The wet asphalt is a Thea Render material available at :http://www.thearender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=92&t=5263&hilit=wet+asphalt

I use it a lot particularly in my night renders

here's a view from the other direction.

One more with added glow to the lights to help accentuate the damp wet evening mood.

Attached are 3 images from the same main street but from a modern, more cynical point of view.
Like before all models for the buildings are from 3D warehouse and the cars are Dosch cars.
I think the tarmac area is too wide, maybe it needs something running along the diagonal but I wanted to get as much reflections as possible.

You are right about the trees,but I wanted to bring in some natural elements to the images.

I have attached a recent Thea render of the street without artistic impression,although the foreground planting is post processed in photoshop.

2 views,the first with a different road added in photoshop and the second during heavy rain.

Thanks guys,but kudos has to go to "Atlantic City Midmer-Losh Fan" on 3d warehouse who did the cinema model,I did the easy part!

Attached are 2 more NPR images of the same view taken from the top end of the street,Again,the buildings were all sourced on 3D warehouse.

Like the previous images,these were done using relight in Thea render.
They were rendered out at 2400 pixels wide and reduced to 1600 for this forum.(view 05 is a cropped version of a much larger image showing the detail)

Attached are 3 images rendered using Thea render relight,and the original renders without painterly effect were uploaded to the Thea website.
The cinema is from 3d warehouse by Atlantic City Midmer-Losh Fan,the cars are from the warehouse and a few other free sites and the trees are birch trees available to download free on the Thea website.

Thanks guys ,and, Solo,attached is the terracotta Thea material.

Terracotta.mat.zip

Attached are 3 images from a current project ,modeled in sketchup,rendered in thea.

A wider view of the house but still using a strong DOF.

Attached are 2 night time shots of the driveway of a small house previously uploaded to the THEA render site.(sketchup model downloaded from http://www.sketchuptexture.com/).
I added the bikes,lights and plants and changed some of the materials.
As with most of my renders it uses quite strong depth of field.

I have been posting here for about 5 years and what really makes it worth while is the positive reaction I have recieved.

I have also ,over the years,gone less towards rendering out a full landscaped image,which is very difficult,and more towards the idea of inserting the building into a ready made landscape.
By ready made,I mean I normally render out the building ,and then drop the render into an already photoshoped landscape(usually 10-15 layers of vegetation etc).

Recently I have forgoed the idea of the building,and just created the landscape,which results in something that is more matte painting and also allows me to play around with light and texture.

Attached are 3 images based on this idea:

3 more versions,with the building even further pushed back in the third image.

I have a lot of entourage for planting but I always end up using the same trees and especially grasses.
The long grained grasses are from Digiart and come in individual stems which I copied,scaled and colour toned to create large expanses of grass.

I keep coming back to this building,I think because the different roof profiles and the proportions of the building work well for landscape images.

Attached are 3 NPRs of the building ,2 in misty morning,the third on a bright summers afternoon,but all 3 pushing the building way back into the scene where it becomes secondary and gives much more emphasis to the landscape and the mood.

Thank you so much Rich,- I try to make most of my images that little bit different,and a little but obscure,if that;s the right word.

I do a lot of straight-forward renders for clients but they don't offer the same enjoyment that my own variations on some of my own work does.

I am so much more interested in trying to create a world,often a more idealised image, - i.e low evening sun,whats going on behind the hedges-its why I often use birds in my images but even here they are blurred,and sent back into the distance to suggest there is more beyond the trees, a bigger world.

beautiful,really eyecatching!

A render previously uploaded to the Thea render website,the building is the same model as before,downloaded from the 3d warehouse,the second image is also based around a model downloaded from the 3d warehouse(both images rendered in Thea Render)

2 views of a model from 3d warehouse inserted into a THEA render site,with some photoshoping.

2 more NPRs using the same Thea Render set up but with different buildings which were downloaded from the 3D Warehouse.