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Unlikely duo — Description
Plot:
The great war of titans, that left the human civilization recovering from the havoc, now lives on only in the memories of our great grandfathers. Although titans paid little to no attention to humanity, the destruction left by their battles majorly impacted humans as well. Shattering already not-so-big magnetite landmasses, the titans put an end to quite few of the greatest capitals in the land of Kanee. Nowadays only few artifacts and carcasses of the fallen beasts remind of the grave past. However the last few centuries had been peaceful and left enough time for humanity to recover and forget. The rule of king Torak the second has brought peace and upswing to Kanee. With most of the cities restored and construction of a road network connecting most of the floating lands complete a new era of prosperity has begun. The two biggest cities of Kanee - Tarkara, the king's residence and Koda also called "The capital of craftsman" have became the cultural centers of the country owing to the great riches acquired from trade in Koda or military advancements made by king's armies in Tarkara, bringing home loot from captured lands. The great highway connecting the two cities is famous for it's traffic but that however has attracted some unfortunate souls looking for easy way to make some gold making traveling without guard escort fairly dangerous if you don't want to loose your stuff. This threat has inspired small-timer merchants and travelers to chose a different route oppose to the great highway. One of the routes often taken by those wanderers is the road of crooked serpent - a narrow pathway leading from one city to another at the cost of few extra days of travel.
The magnetite pilars next to the road has become a home to a rather unlikely duo taking advantage of the travelers - Cozy tavern made by quick-witted and hospitable publican Jack and a weapon shop run by crafty goblins built in the carcass of the fallen titan - Athrof: a gigantic spider impaled by one of titans' artifacts - the spear of Tartar. Due to the shear contrast, this place has left a mark on many maps as "The unlikely duo", famous among commoner travelers both establishments enjoy plenty and profit.

Creating this piece took me about 60 hours of work. I knew that with the idea I had in mind I wouldn't be able to create a scene appealing to the laws of composition. Both buildings are made contrasting and unique. Just like in the lore, the two buildings are made to fight for your attention. Littered with eye catching details they are meant to steal your gaze from one another. Just when you start exploring one of them, the second one calls you with a new load of explorable detail. Composition wise this isn't very good but it suited the idea and vision that I had in mind. The image is rendered in 8k so it can be zoomed and explored. I didn't spare any effort making it interesting to explore. Filled to the brim of tiny details the scene is full of explorable things, I even added dust particles for those who stop to look deeper. The one thing I wish I did better tho is blending with background. This detailed low-poly (hah, low poly... this scene has orders of magnitude more polys than any high poly scene I have done! ) style doesn't go well together with the realistic background. I do hope you enjoy the scene, took me a lot of time to complete and even more time to render and composite it.