Well after more hardware than software for a while finally back to learning blender. The image content is also a retreat to more familiar ground for me; that is, back to the toons. And, as I really enjoyed this project, probably the path I’ll be following for the future as well. The scene was rendered in a single pass with blender internal and no post process. Coincidentally, this project also delivered my first blender animation. Coments are welcome. Hope you enjoy.
Nice, the first thing that I think of when I see this is the ship from “The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy”.
Make it a little “fatter” and they’ll be almost identical from that angle.
cool! would love to see the animation. i presme the fire is with particles and the background is a photo?
No, yah, the background was the reason for the exercise. 
Circles mapped with procedural clouds parented to blender particles. Sorry, I should have said something. Everything in the image is native to blender.
The animation was only the rocket and exaust. Still not up to speed in that department but there’s no reason why the whole scene couldn’t be animated, flown through, etc. since it’s all in house so to speak.
I haven’t seen Hitchhiker’s yet, only previews, but it looks like it should be a great picture. Ha, ha, that’s a tough crowd to compare to.
To tell you the truth… rocket looks bad, fire looks even worse, but those smoke… almost photorealistic. :]
Thanks. I appreciate it.
Here’s a reference that may help
And the the fire could be mapped the same way as the clouds. Fire is blender particle with halo.
If you look closely you’ll notice the material is repeating on the clouds. Shouldn’t be doing that.
Since everybody loves your smoke, can’t you make a tutorial?
Very nice, I like it 
It just got to me that, where is the ground?
Or is the rocket actually on it’s way into the ground?
See if you can find a good view on Google Earth.
Yah, ground is below. Rocket is going (slightly off) vertical on takeoff and camera is pointing down. 
This scene is actually the culmination of the process up to now. There a few notes regarding the technique here
https://blenderartists.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=52775
Another shot of a different scene here
https://blenderartists.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=53060&highlight=
that is very far away and didn’t turn out quite as well.
As mentioned above there is some repetition of the procedural cloud material and that needs to be fixed. Maybe global map coordinates might work but then the cloud couldn’t be animated as the geometry would just pass through the material. Maybe a better bit map and more particles. Still a lot of tweaks that could be made to inch your way to photo. For me, I don’t know, maybe after getting some sleep try again. Or, maybe, blender will have true volumetric clouds one of these days.
cipix, there’s a face that I haven’t seen in a while. Thanks, much appreicated.