"Dreamer"

The Idea

During moodswings everybody tends to dream about different places, other situations, alternate realities where life is easier or seems better. The image I modelled was meant to convey this, depicting a dark and very desaturated environment, and focussing on a colorful, sculpted landscape.

The Objects

Everything was modelled in Silo to get the odd angles and smooth curves which are hard to achieve when using pure POV-script. I don't mean to drop out of scripting with POV-Ray, but also need some experience with modelling.
The landscape is heavily subdivided to get the smooth look, and was also filled with scattering media to give it a more soft and clay-like substance. Along with the arealights for soft-shadows these turned out to be a time-killer and just re-rendering the landscape due to an artifact required something around 20 hours.

The Lighting

There are several arealights and a few lightgroups in this image. The arealights take care of soft-shadows. For example, the bars on the window would throw very sharp shadows onto the landscape, ruining the soft look I wanted. Also, since radiosity came up with very odd artifacts for which I didn't have the patience to solve, I slapped a few more arealights in to simulate diffuse lighting.
Lightgroups were used for special highlighting on the dreamer. An additional light casts light upon his silhouette to give him some more contrast against the gray backdrop. A lightgroup was also used for the aura of the little sun, as to not have other lights influence the scattering.

Personal Note

Some images help you define what situation you are currently in, and this is one of those images. Like I said, everyone daydreams from time to time.