After several hours of construction (at this point, I don't know if estimates on hours applies anymore), I have created a couple of scenes.
the first scene is of the "Lethbridge teapot".
The way I created this teapot was a lot more work than it needed to be, although it made the rings and the design added between them easier. For the top of the teapot, I created torus objects within a loop so I could stretch them and angle them to the way I wanted. This was definately the most time consuming part of the whole process. By using the torus object, the teapot was open on top and had some thickness and smooth edges. I was able to specify ranges and positions to change the color from black to bronze to create the rings with ease.
The remainder of the teapot is a cylinder connected to a cone, with the brass rings being cones slightly larger than the body of the teapot. Adjusting turbulence and frequency with a color map does the design between the rings, as well as the design closer to the mouth of the teapot.
The image below is of the 6060 steam engine that resides in Stettler, and is still in operation and makes regular journeys in Alberta. It also contains the "Lethbridge Teapot", if you can spot it.
This train is also known as "The Spirit of Alberta", and is maintained by the Rocky Mountain Rail Association. Their website is http://www.6060.org/ which contains some pictures I used as a reference while creating the train. the origional picture that I saw that attracted me to this was out of a magazine, and is shown below.
Although a lot of work, I found it to be challenging and yet quite fun. The hardest part of the whole thing was when I decided to make the main body of the train about twice the width it was, and about the same height. I had a lot of little adjustments to make again, but in the end, I think it worked out for the best. I created the sky using the tutorial on the website
http://www.f-lohmueller.de/pov_tut/backgrnd/p_sky1.htm,
that I felt gave the image a better look than the built in skies in POV-Ray. The hardest part of the train to create itself would either be the bell, which ended up being a bunch of cylinders together to give it a rounded effect, or the cab with the windows, doors, and ladders, and at the same time rounding the top, slanting the front, and giving room on everything to add in handrails.
Oh, and if you haven't spotted the teapot, here is the 6060 steam engine without the teapot.
