Wow, just a little extra time with textures and more concentration on the modelling makes a HUGE difference. The following 2 renders took about the same amount of time… but the 2nd one was FOCUSED time…
Pic 1 - UGLY…and WHAT was I thinking with the rabbit head?
Pic 2 - Not pro work, but man, what a difference…
I’d love comments on the 2nd one… especially lighting tips.
Much better! Keep on going!
The whole scene could use more light and more contrast. Maybe some torches on the ship that give nice yellowish lighting to the sails? Just an idea. Or some moonlight.
Make the water more rough. If you have big waves like that, you will most probably have many tiny ones too. A Voronoi/Actual Distance mapped to displacement could do it.
I would center the ship in the screen. At the moment I see no reason for putting it on the left side.
The camera angle is nice, but maybe even more dramatic? A bit closer and as close to the water surface as possible? Track the camera to an empty for easier camera positioning.
Try to play with Raymir on the planks. They are soaking wet I guess… The planks could also use some bumps
The dog head seems a little too big for this small boat. Maybe change the relations a bit.
Try bluish AO, but don’t overdo it. The cloudy sky would illuminate the whole scene a bit.
Oh, and don’t forget to use shadows on all lamps. I think a cold moon light (try a sun lamp with ray shadow) and blue ambient occlusion will give the scene a moody lighting. Some warm fires from the boat (Area lights pointing upwards with ray shadows, at least five samples and noise activated) could be a nice contrast then.
Go for it, this can be a winner!
P.S.: Tell me when I used terms you don’t understand.
Thanks Nico! Outstanding advice. I REALLY appreciate that!
I just saw these tips this morning and don’t have a ton of time, but tried to implement at least a little of it.
Thanks again!
I’ll keep working on this scene after the WC though and see if I can’t implement more of your advice.
Thanks again!
I hate the rain (at least, I assume it’s meant to be rain…). It looks terrible. Like someone’s scratched the surface of your picture. It does not look like rain.
Apart from that, nice work!
Much better now. I agree that the rain looks much too plain - and the wave and sail have noticeable edges - but it already looks very promising - keep it up!
Ok, I think I’m going to stop working on this particular scene. I learned quite a few things from it that will make future scenes better I think.
If anyone knows of any good tutorials on making realistic rain, I’d love a link. I made numerous tries at it that all turned out horrendous.
I have learned a way to make much more realistic waves that I will apply in any future water scenes, but I will leave that for a future blender scene.
HERE is my last rendition of this scene. Remade all the the textures for the water and reshaped the water slightly, but that’s about it.
Thanks again everyone for your input!
um… you have one wave of water in the middle of nowhere… there is no splashing of the water…the lighting on your ship looks wrong (should be coming from behind the ship)
other than that… it looks really good 
nice work!
As I said, I am learning to make much more realistic waves, which should allude to the fact that I agree the wave in this scene is not realistic. So, I guess thanks for agreeing with me?
If the light was coming from behind, all you would see is a sillouette… I’ll definitely work on some better lighting techniques in the future though, so thanks!
If other than those things, it looks “really good” and it is “nice work”, maybe you could let me know specifically what the good parts are as well in future critiques.
It’s kind of frusterating when folks are very specific in their bashing, but very vague in their praise. Specifics in both areas contribute greatly to improvement, in my opinion.
Thanks BadCat!
“other than that” would generally refer to EVERYTHING else about the image… I like the lighting from the torch, I like the texturing, I like the modeling, I like the sky, I like everything else I didn’t crit on 
get my drift?
Edit:
and once you’ve been working with this program a while, you’ll know your good points… just keep on with it, keep making stuff, and after a while, you will get very talented!
heh heh… cool. Thanks for clarifying!
I’m glad I jumped in on the contest… I find myself lacking for inspiration most of the time. Maybe I’ll try to post more stuff in here for crits in the near future. I got a lot out of this thread.
Thanks again.
