Planetary Tag :O

[rangeor]

For a SOTW contest in another forum I frequent, the topic was 'when worlds collide'. I decided to take a literal approach, and came up with this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

What do you guys think? After looking at it for a while, it kind of reminds me of pryomancer's coercion tag :uhh:

[Nadril]

You need to work on the planets more, not to mention you need a background. (For a moment I almost thought you had stars on it but it turned out to be dust on my monitor)

 

 

 

 

 

Really though, move beyond something like Greg Martin's planet tutorial and try to make an actual world.

[rangeor]

How would I go about doing that?

[Nadril]

Well the biggest thing is you need a good base planetary texture before anything. Well I guess you need to figure out what you want first, like if you want an earth kind of planet -- or a gas based one, or what. So make the texture sort of according to the geographical features you'd expect the planet to have.

 

 

 

after that it's all about painting that texture correctly. Adding in clouds can be a great touch (it's hard, but there are a few tutorials around on it) and in general just trying to take some good time on the planet.

 

 

 

Also make sure you're making the texture @ 2000x2000 or higher. That way when you downsize it it'll lose any sort of imperfections from any filters you need to use (like distort when making the planet).

 

 

 

 

 

The best I've managed to do for a planet though is this.

[rangeor]

Alright cool, I'll try that out next time. Making clouds looks like it'll be fun :P

[Ouchy]

Read what Nadril has said, it will help you.

 

And if you really want a cheap as background, you could make on using "Noise". I had done this in PDN, so I'm sorry if it is not the case with GIMP.

[Estonian dude]

Well, I've heard even professionals use noise on GIMP to make stars.

[pryomancer]

:D

 

 

 

The key is making it realistic, galactic space events are awesome, in the true sense of inspiring awe, so you need to convey it in your image. Use shadows and light to make it realistic, also detail is key.

 

 

 

Start big, when making a planet I start on a big canvas and shrink it down to the size I need.

 

 

 

Don't be afraid to use pure white as well, which I think you have done, that's good. In real life the flash from a planetary collision or supernovae etc would blind you instantly, so pure white is good to use, you want to emulate the intensity of the light, and by making it physically hard to look at (depending really on the monitor the peson is using, some display white very brightly) it adds another dimension.