I wanted to honour all the great moments mushrooms have given to me trough photography these last months by making one in Maya. I wanted to create a special mushroom, by making it a hybrid of a robot and a normal mushroom. I didn't manage to find any robot mushroom -works by anyone, so the only reference I had was in my head. An idea so crazy it just had to be done. 
I used a very old photo of mine as LDR reflection (sphere) to the mushroom, thus give it some interesting details and illumination. Final render done with Mental Ray + LDR + Final Gather + Depth of Field. Finishing touch with gradients done in Photoshop. I'm going to make a better surrounding/atmosphere to the scene in the future. That's where I would like your input. I'm a real newbie at Maya so I don't know much about fluids or particles. How could I make a scene like this more interesting and more fun to look at.
Please keep in mind that this is my second ever 3D-work, so please be gentle with your criticism.
I have been using Maya for about a month now. And this is the first work I feel good about, hehe.Solkku
