Paradiso 31 was originally a piece created by Gustave Doré for an illustrated version of Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy. The piece depicts Dante and Beatrice gazing upon the highest heaven of paradise at the end of the story.
My rendering was primarily inspired by and based on this piece.
These are the models that it is made up of. The figure that is standing vertically was rigged to make the positions of the others.
This is the scene from a roughly orthographic view and in wireframe. The clouds that the people at the front are standing on as well as the tunnel are both fluid simulations and the two figures at the front were made with a cloth simulation.