Hello,
This is my most recent render. It was rendered at 500 samples and took about six hours on my laptop. Any comments or criticisms would be appreciated.
2 Likes
Looks more like smoke than liquid
I like the shape of this bottle and feather material. And there is a story in this scene - very good thing.
Things you might want to fix: material or reflection for the bottle. Right now the bottom part has too little of reflection, also - the writing material (paper, parchment, etc.) is never completely flat and even - give the page slight curl or bend, make some edges uneven.
Here’s an updated render. I crinkled the parchment a little and also tweaked the base of the bottle so that it would look a little less weird. I also centered the writing on the parchment.
Thanks for the feedback!
Looks better 
Great render and idea. The top of the liquid is too flat looks weird.
Watch this video.
cork is too perfect and everything in the scene is perfectly clean no scratches or fingerprints or smudges
if you are going with a more realistic look try adding some
feather ink quill looks too short to hold in your hand and write with
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81BBH3xnxxL.SL1200.jpg
fire looks good put something under it to look dark like a piece of wood or something darker looks almost like its only flames and nothing else add some smut to the fireplace ligting looks good
the reflected lights on the bottle look weird like orange and blue but I dont see any of that on the ink bottle
good render love the color of the potion
Adding just a tad bit of smoke near the fire place would look more realistic for a fireplace. Just a very little bit.
Technical quibbles notwithstanding (or, “TBD”), I think that the concept and composition of the shot works extremely well.
My eye is immediately drawn to the flame, which is slightly out-of-focus and remarkably convincing. Then, it comes to the potion, helped by the several points of light on the surface. You have a very nice and effective combination of these point lights, larger environment reflections, and the general color of the potion. But my eye then immediately moves away from the “cool blue space” to the warm-like the-fire piece of paper, and the writing which we can’t quite see. (More mystery!)
Then, my eye returns for a second look at the potion, because I now realize that those lights and those reflections appear to be a separate scene altogether … maybe I need to turn around! 
All in all, “the shot works.” Yes, it was well worth all that computation.