What do you think? I guess there are still a few minor things to improve but I’d like to get some comments from you…
personally i think it looks really good but im still pretty new to blender (about half a year) so i cant see any problems 
Almost great, there are indeed some details missing but only a pro could spot them. 
yes, this is very good, there are two things that could be worked on.
- Adding some more dirt, for example in corners where the house meets the ground might add some depth.
- addit actual featuers to the ground, maybe some gravel or marks or something, right now it looks very flat.
Yeah, you’re absolutely right - ground needs some more stuff… I will really appreciate any more comments, they’re extremely valuable. Will show you the next version.
Can you share your thoughts on the missing details? I guess that would be a great lesson for me. I am definitely newbie 
where the edges are “intersecting”, it tends to be darker in real life… in your image this is not the case … adding Ambient Occlusion will add some realism and these darker edges…
Maybe you could work on the wood material in your scene…
Adding a blue light might not hurt because the sky is really blue/violett…(maybe add a more high-res BG)
…The top arch of the door(right above door) or under the chair is completely black(value of 0: which does not happen in broad daylight…sometimes it does!! but since it is preety light (at least in your scene) this is not likely to happen;::::::: to fix this you could turn on indirect lighting(approximate gather method needed!!!) along with AO as i stated earlier…
along the right part of the image… you could see that the light plane/ground abrubtly goes to the dark rocky parts of your BG… you can also see this around th e left chair… that might be just it for now…
i really like the concept…and the ivy but textures need some work and perhaps add some trees…
btw… my critique is my personal opinion(and might not even be right, but i try to do my best since im learning) +plus+ im fairly new to blender (about a month and 1 week) … and sorry if i was being to harsh (if you felt)+plus+ i try to compare things to real life as best as i can!!!
Harsh??? Absolutely NOT - those are extremely valuable hints and actually I do agree with all of them! BTW - interesting thing is both AO and IL are turned on (need to check that though). THANK YOU!!!
It’s a very nice image!
All the advices from fredriklars and AngelZxxWingZ are very valuable.
I’d like to add some more things though. The ivy adds a very nice touch, but it’s starting from the air. There should be a little earthy bed plant where it’s planted. It’ll will contribute with detailing the floor. I think also that the floor should be a little darker. Some greek houses have a stone floor, in others they are a little yellow or grey. In my opinion you can keep the white, but not the same white (or perhaps the texture) as the walls.
Other thing that can improve your scene is the integration between model and background. Perhaps a very very little subtle blue ambient light. and a little more detail with the floor plane that ends in a straight line. I think that the horizon line of the background is a little high for your perspective. Look at your perspective lines and the vanishing points. It’s almost there, a little more lower horizon should make your model-background work better.
The modelling looks really nice! How did you make the plants?
Keep up the good work!
Great advices, I’ll try to handle that. As it comes to the ambient blue light, the scene is enlighten by a environmental sky image, so it is actually a bit blue. My mistake maybe was the SUN lamp has a bit yellow color so it may sort of override the blue - not sure though.
Try adding a sperate lamp (perhaps a huge area lamp=making shadows really soft) it will help accentuate it a little… (don’t solely rely on environment light(i use it to iluminate the scene a bit more)
you may also of course use the compositor(specifically the color balance node :and make the midtones{gamma} a bit bluish) but that is up to you…!!!..don’t overdo blue…!!!
if you’re AO and IL are already on …maybe…
AO: make the blending mode to Multiply to not brighten the image but make the “edge intersection” visible(making it darker in those areas)…
IL: maybe increase the Bounce number(beware longer render times… can be reduced by (in the gather settings) increasing error(0.5 try not to go higher) and turning on pixel cache…
Good Luck…Keep up the good work…and keep blending…
Just checked - actually I’m using EL, not IL - not sure if it’s proper. What do you think? I thought IL is more of color blending so not sure if it makes sense here. Will try with the area lamp - you mean INSTEAD of SUN-light?
It’s amazing you just saw that I guess that’s what talent means. You were exactly right - I had to move the background image a bit down to match the real horizon…
IL is also for color bleeding… but i also use it to sometimes make my image brighter or making (Emitters) illuminate the scene…but in your case it is to remove the dark spots i have mentioned earlier making light rays bounce to those spots. eventually removing them if used correctly…
With the area lamp i meant to add it to the scene(so do not remove the sun) just add the area lamp make it also big(not by scaling but in the settings of the lamp) and don’t forget samples!!!
Also add some samples in the sun lamp to make some shadows softer…(hope i helped you out a bit)
I like the idea with adding the area lamp - just not sure what to do with the shadow. Which one should cast them - SUN or AREA? Guess not both, right?
You can of course have them both making shadows… But i personally prefer the sun to make the main shadow since it is the strongest source so it should make the shadows and the blue area lamp should not cast shadows … It should solely add realism +plus+ it compliments the sun…(color wise)
Oh,I see now. You mentioned before not to forget about samples so I thought it’s about shadows… anyway - I’ll give a try. Need to experiement
Just have fun!!!
Ill be waiting for render(hopefully with major improvements)
Great job. Looks pretty nice. Can you give a summary of how you did the foliage?
i don’t know if these were commented on already, but my critiques are that you can tell that the background is an image(on account’a it’s kinda fuzzy) and the background maybe aught to be a bit brighter. there needs to be some kind of shadows coming from the tables chairs and pot on the ground and the logs on the walls and such, are you using ambient occlusion? if not you aught to turn it on and set it to multiply. but as far as modeling and everything it’s great!:yes: