Well, here goes, my slightly cheesy concept is this:
A series of two images…
A thin tree branch with a chrysalis attached, then the same picture repeated to the right but with a magnifying glass placed over where the chrysalis is in the first image, it is revealing a butterfly where the chrysalis was…
Or perhaps the butterfly will be below their ‘used’ chrysalis for a one image solution.
Now to the headache of modelling it…
Sketches to follow (probably 3 minutes before the deadline 
Ian
cool sounds nice 33.3% chance of winning now. that jacket seem to be getting further away from my grasp
Yeaw!
So, no excuse, I’m just not very good at this kind of thing 
Short focal length, we’re in the undergrowth here, misty morning, dew on the leaves, delicate pastel colours in the out of focus background, the colours of decay at the in focus top, and vibrant colour on the butterfly. I may remix the scheme depending on what gives the most drama to the two main features of the set. The emphasis in this image will be on fine detail.
Now, one question… does anyone know how to model a butterfly?
Kidding
Ian
You need to terminate that thought. This is far from a cheesy subject.
Tho’ I chose not do it, I am very happy that someone is.
This topic is SO RICH. I wish they would run the Pheonix contest again with the same theme. I would enter again and do a completely different image.
Even if I don’t get the jacket, I feel like a WINNER already because this contest has made me think CREATIVELY. No it’s more than that. I think creatively all the time. This contest has inspired ORIGINALITY. It’s deeper, I really haven’t had anything that I have been wanting to say. Nothing really worth taking the time to say with art. Creating Art, for me, is like what Treebeard in LOTR said to Pipin. “Trees don’t say anything unless it’s really worth taking the time to say.” I’m like Treebeard in that respect. It took so much time to produce a painting, I don’t want to do it, unless I really cared about it. I couldn’t dedicate that much time to something that was just superficial chitter chatter. Most fantasy, seem redone and vain (LOTRs or StarWars). I couldn’t care about it. Now I feel like as long as it’s deeply personal and said with clear intent from my own perspective.
Having something to say, and feeling it is really important is what I believe I have been lacking. Even it’s it’s not a statement just but just an emotion that is really important to share. I believe that is the motivation that I lost trying to make money with that had nothing to say except my rent is paid, or I have a new … (whatever).
This contest is ending a long run of artist larengitis. I have found my new voice. I understand now. That’s what I came back to Buffalo for. To find what made me tick. I wanted to share an incredible moment with others.
I managed to spend a couple of hours working on this last night.
I’ve never modelled anything organic before so it’s a bit rubbish, but, given some more time, and some EIAS deforms I think it’s going to turn out quite well. I also did a couple of the BG props and made a start on the dead chrysalis.
I’m doing this in FormZ which isn’t really the right tool for the job, but it’s the only one I get on with 
Also started thinking about a lighting solution, HDRI might be the way to go, I found a nice undergrowth map… Hopefully I’ll get to spend another half hour/hour on this tonight, time enough to model some plants… Just got to work out how to do that!
Ian
Nice butterfly Ian! The lighting effects through theses wings will be very interresting.
Your looking for a macrophotography look?
Yeah man!
Crazy focal length, lots of grain
I simply don’t have time to model all this stuff so I’m going to do the background foliage with Tree Pro (don’t boo me!)
Ian
So, you’re saying it DOES look like a butterfly? Phew!!
Today’s instalment:
I’ve already improved the foliage somewhat and started to texture it…
I need to do eyes… and placer deposit some hairs onto this baby…
Unfortunately I’m away from my G5 now until Monday so this is it for Pheonix until then (unless I do another render in my lunch break, which I probably will ;).
Ian
Looks good Ian.
I actually had a similar idea, but have been far too busy to enter.
The thing is: the EIAS logo used to have a butterfly as a part of their logo, I think it was blue…?
good luck
Hellooooo!
this is the current state of the project as of now…
I’ll give you all a render after the weekend, so little time! Also, I have to say I’m surprised at how amazingly fiddley SSS is in EI…
Ian
So I spent some time reworking it yesterday afternoon and rendered it while I was at the cinema, time time time.
I’m using Raytracing AND DoF inside EI (something the manual tells you is a capital offence, but sod the rules eh!)
The background is an uberrock and there is some LoonGrass in there as well. Tree pro did the red bush, render time is 1hr 18mins for 8 blur frames (c. 10 mins each).
The butterfly still needs surgery, it’s next on my list. Thanks to all that are chiming in 
Ian
woooh, very nice!!!
the background with the rock and grass looks a little uniform, maybe another light to push some contrast, but other than that:
Yes, I agree, you can’t really see where the rock stops and the grass starts… I’ll be sure to put some more light (and perhaps another bush) in there during my next bout with this project
Ian
Nice colors! Only suggestion is to add some curve to the antennas. Looks great! :applause:
Tim
I like it. I would use an even smaller DOF. In macrophotography, it is not uncommon to have a very blurred background, even the end of the top leave could be out of focus.