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			© 2002 A popular punishment for many centuries was hanging. But no one could tell the tale better than the tree who lived through it. There have been many tales Tainted by truth twisted by time... Some choose to forget Yet it still Weaves webs in their minds... And it seems like she's been here forever Her branches as black as the seas She's been through it all By the luck of the draw She became the old hanging tree... She asked for nothing Except maybe A little rain... They used her strength To help them steal lives away... And she witnessed the sadness and the sorrow To this day she still doesn't know why And her heart broke When they came with the rope To declare her the old hanging tree... Life stranger then fiction Can make you want to cry Roots could never stop her From reaching for the sky... Those years have all past Lucky for us lucky for her... Now, children play at her feet And in her arms she cradles birds... And it seems she's been here forever These days are the best that she's seen But somewhere in the back Of her mind Is the time She was known as the old hanging tree... The instrumental talents and vocal arts of "Blackmore's Night" inspired me to create an image based on their song "Ocean Gypsy" This image of the Old Hanging Tree was based on another piece by this group from their latest album, "Fires at Midnight" The tree - the centerpiece - was created entirely in XFrog 3.5. assisted me greatly in this. I am most grateful to her for her input and encoragement. The foreground grass was created using a freeware utility by Bantam3D. The figures were created in Poser 4 with various bits and pieces of clothing and hair from here and there - too numerous to mention. The scene was rendered in Bryce 4.1 using a "volumetric world sky preset in two separate files, each taking a mammoth 146 hours to render. (almost 2 solid weeks in total) The two final images were then composited the foreground grass blured with a distance mask in Bryce 4.1 and the text added using Corel PhotoPaint 10. (Sunday, 26 January, 2003 4:11 PM: Latest news! "The Old Hangiong Tree" has been awarded the prestiguous 2003 Golden Tori Award for the "Most Original Scene".) A full size version is available (1536 X 598 - 207Kb)