CGAN Dec25 - Gingerbread House - Final Entries

Gingerbread House

Brief: Interpret the title as you wish into some kind of creative visual brilliance.

Deadline: Midnight on Wednesday 31st of December. There will now be no voting and no eventual winner, this is just a creative exercise with a time limit.

This thread is where you post your final entries, WIPs (work in progress) should be posted over here:  cgartnexus.com/index.php/forum/challenge...ngerbread-house-wips

Challenge rules and guidelines:
cgartnexus.com/index.php/forums/challenge-rules

Rules in brief:
- All challenge entries must be your own work.
- You should post at least two WIP images that are clearly different from your final entry and each other.
- Your final entry should contain your image (inserted so it shows up full size) and at least two links to your WIP posts on the forum.
- No chatter in the finals thread – if you have questions, post them in the WIP thread or PM an admin.
- Feedback is allowed & encouraged in the WIP thread.
- Deadline is given in UK time (midnight UTC) with a grace period of 5 minutes for getting the post sorted.
- No cheating! Admins may decide to disqualify an entry that does not adhere to the above rules.
 

The White House  
Bread House  
Cake House
Bread Man Sweet House  
Gummy Tree
Real Tree  

 

I did it! I finished before mum's bedtime!  

Setting the table... 
cgartnexus.com/index.php/forum/challenge...e-wips?start=0#56539
cgartnexus.com/index.php/forum/challenge...e-wips?start=0#56540
cgartnexus.com/index.php/forum/challenge...e-wips?start=0#56543

A beginning
cgartnexus.com/index.php/forum/challenge...-wips?start=10#56548
cgartnexus.com/index.php/forum/challenge...-wips?start=20#56564
cgartnexus.com/index.php/forum/challenge...-wips?start=30#56609
cgartnexus.com/index.php/forum/challenge...-wips?start=40#56621

Adding details
cgartnexus.com/index.php/forum/challenge...-wips?start=40#56626
cgartnexus.com/index.php/forum/challenge...-wips?start=50#56633

Not quite done
cgartnexus.com/index.php/forum/challenge...-wips?start=60#56664

Adding more details
cgartnexus.com/index.php/forum/challenge...-wips?start=80#56720
cgartnexus.com/index.php/forum/challenge...wips?start=100#56744

Phew, and I didn't even include the finished renders or experiments gone wrong...  

Final
 


 

Sooo, some chatter

I really like your gingerbread house Val. The end result with the out of focus tree and lights gives a very christmassy vibe to it. And as I've said before I like the irregularity and realism of your icing even if I found my own way easier in the end. I also considered a spiralling shape like those pink things, for my merengues, but in the end I was lazy and opted for a slightly modified sphere.

As for my own, I learned a bunch - pretty much all thanks to Val, admittedly.
I'm no longer afraid of the shading nodes
I can use the skin and the particle system modifiers
I now know how to make an actual render of the scene.

There were a few things that weren't entirely to my satisfaction. I tried using both lines + skin modifier and Blender text to make the greeting on the heart (and the icing around it) but in the end I opted to paint it in, in ArtRage. I also had placeholder flames in the render and painted them and some extra lighting effects (glow, glass reflections) in ArtRage.

There are a few things I'd probably do differently next time, if I remember, but over all I am happy with my tower.

I think yours is fantastic.
And it was amazing to see how you were getting better and more confident with the software as the month went on.
Everything looks authentic and believable in terms of the modelling and textures, and the lighting and glow adds realism to it all.
But the most impressive thing is that on top of off all the technical achievements you've also made some great artistic decisions with the framing and the composition.

Really high quality work.

I like them both. If I have to pick holes, I would say Valence - the icing texture on the house looks rough when I would expect it to be smoother soft icing, but your gingerbread texture looks very good to me. And Charlotte, your trees have no depth an look thinner than paper thin  Both look far better than mine 

I suppose I should have made them a bit thicker - though they are several mm thick actually (like cookies). I guess it just doesn't show well then the icing hides part of the edge...

Very impressive illustration, well done!

*adds an s*