So, I decided to try another digital painting, seeing as how all my previous attempts were ending up as disasters...
After a few hours of work, this is where I'm at. The painting isn't based on any reference material. Loosely based on certain celestial objects, but mixed with my imagination. My texturing in this painting has been far better than previous.
Now, the fortunate thing about the shadows is that I work on dozens of different layers for the planet and for the moons (each is in it's own group - so far, a planet and two moon groups). The shadow is on it's own layer, as is the successive painting and detailing. So, if I need to fix anything to do with the shadow I can simply alter a single layer, even re-do it entirely, without ruining the rest.
Unfortunately, while working on the moons, I realised I had only textured the planet in a single direction...now, it's very frustrating to toggle between layers and *try* to paint on the correct layer when backtracking through them and fixing this. I have a short temper... However, it'd probably be best to do entirely new layers and detail it more there.
I've been taking heed of one tutorial on planet-painting, and I always keep my original layers. When spherizing and working on the atmosphere, I've duplicated the originals and messed around with the duplicates, merging them, altering the blending options, etc. So, if I screw something up, hey presto, I can fix it without having to restart.
This isn't finished yet, though. I need to take a rest for now from it. A Titan-like moon would be preferable, though it might be too much to add in. There should be space in this for it. Plus I can quite easily expand the canvas size if I need any more room (which I suspect I do need). Then, I'll need to work on the background.
Before anyone says anything...the idea is that this is a side-ways view...a bit like those Apollo landing videos, where we see the Earth side-ways.
Any advice and feedback is appreciated.
Get to know me more through my blog at http://kaidonni.animationblogspot.com/! :cool:
Reworked the planet a lot, from the ground up almost...
I've expanded the size of the canvas just in case I need anymore room. I'll deal with the final canvas size and image size at the end, though.
Get to know me more through my blog at http://kaidonni.animationblogspot.com/! :cool:
After further work on the painting, this is where I'm at...
I decided against a third Titan-like moon because it'd seem a bit out of place for some reason...it'd just seem out of place alongside a Mars-like planet.
I might revisit the glow in the background. I tried a tutorial on starfield painting, but when it got to the clone stamping tool part, it just all went downhill, so I decided to go as far as I was comfortable with for this painting. For some reason, there were sharp edges when I tried to clone stamp (even with 0% hardness). They just appeared as I worked with the tool, and looked very out of place and undesirable...
Get to know me more through my blog at http://kaidonni.animationblogspot.com/! :cool: