Planet Tutorial - By Tim Barton

Clouds and other pretty stuff

This Tutorial Expands on the Star tutorial Here. I suggest you finish the Tutorial and keep th PSD file. That tutorial will show you how to color your scene (very cheaply but effectively).

Here are a few examples of this put to work:

End Result:

Requirements:

Photoshop CS
You should be able to follow along with other versions.
(if you have a Wacom Tablet I suggest you use it)

Brushes:

Nothing special, Basic brushes. As always

Method 1: The Lazy Way

In your Star Tutorial PSD File You should have something similar to This:

I'm just going to talk about how I paint various things in my scenes. If you get lost feel free to IM me (Contact Info)

So make a new layer UNDERNEATH the Color Balance layer. Get out a big fuzzy brush and paint a big fat bright light.

Set the opacity to about 30% and paint a big round blob, then a smaller one and smaller one and smaller one...

Yay we have a big bright star! Lets paint some pretty clouds.

Make yet another layer BENEATH the Color Balance layer, lets start painting some stuff.

Right now were just going to try and get a basic idea of how we want our picture to appear. Find a basic round hard brush and paint some cloudlike shapes, doesn't matter right now were just dreaming up an idea. You can follow mine or just come up with your own composition.

Anything is good right now, who really cares? Next were going to fix it up and make it look pretty. Lets use the smudge tool, since we already have the basic form down all we gotta do is make it look less "Painted".

Get out the smudger and set it to about 70% and start splatting and doing small stuff. Start out with big strokes with a big hard brush and get the colors to look good, large areas of One solid color are not good. Remember at any time you can go to your brush tool and splat some black or white spots down at any time. Use a 1 px brush when you splat down some extra color, then smudge it a little and it looks very good. Look at these process images:

Naturally I suggest you do not rely on what I tell you to do, use whatever tool or technique you want to get what you want. This is just how I do mine. I get so much pleasure from painting these its wonderful, I just love it.

Keep adding elements to your piece and eventually you'll have something very admirable. Remember all things come from God, including my painting abuilities.

And after a little fun with other colors to make the blues appear more vibrant and some extra planets that you should know how to make if you followed my Planet tutorial, you should have a pretty picture... hopefully.

Somehow I have the feeling i'll get a bagillion emails and IMs from people who couldn't follow my poorly written tutorial :D. Dont let that discourage you though! I'd be glad to help ya!

Praise Jesus!

Tutorial by Tim Barton ArtOfTimBarton.com for other sweet stuff

Email: timmythepowderedmilkman@yahoo.com If you have any questions. (I love random emails <- that doesn't mean viruses)