Bobby Parker 12/8/20 Bobby Parker 12/8/20

Joanna Small House Rendering

Here is another small house, part of the same project I posted earlier this week. There are a few more, and I'll post those as I wrap them up. This, I think, is my favorite of the lot.

These small houses remind me of an Architect I worked with 20+ years ago. He was a mild-mannered guy, pretty average in appearance, so I would have never have guessed that he lived out of a tent. No, really, and by choice. He didn't want to be tied down, and he loved the freedom of being able to pack up and move anytime he wanted. He would go to the gym every morning, workout, bathe and come to work. He was a cool guy, and I enjoyed working with him. We both worked late often, ordered out, tossed around the beach ball when everyone left (long story), and became pretty good friends. Oh yeah, he didn't own a car, either. I wonder where he is today. Probably retired at 40 and living on an island somewhere.

I don't think I could live in a tent, but a tiny house right now in my life would be fantastic.

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Bobby Parker 12/4/20 Bobby Parker 12/4/20

Lena Small House Rendering

Lena, in Greek, means "sunlight". I love houses with names; it helps me give the architectural rendering a personality. Most often, I get project names like House 1, which doesn't inspire me much. For this series, I wanted a lot of contrast between light and shadow, so you can really see sunlight.

In a few years, I'll be an empty nester. I anticipate it not being easy since I live for my family. However, I am looking forward to downsizing. Right now, my wife, two kids, and I live in a 5,000 square foot house, that we literally utilize less than half of that. When the nest is empty, I am downsizing to one of these little houses.

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Bobby Parker 11/27/20 Bobby Parker 11/27/20

8 Lowell Road Rendering

If you have been doing something long enough, you can see trends and patterns. Architectural Renderings for real estate brokers have been a trend over the last few years. For the first decade of my career, I create architectural renderings for architects and architectural firms. Software became more comfortable to use and less expensive, and the architect wanted to find a way to create new revenue, so they started doing their own renderings in-house. There is also a trend there; Architects are looking to outsource because they are not able to compete with the price and quality of a professional architectural illustrator.

When creating a rendering for real estate brokers, I have found too many people get involved. I only answer to the person who is the project lead to avoid this, but it doesn’t mean that they don’t pass around the images to get feedback. Now, there isn’t anything wrong with this, if that information is managed. Notice something about these renderings? Both the right front and the left front are pretty much the same view. I was told by someone to move the right camera left several times; I can only assume this person never saw the front right rendering, but I could be wrong. At some point, you simply have to take direction to complete a project.

I do like this home, you can’t go wrong with a white colonial home.

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Bobby Parker 11/23/20 Bobby Parker 11/23/20

Nest at Centennial Crossing Renderings

Often I am asked for a ballpark price without seeing any drawings. I don’t request the drawing files, but I do request to see the project PDFs. I don’t give ballpark numbers without first seeing the project. I know the trend overseas is flat fees, but that doesn’t work for anyone unless you are looking for something fast and cheap, which I don’t compete with. As I write this, I am reminded of how sometimes people get disgruntled if I don’t reply to their request with a number without seeing any project documents. Also, many times, other illustrators want to see what they should charge, so they pretend to be a prospective client, so asking some simple questions allows me to qualify quote requests.

The Nest at Centennial Crossing renderings is a prime example of why I don’t quote without reviewing the PDFs. When I ask for PDFs, I might get a reply like, it is a single-family home. Honestly, I illustrate 40 thousand square feet homes, so I can only assume they mean an average American single-family home, but that is still too vague. The Nest at Centennial Crossing is a series of small single-family homes. However, they pack a lot of detail. The roof was pretty complicated, just as complicated as a much larger home. Two of these homes had custom brick, both running bond and stacked, so I had to custom build both. The landscape plan had a dozen specific species, which I had to custom model. The homes are clustered, so I had to use some photography tricks, which greatly extend rendering times. All this has to be taken into account when quoting a project.

I love these homes, they were designed well, and a lot of detail was put into them. Had I not requested the PDFs, I would have assumed they were the typical American single-family home, which they are not.

