Ok it's about time I wrote some comments:

But which came first? - David Lewis
I love the expression on the chicken's face! Good modelling on the chicken. 
There's some issues with the textures in the scene, noteably the chicken's 
beak, the low-res wood, and the normal on the feathers which makes them look 
a bit like stone. The lighting is good if it's meant to be night time, the 
black under the fence suggests no light outside, which seems a little odd 
but not "wrong" as such. Anyway it made me laugh which always means I like 
it!

Just a splash - Bill Pragnell
I'm a big fan of surrealism but personally the nudity and background of this 
scene seem completely arbitrary. In my opinion the concept would come across 
better in a more realistic setting. Anyway, regardless of the reason it's 
there, the scene looks nice (well you can't go wrong with a cute naked girl 
really!). I particularly like the isosurface stones. The concept is good, 
though I really didn't get it until I read the title. On the whole it just 
needs a dose of reality such as: clothes, real background (or at least a 
ladder!), spilt drops of wine/stains on the rock, the empty glass & bottle 
being in a slightly different position to the full ones, a blue sky in the 
background on the left (or no yellow one on the second image). Anyway I'm 
probably analysing too much but despite being a very clean & pretty scene, 
it just doesn't quite work for me.

The Passing Away - Malcolm Findlay
Much improved from the WIPs posted on p.b.i. Very nice concept, with 
emotional resonance for anyone who's looking at the 3drtc. Critically I'd 
say the scene looks very flat, which is caused by having mostly flat 
objects, and the light is almost directly behind the camera. Placing the 
light in a more interesting place and having more variety of objects (e.g. 
different shaped grave stones, rounded edges on the stones) would really 
make things look more interesting. Anyway, having seen this image develop 
I'm impressed with the improvement in your pov skills, I look forward to 
your next image!

A Type of Typewriter - Shay
Wierd. Seriously if you do something this strange *please* provide us with 
an explanation of what it is! I *think* what you're doing is a picture of an 
orange & blue typewriter, drawn with ascii-art. Presumably ascii art is the 
"after" and the typewriter is the "before". Though what you've got isn't 
really ascii art in the conventional sense, but I don't mean that as a 
criticism. I think the thing that bugs me about this image is that the 
characters making up the picture seem to be completely random. They're 
letters, but they aren't chosen to best represent the shapes they're 
imitating, or to have some kind of hidden meaning spelt out. Anyway I don't 
find it all that aesthetically pleasing and I'm mostly just confused when I 
look at it. Sorry! :-/

Aging - William Tracy
Ok I slightly spoilt this image for myself by mis-interpretting the glasses 
as being like those worn by Dame Edna Everage, who is hardly a symbol of 
youth! Anyway I get it now. I love the minimalism, I realise that's perhaps 
a stupid thing to love in ray tracing but it really works here. The cane 
looks a bit plastic, but otherwise I have no criticisms of this image! It 
does what it does very nicely.

1st Cup of the Morning - Michael Chelmecki
I know the feeling! Great use of focal blur and I like the unconventional 
composition. The main thing I'd criticise is it has that high ambient-light 
look that a lot of CG images have, which always really annoys me. I think an 
interior scene like this really needs radiosity. On a similar note, the 
light inside the room seems to be so bright we can't see any daylight 
shining through the window blinds. On the positive side, your kitchen has a 
pretty decent quantity of things in it, though it's far cleaner than my 
real-world kitchen. Particularly impressed that you included a half-full 
coffee maker! It's the little details that work. One final thought: try a 
bit of vignetting, particularly on the left image (i.e. make the image 
darker at the corners than in the middle), for the camera-equivalent of 
half-open eyelids.

Reganomics - Brian A. Price
First of all I have to admit I don't really understand the politics or 
economics or whatever that this image represents. So to my mind those 2 
images are backwards from how I normally think of the development of the 
world. Anyway, short of spending time reading up on Reaganomics, I'm just 
gonna assume your concept is better informed than me and comment on the 
technical/artistic side of things! I like the symmetric composition, right 
down to the cars and the height of the distant building. There's really good 
attention to detail, like the way each house has a different paint job, the 
fact there's a stop sign at the factory, the shadow of a tree on the yellow 
building. Though I think it could do with a little more work on the 
materials (e.g. reflective windows, gloss paint, road markings!) and the 
lighting (e.g. lower ambient light should make everything look much less 
cartoony).

A Time Of Change - Thomas de Groot
Wow! I was impressed when I opened the first image, studying it for the many 
signs of time passing, I spent maybe 5 minutes looking at it before 
realising it was the first of 2 images! Individually either one of these 
would be a great illustration of concept, but together they show a really 
well thought out and thoroughly explored idea. By way of constructive 
criticism I'd say this suffers that high-ambient light look of several other 
images in this contest. The shadowed areas are a very flat and grey looking, 
in a scene with a blue sky I'd expect blueish shadows and yellowish light. 
The flatness is very noticeable on the ivy at the top of the wall, where the 
sun hits it it looks really realistic, but in shadow it looks like a flat 
green shape. Anyway enough nit-picking, the shear amount of thought and 
variety of objects in these images makes the rest of us look lazy! Awesome 
work!

This to That - Steve Paget
Interesting interpretation of the topic, very well suited to being a still 
life. The background image really clashes badly with the colours and layout 
of the foreground, which really emphasizes the fact that this image isn't 
real. If that background wasn't visbile in direct comparison to the CG 
objects the scene would look a lot better. Anyway aside from looking too 
clean this scene's pretty realistic IMO. All the objects need to be bumpy 
and less shiny, apart from the metal tools which need to be more shiny. But 
the octahedron pieces of rock, the diamonds, and the pieces of gold look 
very good. For some reason the chunks of gold are a more gold colour than 
the finished cross. Anyway there's a lot of detail in the scene, I hope you 
keep working on it to remove the excessive "perfection" because I think it 
has the potential to be really realistic.

-- 
Tek
http://evilsuperbrain.com

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