super job

Very cool, Sven. Very good detail on the model and the textures. A bit monochrome, though. Superb.

Nice model - like the aging on the sails nicely done.

Such detail... it's astounding! From the ripples in the water to the sun reflecting on it. Simply phenominal!

Excellent craftmanship on this Drakkar, and beautifully presented Sven! vote

Very nice. I would add a bit more color to it. Maybe in the shield along the sides of the boat. Excellent job.

Awesome detail, very well done.

Superb! All it needs now are a bunch of Vikings singing "spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spammity-spam, spamitty spam".

Excellent work, very nice

Top lighting and the water FX ROCK...Cheer's :o)

All she needs now is a crew of blood thirsty violent....umm sorry dedicated explorers. Excellent work as always Sven

Super scene,nice water distortion,but where are the boys ?Could be a ghost ship?

wowow thats looks great, nice detail....

Wonderful shot!! I agree that something colourful in the ship would balance the image in right way. Water looks already finished and superb as well as the ship model!!:)

We have all determined that you have a winner here. Now If I may add some feed back. While many like to embellish sometimes it just does not fit. I would loose the Star Filter on the highlights. They are used for Glamour Photography. Next you may want to take another look at the sail. As Sail Cloth like most fabrics when held against light, it is not completely opaque. Especially in areas where there is not a lot of color. (Hold up a T shirt to a lamp sometime) This means that the fabric of your sail should be back lit to a degree especially with such strong reflections coming from the water. Thos strong higlights should be reflecting on the back side of the sail and lighting it up. Some luminosity with a procedural map to simulate uneven illumination of the sail from the back side may help. You may experiment with translucency as well on the sail. In the end because the sail is of a lighter thinner material that the rest of the boat it has to appear different from the rest of the boat, right now it looks as if it were made out of the same material as the deck. Next the water has too much a grainy look, also it does not seem the be reflecting any sky. This along with the colors selected for the sail and boat gives the scene a very monochromatic look. With such strong sun reflections it has to be assumed that the sky is mainly clear and thus should reflect the blue of the sky above. Also water color changes density according to depth. Your wave tops are basically the same color and saturatio as the wave base. You can help this by applying a gradient to shift color from lighter to darker according to it relation to the Y pivot point as long as the pivot point is below the bottom of the water plane. Transparency and translucency can also be locked to gradients. Some times I do water in 2 layers a flat sub layer with perhaps a image map to suggest underwater features, this sub plane is shaded heavily towards a deeper green or blue than the surface water. The using gradients on the color, transparancy and translucency channels I adjust the top surface so some of the subplane is visible depending on how high the waves are. This is especially necessary when simulating shallow water environments. On deep water environments the sub plae can be omitted but you still can reap the benefits of using gradients keyed to wave height. As far as the grainy ness on the water you may have too much noise or freaquencies in your texture. Perhaps wider spacing or reducing the number of frequencies would help. If you were kill the specular higlights and reflections. A go whiter the water would look more like snow than water. I guess you know what I mean. Hope this helps Peter

owk... dont have that much to say... just that the wood on the boat looks waxed (oily)... perfect! Total contrast base and coloring is professional. Bravo.

Ein wundervolles Boot auf glzender See!!!