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Dolphin Residence Rendering
Welcome to the Dolphin Residence rendering. All projects have a story and their own obstacles, and the Dolphin Residence rendering is no different.
This rendering project took a while to come to fruition. Most of the time, I get a request, we exchange a few emails, and either it becomes a project or doesn't. Some, like this one, come in, a few emails are exchanged, and I don't hear back for a while. A few more emails will be exchanged, and again, nothing for a few weeks, and then, BAM! "How fast can you get these done!" When this happens, I can be pretty sure that that is how the whole project will go, and in this case, I was spot on.
I appreciate all clients, and I try to understand people. I mean, I am in the business of helping people, and I deal with all kinds. I received my drawing files, posted the grayscale within a couple of days, and I didn't hear back for a month with an email asking, "how fast can I get the updates!" “Also, the design has changed”. At this point, I have other deadlines, and I have projects scheduled to start, so things get complicated. I don't like to make people wait, so I try to pull double duty to get things done. So, after working hard to get my client their updates as fast as possible, I don't hear back for a few weeks; "if I give you comments right away, can I get these updated within a couple of days?".
As I said, I try to be patient, and the project does get done. However, it can create hardships on other projects. Also, if I get two or three of these simultaneously, there is a significant issue, and every project suffers. Sometimes I have to simply reschedule a project, which has to be based on my current schedule.
I remember buying a co-worker a sign for his cubicle. It said, "Poor planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine." I gave it to him because he liked to say it.
These tuned out beautiful, in my opinion, and my client likes them, too!
I would love to here your experience with clients. Please, leave a comment.
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Allen Country House Renderings
When I purchased the house I live in now, it will meet a lot of future needs. One need was everything being on a single floor (I am not getting any younger). Now, I live in a 4000 square foot house with a walk-out basement; however, everything you need is on the main level. This house, the Allen Country House Rendering, is much like the house I purchased. The American ranch house would be the Allen Country house, and it is a great-looking house.
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House 2621 S House Rendering
Here is another house rendering, and this one, I really like. I love brick, and the wood is a nice touch.
One of the biggest obstacles in the render is exposure. Our eyes are magical, and they expose things perfectly, for the most part. I use a virtual camera, which mimics a physical camera and exposes the whole image. If you don’t know, white is tough to render. Everything else gets dark to get the white exposed, and to expose everything, the white gets overexposed. If you see a well-exposed rendering that has a lot of white, the illustrator did well.
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House 2468 S Rendering
Gone are the days when you build a line of spec homes. I remember shopping for my first home in the late '90s, and you would walk a block, in and out of model homes. Actually, my second house was a spec house, which the builder built for his offices. The housing market hit America, and he had to sell it. We came into it to pick out some finishes, which was nice, but we were shooting in the dark on our selections. What we couldn't do was see colors and materials before we made a choice. Today, with technology, you can design and virtually build houses, showing your potential client colors and materials, too.
I actually had a client commission me to illustrate a dozen of his houses that he would build to show, but he sold them all, using my renderings before he had a chance to construct one. I currently illustrate about 30 houses for him a year, and not one spec house has to be built to sell his homes.
House Rendering
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House 2195 S. House Rendering
Here is one in a series that I am working on. There will be several, and I’ll post them as they are completed.
I hope the detail I put into my images is appreciated by you all. If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment.
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12192 Skyway Dr. House Rendering
My client's homeowner added an addition to their house, but they couldn’t visualize the architect's 2d drawings. This, my friends, is why I got into this business.
On the left, the two-story part of the house, the gated areas, and the garage is the addition. They also added stone planters. There was a chicken coop, but that was omitted along the way.
The project started out with one view (left), but the second one (right) was added, which is actually the one I like best.
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9340 Military Road House Rendering
Now, this is an excellent use for architectural rendering. I received photos of the original house and some simple sketches and example detail photos to help my client show the property's potential.
Color is king on this one, and I love the blue. The white on white is getting a little stale, which is what the house is currently painted to tell you the truth. White on white is also about 80% of the homes I do, if not more.
