September Entry: Leonardo's Lawnscaping

[Immolate]

Gussied the thing up a bit.

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Leonardo's Lawnscaping.jpg

[Immolate]

And, added a few more details to the before house before deadline tomorrow.

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Leonardo's Lawnscaping.jpg

[Immolate]

I received a private message from Ashenvale that was a regular treasure-trove of suggestions. He pointed out that the shadows on my rooftops were out of synch with my globals, made some suggestions on the trees on the "after" picture, and a few other, less-significant items.

The roofs were more messed up than he noticed, with one section of the roof whose shadows were opposite of the others. Fixing that took some doing, as the house had been "assembled" in another process and brought into the mock-up effectively complete.

I flipped the part and "patched" it into the house on the old house. On the new I had done too many color changes to the roof to match it correctly again, so I had to cut the old roof section out and flip it. It worked out well-enough.

For the trees, I did a lot of work with inner shadows, inner glows and bevels to make them look more three-dimensional. The apple tree got beefed up a bit to keep it from being quite so transparent.

As a bonus, I added a trash bag to the before house. While my wife was sanity-checking my changes, she noticed my two lawn flamingos for the first time and got a laugh out of them. They are images of two actual deceased flamingos that I painstakingly removed from their background so that I could use them in my yard. You see, that's the problem with orcs--they want to be like regular people, but something horrifying always happens when they try.

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[Ascension]

That's why I never use Dunjinni objects...the shadows never match what I want and most of them have a black outer glow that is a pain to get rid of. I only saw the one flamingo, looks kinda like Bjork's dress. But, ya gotta love the orcs just tryin to fit in

[Ashenvale]

Just fantastic! Look at the volume and dimension to those trees! Glorious!

[Ashenvale]

Let me elaborate . . .

The idea behind this piece impresses me most. I can’t imagine a more charming idea for a “before and after” map! But you also present all of the elements with such care and delight. There isn’t a weak moment in the entire presentation. The magazine pages, the landscaping logos (big and small!), the advertiser’s pitch, the anecdotes, the smart little surprises (The Gnome Depot, Google Oerth!), all come together to look professional while simultaneously carrying the humor. That’s what makes it so charming.

When I zoomed in on the “before” side and saw the orcs’ catapult, I roared! The grunge that the “before” image evokes makes me want to take a shower. I swear I can smell the place through my computer screen.

The after side rocks! Nice lighting, gloriously three-dimensional trees full of color and depth, fabulous gazebo cupola, perfectly manicured details throughout.

Juxtaposing pictures of the hotty elf with the classic garden gnome got me laughing again. You captured both my and my grandmother’s interest in fantasy. Didn’t think that could be done!

Inspired thought beautifully executed.

And funny!