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Bobby Parker 11/19/20 Bobby Parker 11/19/20

Wildflower Farms Renderings

Often I get email inquiries, and they don’t turn into a job until time passes. I might field emails for months, answering questions, and I do it happily. One of my passions is to help people, and even if I don’t land the job, I want to be a positive resource. The Wildflower Farms renderings took about six months to come to fruition; most of my inquiries do.

Each project has its own life and story. Sometimes people come to me, and they think they know exactly what they want; they have their camera angles, lighting, and mood decided. I don’t mind, and all I can do is make suggestions; however, sometimes there isn’t much wiggle room in people’s minds.

Part of my process is composition, and you would be surprised at the percentage of time I spend on this. I can move the camera 1000 times, and I can change the light just as many. Zoom in, zoom out. pan left, pan right… It can take many hours to find the best shot. When a client comes to me with a preconceived thought of how the image should be composed, they miss out on someone’s eye who has been doing this for decades. Until you are looking through the camera lens, you don’t know what the right shot is.

Often when this happens, the client thinks they know what they want; the view isn’t actually composed. There are art, color, and light theories to follow, which haven’t been given any thought.

Anyway, these did turn out pretty good, and I hope you agree. If you have any questions, feel free to comment.

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Bobby Parker 10/30/20 Bobby Parker 10/30/20

Hotel Rendering

Happy Halloween!

In the early 90s, I cut my teeth on hotel renderings. I worked for Motels of America out of Des Plaines Illinois, and as you might have guessed, they designed, built, and managed hotels across America. One of the Architect had an unopen box from Accurender. Since he had little desire to learn the software, I took the opportunity to dive into the world of 3D Visualization.

Computers were slow, and so was the software. I was amazed at being able to hit render and come back in the morning to see something on my screen, but it was painstakingly slow. From interior hotel renderings to exterior hotel renderings, I did them both. I would fly around the country, taking measurements at existing hotels due for a remodel and creating 3D renderings to show the company owner the design intent. Of course, we did new hotels, too.

When I was asked to illustrate these hotels, I took the opportunity for nostalgia's sake. They were rush jobs, which I usually don't take (I’ll tell you way sometime). Anyway, with further ado…

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Bobby Parker 10/14/20 Bobby Parker 10/14/20

Duck Pond Renderings

The Duck Pond house is a return with some updated features. The owner is trying to set his property apart from the other mansions in the area. The goal is for these architectural renderings to allow him to market his property before the property is completed.

fireplace outside-gigapixel-scale-2_00x.jpg

wine cellar view 1-sharpen-stabilize.jpg

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Bobby Parker 10/5/20 Bobby Parker 10/5/20

412 webster NOLA Rendering

Often I have clients who have to list a property. However, that property isn’t ready for photography. The 412 webster NOLA rendering is one of these situations. It might be months before the parcel will be prepared, so what better way to get a jump on marketing than a high-quality architectural rendering?

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Bobby Parker 10/1/20 Bobby Parker 10/1/20

Vassallo House Rendering

Most of the time, about 90% of the time, I start from 2D CAD files. Most people still work on AutoCAD and draw lines. When I get these CAD drawings, I almost guarantee that I can’t build the 3D model from the 2D CAD files. There are often many things I have to guess at or make work. On the Vassallo House Rendering, there is a truss detail that didn’t work and is still there, but obscured by a tree, which was intentional. This house is fantastic and works for me. I get all kinds of homes, from all sorts of designers, and some I like more than others. The Vassallo House Rendering has to be one of my favorites.

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Bobby Parker 9/30/20 Bobby Parker 9/30/20

Attach by Layer

What a time-saver, Attach by Layer. I model on layers, and I want everything on that layer to be one object, which helps viewport performance. I use SINI Software’s suite of scripts to help me get through my day. It is all about quality and speed. I am not one to sacrifice quality for speed, but I do want to do my job as fast as I can, and SINI Software helps me do that. The SINI Software subscription is expensive (at least if you ask around), but the time I save with these little tasks makes it a great value.

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