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The Centaur Renderings
The Centaur Renderings is an excellent case study on another use for architectural renderings. The developer is rehabbing an older building, turning it into upscale apartments. The exterior wasn’t changing much; however, it wasn’t a very photogenic building. My objective was to build the existing structure and “make it pretty.”
There might be some interior renderings coming, but I am waiting for approval from the developer and his partners. If those get done I’ll add them to this post, so check back.
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1522 Hardwood Rendering
Summer is right around the corner, at least on this side of the globe. I live and work in upper Minnesota, and we basically skip Spring and go from Winter to Summer, so a pool is a great thing to illustrate. We went from the 30s and snow a few weeks ago to the promise of the 80s around the corner.
The 1522 Hardwood rendering has a great endless pool that I would love to be in soon. The house is beautiful, with a lot of windows to let that Summer sun in.
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Fairfax for Juliet Rendering
Like the title says, this architectural rendering is for Juliet. The potential buyer wanted to see what could be her house on her site. The designer sketched out an elevation, I built the model based on that sketch, and now the potential homeowner can get excited.
Architectural renderings can help you sell your idea and get your client excited about your product.
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House 2992 Rendering
The naming convention for this client is House, followed by the square footage. So, I introduce to you House 2992.
My client requested an alternate color version, which was to be rustic. I received some inspirational photos for both the white and rustic versions, along with a quick sketch of the site, which included a black fence, curved gravel road, and a shoreline.
About 90% of my house renderings have been white, so it was nice to work on something not white. Which one do you like better and why? Please, leave your comment below.
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7123 Fairfax House Rendering
My daughter’s friend walked into my office and said, “nice house!”. I would agree, it is a lovely house, and the renderings turned out great. I think the stone might change, but I am waiting on word about that.
This one is an excellent example of why I don’t work from ideas without drawings. The drawings didn’t work, as far as the stairs coming down to the drive. I was told to “make it work”; however, if I get a comment about changing the stairs that I did work on, there could be a lot of work since the site isn’t flat. The civil plan on this didn’t work either, so I had to make that work, too. I guess my point is, it isn’t my job to make things work, and if I do “make it work”, what I do is correct, and any changes would have to be quoted per hour, which is in my contract.
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4 Ellen's Way House Renderings
I do love helping investors market their properties. When they are not built yet, or like 4 Ellen’s Way house renderings, they are remodeling and not ready yet. When Spring hits, you need to get these on the market, or you can miss out on a sale.
The site is tight, so I couldn’t stand back much, but I think these views tell the story well.
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Sullivan Residence Renderings
I have told the story before, but I am old enough to repeat the same story repeatedly.
A while ago, I received a call from a Canadian design firm. He saw my work online, loved it, and wanted to find out my story. After a few conversations, the cost came up, and we agreed on numbers. Now, if someone from Canadian hires me, they pay a premium because of the money conversion. I really felt appreciated when I was hired knowing this, and it has been a long relationship that has worked well for both sides.
The Sullivan Residence Renderings are our most recent project, which will be one of many this year. I do a few dozen homes for this builder a year.
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Aerion Park Airport Renderings
I am often pigeon-held into house renderings. I have been doing house renderings since the late ’80s, so it is smack-dab in the middle of my wheelhouse. However, I do many other things, from product renderings to high-rises, hotels, mixed units, apartments, and even airports, like these Aerion Park renderings.
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Nantucket Classic Cottage Renderings
There will be a series of these cottages, but to tell you the truth, I went rogue on this one. I'll have to do another version for my client, which will be a lot less involved. The brief didn't have a site or landscape plan and basically, I was told to put the cottage on a flat area with some bushes behind it. I started off in that direction, but I wasn't wowed, so I strayed from the brief a little.
I also played with color grading, pretty heavy, which I don't usually do on client work. I'll share these with my client, but I'll include something closer to what he requested. The goal was to not take away from the architecture.
Below is the client version. I think it still might be too much garden, but as I said, there was no landscape or site plan. The brief was, “don’t do anything that takes away from the architecture”. However, as you see, there isn’t much architecture as it is.
