The Making Of: Planet Crash
12 Jan
Step 1: The Backdrop
The backdrop is comprised of 3 simple layers. The background layer is filled with black, and above that is a cloud layer set to 30% opacity. In the layer above that, a small white brush was used to paint in a few stars.
Step 2: The Planets
The planets were both made using large rock textures found at cgtextures.com.
Once cropped, the Spherize tool was used twice to turn the circular texture into a sphere. I used Color Balance to adjust the colour tones, and used a duplicated layer – embossed, and set to Overlay – to add more texture.
I added white Outer Glow and Inner Shadow layer styles to the planet layer, and the shadow was made of two gaussian blurred black circles.
The same process was used for both planets, but with different textures. Once finished they were dropped into the main file as smart objects.
Step 3: The Point Of Collision
On the sides where both planets meet, I placed a white crescent, and Gaussian Blurred them to create a white glow.
I added three white circles of varying sizes, and applied a Radial Blur to each of them to create more light flares.
I used a smoke brush set found here to create the dust and debris at the point of impact.
Lastly I added three layers, each with a different gradient over the point of impact. A small and a large orange gradient set to Lighten at 20% opacity, and a small green gradient set to Divide at 30% opacity.
Step 4: The Astronaut
The astronaut was pieced together using elements from 3 stock photos found here. Unfortunately the legs were missing from the photo I wanted to use, so I took one foot and one leg from another two photos to complete him.
I made the cord by taking a section of it from the first photo, and duplicating it several times to add more length.
I duplicated the astronaut layer, and made one layer dark and the other light . I then used a layer mask to paint out areas of the shadow layer where light hits the front and back of the astronaut.
I used Puppet Warp to shape the cord and adjust the position the legs, then I dropped the astronaut into the main file as a smart object.
The Final Touches
Finally I added four adjustment layers.
I added a Curves layer to boost the contrast, and a black radial gradient set to Soft Light to add a dark vignette. The Photo Filter was set to Underwater at 8% Density, and the Saturation was taken down to -35%.
I saved my file and opened up a new file then dropped in the original file as a smart object. I used smart sharpen to enhance the detail, then added a very slight gaussian blur to soften any hard edges.
I duplicated the layer and rasterized it then applied a Radial Blur set to Zoom at 100%. I set this layer to Screen at 30% opacity. Finally I added a black radial gradient layer set to Soft Light, and a grey layer filled with noise set to Overlay at 5% opacity.
Use the share buttons below if you found this useful, and don’t forget to leave a comment.
Thanks for reading!
© DesignNocturne
Good job!!
could you send me a link of the textures
I don’t have the exact links for the textures I used for the planets, but I found them here in the Rocks category: http://www.cgtextures.com/
Lots of great textures there, so just have a browse :)
amazingg . :)
I love lemon flavoured Italian ices. Maybe that’s why I was banished from the realm of Wikipedia
Maybe. Thanks for the comment :)