An updated version. I didn't like the flask or the lampshade, so I changed them. Many thanks to Sasha Alexandrov (Mister3D) for helping me with this scene and answering a lot of Vray questions. He advised me every step of the way, right from the beginning, teaching me about Vray. This all started with an antique photo of a Victorian era or earlier pub. I suspect it was a pub in a small country inn. Probably an Irish pub. The lighting in the picture was dramatic, and I loved it. So, of course, I had to do my own artistic interpretation of it. And by doing so, challenge myself to up my skills a bit. Aside from using Vray, which I'm still new to, and which is difficult to use at all due to my retarded computer, the lighting was also a serious challenge for me. It took a great deal of studying the photo, which was rather small in the original, by someone named, I think, Dolcedo, before I determined the light was coming from a lantern on the other side of the door and a light at the camera position to bounce. It also became apparent the photo had been retouched to remove a great deal of the natural shadows. Or, that may have been a result of the long exposure time that would have been necessary at the time. I wanted the shadows. There was something very attractive about portraying a pub at night after closing time. I had to also adapt the scene to square format. Why square? Well, I have a friend, Glenn Folkvord, at Planet Origo in Norway, whicj specializes in new age, ambient and electronic music, to whom I hoped I might sell it as a CD cover. But the shape and construction of the pub also lent it to square format. The slate-like texture of the bar top happened quite accidentally. I don't know why it turned out that way, but I like it a lot. The effect has something to do with the lighting. All textures made by me in Photoshop, so I know I didn't make a slate texture. What Bob Ross calls a happy accident, I guess. Sasha and I disagreed on the door. He felt it was too bright. I thought it was very painterly and beautiful and defined the light. The story is really in the things you can't see clearly. The cigarette in the ash tray, the pint glass waiting for some Guinness, a copy of The Strand Magazine featuring one of the first Sherlock Holmes stories on the bar top, the bottles of absinth on the shelves, the lights on in the other room, the sign of The Young Swell on the sidewall. There's likely to be murder in this inn tonight. I pushed this as far as my retarded computer was able. A lot of it was spendings days adjusting lights, adding bits and taking away bits, adjusting textures, getting things right. I think it was worth the work, though. The only problem now is that people will expect this level of work from me all the time, and I don't know that that's possible. Partly because of my poor computer, partly because this image was genuinely inspired, and inspiration like this just doesn't come all that often.