Space Background

[Schot 407]

Well I've been busy researching photoshop techniques and happily came across some tutorials by Greg Martin. Greg Martins name has come up a couple of times on the forum now. He makes a great deal of space related art using photoshop and we have used several of his works as backgrounds. Such as the one that is our background now, (EDIT: Ok, well maybe not now. It's been changed ). His art work is very much appreciated by me and gogo.

 

So I had the pleasure of following his instuctions today and found it wasn't painful at all. I think it took me about 45 mins to finish up two of his tutorials which I used to complete a single project consisting of a custom made planet against a custom made starfield.

 

This is what I ended up with:

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/6631/pl...ndstars1wn6.jpg

 

Feel free to use it for whatever you like all.

 

 

Really these tutorials were a lot of fun. Give them a try if you have some time. You won't be sorry. There are a couple tricky parts that were a tiny bit beyond my knowledge but I figured them out. Should you run into some trouble feel free to ask for help.

 

Making a realistic planet

 

Making a realistic star field

 

 

Here's Greg Martins very cool site: http://gallery.artofgregmartin.com

 

 

And if you're reeeeaaally bored then here's some more space type photoshop tutorials:

Solar Voyager.com

 

 

Let us know if any of you give one a try.

[Schot 407]

Oh cool. The background works well for the forum. Thanx gogo! /lol

[Guest gogoblender]

nice work schot

and it's always a pleasure to work on our forum's backgrounds

*mwoohahah*

/devil

Bravo on yer first planet pic!

Greg Martin Junior in da house

we're lookin sharp

+++

 

 

gogo

[Yarasa 0]

wondering how did I miss this post

 

looks awesome /thumbsup . And the tutorial rocks.

 

Do you need a apprentice, can I move to your house, I can leave in the basement. just need food 3 times a day (and a little beer for the company)

 

You are doing to many first timers lately

 

keep em rollin

[erialc 2]

wow excellent!!!...I'll have to have a go at that but can't say what it will end up like!!

 

/bow cheers Schot!!!

[Schot 407]

Thanx for the feedback guys. This is a huge accomplishment for me! /woot

 

I always felt very intimidated by the idea of creating a background. It's quite a leap going from making avatars and sigs to designing something at full screen 1024x768. Scaaaary.

 

I'll have to have a go at that but can't say what it will end up like!!

 

Funny you should say that erialc. There's something I've learned from doing various tuts. About myself anyway. There are times when I'm unsure of what the outcome will be when following a step in a tut. When this happens I tend to try and "think" of what might happen next before going through with the step that I am unsure of. Usually, in this case, there are more than 1 possibility as to what exactly the step is asking you to do and thus causing me confusion. I lose a lot of time in this "trying to figure out" proccess when I could easily just try one of the possibilities and see what happens. I do this now and not only is it faster but also a learning experience when I choose wrongly. If it's the wrong choice then I simply push "ctrl z" and photoshop will undo the last thing you did. You can "ctrl z" many times.

 

Of course you can Yarasa! Can you wash dishes? /rofl

 

 

@ gogo: I better get busy with a new background! *checks watch*

 

 

Really guys. It's an awesome tut. Give it a try. You don't have to do it all in one shot. Do a few steps a day and you'll enjoy it even more. Tell you what. Make a new background and we'll put it up for 2 weeks. That goes for everyone.

[Scleameth 19]

Nice work Schot !

 

Ctrl-Z and you

[Guest gogoblender]

@ gogo: I better get busy with a new background! *checks watch*

*gets the crowd roaring...*

 

WE want a new background...We want a new background...We want a new background!

 

*stomps foot*

 

*throws icecream*

 

*eats a can of beans*

 

 

B)

 

gogo

[Scleameth 19]

*gets the crowd roaring...*

 

WE want a new background...We want a new background...We want a new background!

 

*stomps foot*

 

*throws icecream*

 

*eats a can of beans*

B)

 

gogo

 

WE want a new background...We want a new background...*phooaaaar* We want a new background! *eats more beans*

[Guest gogoblender]

two cans of ingested beans in a small room?

ewwwww

 

*runs fer the gas mask*

 

/sick

 

gogo

[Schot 407]

 

 

erialc!!! HEEEELP! /oooo

[Scleameth 19]

Schot is the new background your work ? If so, it's a true masterpiece ! /bow

 

... talkin' about the Ogame skin background here...

[Schot 407]

Ummmmm. /unsure Why uhh. Yes! It is! Do you like it? ^_^ hehe.

That's something gogo just put up from one of the many free space backgrounds by Greg Martin. I can kind of imagine how it might be created in photoshop tho. I might attempt not or accomplish it.

[erialc 2]

OOhh you boys are sooo bad!!