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Mansion Renderings
A while ago, I was approached by a developer from up-state New York to do some architectural renderings. I remember that our first phone conversation ended in a stalemate. He wanted too little, and I wanted too much (so he thought), so we hung up the phone, and we went our separate way.
The developer was gauging my fee on his budget, which is pretty standard for people to think makes sense (it doesn't). He was sending his work to China, paying pennies on the dollar, and getting low-quality renderings. Having said that, I really liked this home and the other ones he did, so I spend the evening praying, called him the next day, and we settled on a fee that worked for both of us. I ended up doing a dozen or so houses of this size and complexity with him; the house's crisis hit, and I haven't heard from him since.
I learned from this project that I can be flexible on my fee if I really want to do the project. Still to this day, I get compliments on these projects, and I also use them as an example that all projects are unique. I often get people wanting an average price on a single-family house. I tell them that I can't give arbitrary numbers; this 40 thousand square foot house is a single-family house, so what does a single-family mean to them?
If you have any questions, feel free to ask. If you want to see more of these mansions, you can see them on my website.
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Heard Farms Renderings
The Heard Farms series of architectural renderings have a story, like them all. However, I learned a couple of new things from these. Well, I guess I didn't learn; I was reminded of a couple of things.
The fine folks of the Heard Farm team were a pleasure to work with. They reached out to me with a few dozen views, but they peered down to these 15 interior and exterior renderings after considering their budget. The designer did his renderings that he did in another software but he wasn't satisfied. They were not bad, and after looking at them, I saw mainly a lack of suitable composition. They provided me their Revit models, which I had to model over to get what I needed. Initially, I used their camera to get past the initial stages (broad brush). I intended to dive deep into the composition (more delicate brush), to correct what I initially saw as the image's weakness.
This is lesson one. I should have shown my version first; this way they wouldn't have compared them with what they already thought they liked. I mean, they wouldn't pick out camera views that they thought would fail, now would they? When I set up my cameras, I always try to have a solid focal point. I use light and shadow to direct the viewer to that focal point. Subtle depth of field, leading lines, and framing are tools I use to accomplish a strong composition.
Lesson two was, I am a comercial illustrastor. I like to think of myself as an artist. I have drawn my whole life, since a child, and I love art. Every architectural rendering I do, I try to create art (creative skill and imagination). Sometimes I forget that I am hired to create renderings, and the renderings are not mine. I can suggest things, but untimely, I am engaged in doing a job.
These architectural renderings turned out good, and my client was pleased, which is my ultimate goal. I need to remember that my client's happiness is the priority and if they are happy, so I am.
I have decided to create my own art again to please my own soul. I think it'll be houses, but in pencil and maybe some urban sketching.
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1448 House Rendering
Stock houses have been a steady source of work for me over the past six months. I have had a couple of years of house plan creators reaching out to me, which tends to be initiated by someone reaching out to them from China. I rarely heard back from them, so I can only assume that they took the less expensive route, which is going to China. Over the past six months, that trend seems to have shifted. What I hear is, "I went to China, but the work wasn't good, and the communication was awful." I am sure there are plenty of good architectural illustrators in China, but this is what I have been hearing.
About a decade ago, I saw a trend of pretty OK renderings coming from people, so I knew pretty OK wasn't going to be good enough. Pretty OK was what I was producing in the early '90s, so I studied really hard about art and color theory, photography, and composition. I knew I needed to up my game; because pretty OK would become a cheap commodity.
It is good to see these house plan creators value what a professional illustrator can bring to the table, which can only improve their sales, so it is an investment well spent.
The 1448 House is a floor plan that the creator designed, and he reached out to me to illustrate it for him, so he can show it on their website. The request was a day shot and a twilight shot. A twilight shot is typically 30% more in cost than daylight shot and is well worth it for most.
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McMurry Residence
Yet another homeowner being given hand drawings but couldn’t visualize her dream house. Drawing from hand drawings takes so much longer, more than twice as long. However, I sincerely love helping these homeowners. I can imagine sleep is lost not being sure if you’ll love your house, a venture that most people save their lives for.
Kudos to the architect on this one!
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