This was the mock-up the client sent to help clarify what they were looking for. The rectangles had key points of information that were to go on sauce bottles. It was up to me to create reasonable bottles, and combine them with the enchilada image they had found at Photodisc, now Getty Images.

After a field trip to the grocery store to study bottles and sauce colors, I modeled the bottles and sour cream container in Hash's Animation:Master (A:M). The sauces' colors and textures were created with A:M's materials blenders. The labels I designed in Macromedia Freehand, and applied them over the label geometry with cookie-cut maps, which made the label solid, but the space around the label invisible.

When the bottles were complete, I took the stock photo and removed the background in Photoshop, leaving only the plate and food. I used this as a rotoscope image in A:M so that I could align A:M's camera viewpoint to match that of the photo, as well as to arrange and compose the bottles for the final image. Once the client approved the rough render, I rendered the bottles in high resolution without the rotoscope, and combined the rendered image with the stock photo in Photoshop

For the cover, they wanted a simple plate at the same angle and perspective as the one with the enchilada, but with only some garnish on it, like someone facing a cruel diet. Problem was, I couldn't find a stock image that would work. Either the plates were grease-smeared with the remains of a huge dinner, out of focus, stylistically colored, at the wrong angle, obscured by other elements, or a combination of all. It became clear it would be either easier to model and render a 3D plate, or hire a photographer. We opted to go the 3D route.

The cover plate was simple geometry, well-lit and slightly reflective, rendered with a soft shadow. Since I had the angle of the camera set from rendering the bottles, I merely, moved the bottles out of the way, put in the plate, adjusted the lights, rendered and was done!