Valley Hunters

[Dune]

What the title says 

[TheBadger]

Cool shot, Ulco.

[kaedorg]

Is it intentional the 2 eyes behind the hunters ?

Who are the preys ? 

David

[Hannes]

What I'm reading this will remind us not to take life even more.

Man, I hate this spam stuff idiots! There was another one somewhere today.

Sorry Ulco!

Fantastic scene as expected!!!
But since you are one of the never sleeping high quality delivering TG cracks I have to switch on nitpicking mode, I'm afraid 
There could be some color variation in the rocks' texture.
The leaves of those plants are perfectly smooth. Maybe a very subtle bump map? There could be even some more plant species.
And the boat seems to be completely dry. A wet line of about five centimeters would be perfect I guess.

David, which eyes??

[kaedorg]

In the cave of the center stone.
There are 2 white spots.
I thought that could be 2 eyes of the final hunter 

[Hannes]

Ah, I see! The well known TG displacement holes I guess  .

[kaedorg]

With Ulco's talent, it can be a Sabertooth Tiger

[Dune]

Yes, spammers 

Please nitpick! I noticed the eyes and the too smooth leaves, but as usual, this was 'only a test' for the rocks, and I'm not pursuing it. But I keep the smoothness in the back of my head. Indeed, a little bump or rotten places on the leaves make them much more natural. And more species of course.
The eyes can be removed with the render subdiv settings set at force all edges, I noticed, but that takes (much) longer to render. So if it's only a still, I prefer some PS post (forgot here).
There is a band of darkened waterline on the boat, but perhaps too subtle.

[DocCharly65]

Cool work, Ulco!

Now I see the eyes too... 
Sabertooth is a nice idea... but bad place for a cat... or did they like water?

Variations in colors and vegetation would be nice.

[Dune]

Square rock attempt, without square noise. Better one rendering now.

[Kadri]

 
Looks nice.

[DocCharly65]

I like this very much as well.

I'm a bit jealous that a landscape can look so great whitout any plant! 

[TheBadger]

Hmmm, you know, Ulco, I would say that you already took it as far as it can go in earlier attempts. Not that this is bad or anything. Just that you have done better previously with rectangular shapes. But I don't think you should stop, I do love being surprised, and who knows what you have up your sleeve!

And not that I was able to reproduce your earlier attempt either. But I do basically understand in general. And given the well documented issues, I am very curious how you think you can top what you already did.

So yeah, I watch with optimism. But my pragmatic side tells me just to wait for the new noise powers... Rather than try and chase you through a node jungle 

[Dune]

I'm always striving to top what I did before and explore a new approach. They are just tests, to which I add some stuff (river, herons) to make it look a bit better. I can stop posting them, but I like to keep this forum a bit interesting.

This one has a bit better water and shores.

[Hannes]

Keep posting these, Ulco!! You're right, it's making the forum a bit more interesting.

For the image: I really like the water and the wet area of the shoreline. Very natural.
I'm not quite sure about the rock walls. Probably rockwalls like these exist in real life, but somehow they remind me of crumpled paper. And to my taste the birds are a bit too small.

Anyway, great image!