Ania, congratulations for this awesome work!
Speaking about the Render branch build, is there any build more recent than this one?
I’d love to try out some Indirect Lighting stuff…
Wow stunning
Gee, that’s AWESOME! And you’re in Vienna, too? How the heck did you make those plants, I actually like them most about the renders, really, really incredible! Any education you could possibly refer me to, or paid lessons???
Tut! Tut! Tut! 
Thanks for the nice comments!
I’m not planning a tutorial, haven’t reinvented the wheel with this work. But there’s a making of of one of my previous works (snake).
http://www.itsartmag.com/features/snakemouse/Snakeandmouse-p1.html
It’s just simple addition (Mix node with Add option, the Image inputs are the different light renders, Factor has no input but the value is changed to adjust the brightness of the second light).
Most important thing is to get the reflection right. Actually there’s a bit of paintover, I do this in most still eyes because it’s much quicker then adjusting rendered reflections.
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There are 4 different scales, copied (with linked mesh always), and distributed by hand onto the pangolin.
Don’t know, I rendered it in an older build (from August or so) because newer builds crashed on this scene.
Yes I’m in Vienna.
Most plants are modelled in another file and linked as group instances. Some are used as particles (moss, clover), those were linked as objects.
Around 5 versions of each plant, for diversity (modelled one then copied and altered).
Branches are curves. For bifurcations you can copy one vertex without moving and extrude. With Alt+S you can make the curve thicker or thinner. Some were converted to mesh and used as emitter (hair with group) for the leaves .
The blueberries are done like this too. The thin trees are blueberry curves enlarged and lengthened.
The thick trees modelled in Wings (Blender would go as well), the bark is sculpted in Blender (Sculpting branch) and used as displacement map (Render branch renders that quite quick and with low memory usage).
The moss and lichens on the trees is just hair particle system, distribution is controlled with vertex groups.
Grass just modelled normally, stems are curves.
Maidenhair spleenwort (the long thin with small leaves) leaves were distributed by array modifier and bent with curve modifier.
Ferns are array > apply, some adjustment by hand (array is too regular) > curve modifier (branches) -> armature (main stem).
Education - there’s a lot of free tutorials on the web, I also advise to read in the manual about the functions.
If you want a book, I just got “Beginning Blender” by Lance Flavell into my hand and I think it’s quite cool, there’s basic stuff as well as some advanced, and it’s for 2.5.
No paid lessons, but if you have short questions you can ask me.
Ania, many thanks for that thorough explanation. I just LOVE plants, and the way you laid them out, their natural looks and detail are just stunning. I hate coming up with Avatar, but I’d say you NAILED it. It totally freaked me out when I saw those plants.
I’ll try splitting my long questions into short sections, so maybe you’ll fall for it 
But first, I’ll have to get there, don’t worry.
Btw: your website is really worth checking out. Awesome stuff, great sense of humor! This year I’ll see if I can catch up a bit. Very motivating work.
I found that in real life their eyes always look much sadder and slightly wet. I used to live in Namibia where they are still comparatively common, although the market for chinese medicine is starting to make serious inroads into the existing population. You will need to pay attention to their movement if you wish animate as they have an almost unique and very characteristic movement. I would have expected to find it in a drier, hotter, lighter environment. Great model!
Great render
wow it’s gorgeous!!!
Pixar quality. Great job!
really beautiful
Agreed, it looks just like something out of a Pixar movie. Keep up the good work!
I really like this
I have a long way to go.
the feel of a dense jungle is quite impressive, nice, what parts (to be specific) did blender come in?
That… is… awesome! The only complaint whatsoever I have is that the pangolin could be a little fatter. 
I love it!! I love that small little Pangolin!! (okay, it isn’t small and little, but it looks sweet for me 
)
i’m curious, are the leaves transparent planes textured with images, or are they instanced objects that you’ve modeled and textured? i’ve been working on an outdoor scene and am returning to your images for inspiration, so i’m very eager to know what you did there.
i’d also be sincerely grateful if i had an opportunity to look at a .blend file for this scene!
cool!!!
I LIKE IT!
very cool ,I like it!
Great job! I love the composition! One thing that sticks out to me is that the background forest all has the same out-of-focus blur and feels kinda flat. Excellent job on the moss!