StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Just finished this after following a tut by Cold_flame of Deviantart. (click on the pic for a bigger version.)

As a picture it's pretty neat, but it really does not look like a space scenery.

EDIT: The larger picture doesn't look not like a space scenery quite as much as the smaller one, but I still have a hard time imagining how such a scenery could come about in space.

Yeah, let's just call it artistic license.

Most of space paintings you'll see around the Net are just on the fringe of believability, though they are pretty to look at.

(Beside, this was just my first try at painting, let's see what future has in store.)

A suggestion... try less color, or perhaps more transparency in your colors. Most real space scenery-- nebulae, for example-- is fairly clear, and you can see stars through them. This is kinda too bold to be able to really see much of anything except at the fringes.

Otherwise, nice'un to be starting off with...

I think it looks kinda cool but I don't like the horizontal glare line. It's too perfect.

It looks like you raped the smudge tool.

Is it supposed to be a nebula? In any case, I'd make it far more transparent, and 'ragged' looking. In addition, the stars, when seen look too uniform in spacing and brightness.

May I suggest Making a Realistic Starfield couresty of The Art of Greg Martin?

Thanks guys for all the replies. The dark clouds need work, yes, I need to get the proper effect out of them. The next one needs a proper background.

@ Elheru Aran: I'll get around to it.

@ Slartibartfast: I put that line to break up a tad the large glow, I'm not too happy with it either.

@ Animejet: Smudge tool? What is that?

@ SintaxVorlon: yup, know that one, although it takes a lot of time to make a decent background, there is another tutorial that makes it easier by using the clouds filter. Usually, it is possible to see a "GregMartinised" starfield by "seeing" the applied eraser brush on the empty spaces.

Warspite wrote:Thanks guys for all the replies. The dark clouds need work, yes, I need to get the proper effect out of them. The next one needs a proper background.

@ Elheru Aran: I'll get around to it.

@ Slartibartfast: I put that line to break up a tad the large glow, I'm not too happy with it either.

@ Animejet: Smudge tool? What is that?

@ SintaxVorlon: yup, know that one, although it takes a lot of time to make a decent background, there is another tutorial that makes it easier by using the clouds filter. Usually, it is possible to see a "GregMartinised" starfield by "seeing" the applied eraser brush on the empty spaces.

Well 3 out of 4 isn't bad, but not only did you misspell my name, you've very very badly misspelled Cyborg Stan's name.

SyntaxVorlon wrote:Well 3 out of 4 isn't bad, but not only did you misspell my name, you've very very badly misspelled Cyborg Stan's name.

Argh! Sorry, wasn't 100% awake at that time...

Yeeeeep.

I noticed that Greg Martin seems the have finished the Capturing Heaven (PDF, 14.5 MB) article since the last time I checked, which deals with various kinds of light and features in space. (Most of which should be pretty obvious to people that study space a little bit, but interesting anyway. Like it says, it's more of a 'why this is' rather than a 'how to do'.)

As far as I can tell for the picture, the bottom right 'nebulas' seem the best, followed by the edges of the main part, which combined with the darkness of the edges of the picture look like there's a glowing/it portion we see, and another in front of it hiding it. The actual lit portions look 2-D though - in space, there's alot of space depicted in one picture so even gases can look irregular, not to mention things such as gravity pulling it together. On top of that, you used a very obvious lens flare with a very diffuse 'sun'. You may want to take advantage of the nebula to have 'dust beams' of light instead of the lens flare spikes (like dust in front of a lit window, or the 'rays' you sometimes see coming through cracks in a cloud layer.)

And finally, the actual original purpose of this post - can you post a link to the tutorial mentioned in the first post? I'm not a member of DeviantArt, so I can't use the search feature at the moment.

Cyborg Stan wrote:And finally, the actual original purpose of this post - can you post a link to the tutorial mentioned in the first post? I'm not a member of DeviantArt, so I can't use the search feature at the moment.

Thanks for all the crits!

Follow the link, scroll waaay down, you'll find the specific tutorial I followed.