet have a subtle texture. Cynthia Anderson from the Bryce Forum helped me on the way there.
Full atmospheric lighting was necessary to add to the dark and mysterious atmosphere of the grotto, and I tried volumetric lighting for the first time in Bryce 4. The render took over 7 hours to complete, but it was worth it.
The pool lighting and texture took the longest to perfect. The ripples were created using an imported Corel PhotoPaint 8 image in the Bryce Terrain Editor, and the waterfall itself was created using my new 3D modeller “Amorphium” by Play Inc.
The pillar and rock on which the tree stand is also an Amorphium creation. Multiple terrains and a few primitives finished off the shrine grotto. The tree was found on the Bryce 4 “Content” CD-ROM.
The figure of Malena was created using a custom Poser 3/4 figure with multiple morphs, her cloak was obtained from Props Modelling Guild by Anton Kisiel, and tweaked and morphed by myself to fit.
Post-production consisted of work on Malena’s hair, joint hiding on the tree, the splashes of the waterfall, the small cloth folds on the cloak and some work on the sand drifts. All done with Corel PhotoPaint 8.