 

all them beans!!

 

*runs away*

[Guest gogoblender]

beanz, beanz they're good fer yer heart...

The more you eat..

The more you FAR...

 

(Nasty ole campfire song...man we had eveil summer camp councillors huh )

 

Kapowee!

 

/lol

 

B)

 

gogo

 

p.s. regarding backgrounds ayup...greg martin's awesome,...Schot, yer gainin on him man...soon ...soooooon

[Scleameth 19]

p.s. regarding backgrounds ayup...greg martin's awesome,...Schot, yer gainin on him man...soon ...soooooon

 

Heh, Schot you're gainin' for sure ! No wonder I thought it might be yer work !

 

 

 

I eat beanz...... HUMAN BEANZ !! *phoooaaar* /sick

[Schot 407]

Human beanz... Human beanz... Hmmm...

...

 

/oooo

 

 

Thought it was mine? Wow. That's quite a compliment. Thanx!

[Guest gogoblender]

Hey guys...

This latest background is SChot's own...

he be gettin Good

 

+++@ Schot!

 

gogo

[Scleameth 19]

Schot, stop please... my jealous-o-meter is just about ready pop !

 

Nice.... very nice ! I-like-I'-alo'

[Colonel Ferguson 0]

hey I used that tut a long while ago to make this masive pic

 

http://static.filefront.com/images/persona.../rfwkvdhtqp.jpg

[Arafinwe 0]

Schot thanks for those tut links, I will most certainly try them out.

So far the best space picture I made is this one:

 

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w172/Il...lanet14copy.jpg

 

I only started using Photo shop a few months ago so there is still

a lot to learn, but I thought my picture was good none the less.

But things can be inproved everytime with Photo Shop so I will

certainly try those tuts out.

[Schot 407]

Very nice work Arafinwe. Very nice indeed! Definitely try out the tutorial here. If you enjoyed making the piece you've linked to above then you will most certainly love the tutorial in this topic. The tutorial is expertly written and easy to follow.

[fRACTAL 0]

Schot thanks for those tut links, I will most certainly try them out.

So far the best space picture I made is this one:

 

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w172/Il...lanet14copy.jpg

 

I only started using Photo shop a few months ago so there is still

a lot to learn, but I thought my picture was good none the less.

But things can be inproved everytime with Photo Shop so I will

certainly try those tuts out.

Brilliant work!

But a small piece of CC if you don't mind:

The planet is distorted, its too wide, or is that from shrinkilating it

~Doom

 

P.S. How did you get the swirly red stuff? sorta cosmic cloud stuff.

[Arafinwe 0]

Brilliant work!

But a small piece of CC if you don't mind:

The planet is distorted, its too wide, or is that from shrinkilating it

~Doom

 

P.S. How did you get the swirly red stuff? sorta cosmic cloud stuff.

 

Well the distort is probably from not using Spherize correctly when I tried

to make the shadow on that planet. As for the cosmic cloud stuff..well I made

this picture about 2 months ago and this was the first realy serious work I tried

with PS.

 

The base clouds I did by using difference clouds after which I used collor balance

to change the collors to a red and some what yellowish collor. Then I used the

smudge tool on them. After that I darkened the outerparts a bit, and although I was

playing around quite a lot, I think that I did the center part with the burn and dodge

tools..but I am not certain about that part any more.

 

I am realy sorry about that, but since I still need to learn a lot about PS I realy

fool around a lot with its functions and such when I try to make something. It

sometimes leads to very surprising results as you can see. Knowing me I will

start to fool around again when I start with those tuts that Schot linked to, so I

might find out again how I did the center parts of those cosmic clouds.

 

EDIT:(Again) I am now pretty sure that I did part of the cosmic clouds using the

burn and dodge tools, because I found a link back to a tutorial I found shortly

before I made this picture. I tried to use the method of making a star field from

this tut and read through it a bit more and tried some things.

 

Since this is Schots thread I will not place a link to another tutorial here unless

he has no problems with it.

Edited July 11, 2008 by Arafinwe

[Schot 407]

That's exactly how I started off Arafinwe. Just playing around with the controls and seeing what happens. By far a great deal about creating with photoshop is getting to know all of the controls. Knowing all the hotkeys and functions very much empowers the imagination and allows you to create quickly. For example I have only recently begun to memorize the hotkeys for the toolbar. Pushing V switches your cursor to the Move Tool, M for Marquee tool and so on. Just hover over each tool on the floating tool box thing and it will show what hotkey letter is associated to it. Saves lots of time.

 

Very nice work with the burn and dodge tool. Those have come in handy for all kinds of jobs. Oh and feel free to post/link and talk about the tutorial you found. You got my curious!