Igloo in a bottle

Igloo on the beach, my submission to @cg_boost 's challenge "World in a bottle".

I wanted to capture the essence of winter in a bottle and put it in an unusual environment. This project took me about 2 weeks to complete and most of that time was spent brainstorming about creative flairs to add.

I didn't intend on a sunset scene until late into the project. As I played with different environments I stumbled onto a sunset scene, and as soon as I saw the sunset lights refracted through the bottle I knew I was onto something.

The penguin splash may have been the most difficult thing in this scene to make, for which I made a separate water simulation to create a realistic splash.