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uxmal750ad — The Azurene Nebula
Published: 2013-12-30 15:48:36 +0000 UTC; Views: 6356; Favourites: 144; Downloads: 37
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Description
Another piece in my series of scenes depicting planetary nebula. Here I’m picturing a ringed methane-rich gas giant and its little moon which lie in close proximity to a beautiful blue (hence Azurene) planetary nebula a few light years distant. The nebula was inspired by the very real Abell 39 which is considered a rare example of a perfectly spherical planetary nebula.With this piece I was experimenting with some new artistic techniques. This is my first attempt at painting a gas giant entirely from scratch using nothing but Photoshop. I created the planet by first laying down a series of colored bands to serve as the base colors, then using cloud brushes I built up many layers of stretched clouds to serve as the white bands. The planetary nebula was made in Photoshop by using simple rendered clouds, pinch, blur, and spherize filters. I particularly like the way the nebula and starfield around it came out. To see what I mean, download the full image and zoom in on the upper left corner of the scene!
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Comments: 14
MAN I need to know how you make those gas giants, N U T
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Layers, lots and lots of layers in Photoshop. I actually go through a bit of an explanation below in the comments for this image...
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Nice work! I've experimented with various Photoshop filters to build spacescapes. The gas giant is the most time-consuming but fun of the lot. I didn't think of using cloud brushes - been using bands and then the Liquefy filter with some hand-overpainting to finish it off. I'll have to try that sometime and see how it goes. Thanks for the idea.
Also, love the colors and different things going on in here. I've always liked the idea of a blue-green gas giant but Uranus just looks so boring. And we can't see any of the extrasolar ones with the naked eye so...
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Thanks Amy! You're quite right in saying how difficult a gas giant can be, especially if you want to be realistic. I think the best I've ever done is here: In the Eye of a Titan
I basically started with my Saturn Planetary Texture Stock Image and just kept adding in layers. All the features on the planet are either Photoshop rendered clouds or stretched out cloud brush images from my own photographs. I tried using the Liquefy filter early on, but never liked the result, so I stuck with my cloud brushes and working in many stacked layers. I think the key is to work really big because once it gets squeezed down to normal image size everything will look better. It also pays to have a lot of time on your hands
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The rings are awesome! I've been trying to get those right for awhile.
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Thank you! This was actually something I did some time ago when I was inexperienced myself. I think the best rings I ever did are here First Light or maybe here Horns of the Kraken. I think Photoshop is the best program to use.
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This is awesome !The colors are very nice and this work needs more views.Except for that moon?Something is going on with that moon.
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Thanks for the comments. I guess I wanted to do something a little different with the moon. It's more of a orbiting rock than a full-scale moon. Our solar system is full of irregular-shaped moons like this actually. This scene was more of an experiment on my part than anything else as I tried new ways of creating planetary nebula and gas giants.
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