1/2001
This image is a recreation of the reported UFO sighting in Blenheim, NZ, 7/13/1959, based on the witness sketch.
It was created entirely with Carrara, with the exception of the background hillside which was scanned and modified with Photostyler. No post production was performed - the painterly look is entirely the outcome of Carrara's rendering engine and the lighting conditions.
The object consists of a spline modeled cylinder complex and the flames are a set of 136 4D volumetric clouds (an outer orange flame with an inner green one, repeated 68 times) from the Lost Horizon Software Carrara power pack. I hope at some point to animate this object. Contrary to expectations, the flames did not take an outrageous amount of time to render (less than a half hour for an 800 x 600 image). The trees are done with Zenstar's Tree Druid extension.
The sky is a Carrara atmosphere sky plane and the clouds have been elongated to give the appropriate appearance.
The lights use a lens flare modifier to create the illusion of great brightness. There is also a sun above the clouds, and an off image light source illuminating the object.