WIP Nebulas

**Punk Munkk** · August 1st, 2012, 01:29 PM

First attempt at creating a space nebula painting...could do with any form of suggestions and critique at this early stage

**dpaint** · August 3rd, 2012, 11:46 PM

Most nebula are super heated ionized gas and patches of darker debris so everything is glowing incandescence with cloudy areas. The nebula would be the light source for the image. Here is something I did a while back in PS.
I made he star field using the noise function picked out a few stars and enlarged them and colored them for variety, then painted the color on a separate layer

**Punk Munkk** · August 5th, 2012, 05:43 AM

Thanks for the advice and for sharing your work..

**Chris Sanders** · August 5th, 2012, 07:57 AM

look up John Harris and or buy mass. i also assume you have looked at sparth? The lasso tool is great and all but i don't see any understanding of form or light at the moment. try painting back into it with paint on a normal layer.

**Punk Munkk** · August 7th, 2012, 10:09 AM

I have looked at a few of sparths work to figure out possible ideas for the form of the ship in the painting...

Thanks for taking the time to comment

**Papaya_Pig** · August 7th, 2012, 12:26 PM

Heya, looking good so far. As someone has mentioned above nebulas are massive light producers! So the nebula needs to be much much brighter. I'd also suggest more blending, nebulas have some ridges and edges you can see but a lot of the light produced is very blended smooth light. If you search some up on google for reference it will probably help. At the moment I would also say it's a little too busy composition wise, it's difficult to tell it's in space due to all the colours going on. Try adding a bit more black in there.

The ship has a good shape so far! Don't forget once you light the nebula up the front of the ship will also be lit up due to the reflection. Hope this helps

**Punk Munkk** · August 9th, 2012, 10:21 AM

I've only worked on this painting for a short while due to other stuff getting in the way. And it's not helping that I'm ill neither..
Mainly worked back to bring out the colours of the nebula and tried to bring form to the ship (which has been difficult one as I've never done one before). Obviously I need to work back in the nebula and define it a bit more.
Thanks again to everyone for the suggestions and stuff...been really helpful
I promise I'll add the stars in at some point...Once I'm less urgh! and more focused..

**Lightship69** · August 10th, 2012, 05:41 PM

If its inspirations you need I would say look at the Hubble space telescope sites for nebula images and what they look like in all their glory but if you need sci fi artists have a look at this lot :-

http://www.chrisfossart.com/

http://www.ralphmcquarrie.com/

http://www.rodneymatthews.com/

http://www.michaelwhelan.com - a bit more fantasy than sci fi but brilliant all the same

http://www.rogerdean.com/

http://www.alisoneldred.com/thumbsJo...ation-2-1.html

http://www.melgrant.com/

http://www.sci-fi-o-rama.com/2008/10...space-vikings/

this last one is one of my favorites at has classic book covers from ages ago to the present day well worth a trawl through when you have the time.

Sorry for the cut and paste from another one I commented on but you both seemed to need the same thing, I hope this helps you out and points you in a good direction.

all the best with the work.

**Punk Munkk** · August 13th, 2012, 04:48 AM

Thanks for the links. Some of these guys I already know of and looked at.
My main inspirations are from photo reference, like Hubble images. Collected a fair few nebula images and studied them over a bit...
I've purchased vids on composition (Thank you, Jason Manley/The Art Department), and looked over this image amongst other images to find whats missing or have done wrong
Might repaint and start again as the composition and perspective, amongst other elements, aren't quite right (I think). But this still is a big learning curve to remember...
Will still base is on this painting.

**Punk Munkk** · August 21st, 2012, 05:11 PM

Quick update..after thinking things a bit more I thought that I should have the structure or warp gate (Half destroyed) in the main lime light..the ship will probably be ships which will be positioned in places for perspective...just focusing on the lighting of structure but I'm still aware that the space (background) needs pushing back further away..

**Punk Munkk** · August 23rd, 2012, 09:32 AM

Update on progress...

**Emcee Triple-Bypass** · August 23rd, 2012, 02:20 PM

Yeah! Now you're getting it.

It's easier to remember that nebulae are just clouds of dust at a cosmic proportion. It's also helpful to keep in mind that they are also the result of explosions.

If you want to make a close image of a ship going into a nebula, then look no further for inspiration than the clouds here on earth,

Also, I have a few tricks to give you an edge.

When "building" a nebula in photoshop, first I set the layer setting to screen, then I throw down the colors darkest colors first with a very large air brush.

For the next part, you'll want to make (or download) a brush for clouds. Then, on the screen layer you just made, using black, if the nebula shape by creating the negative space with the black. I recommend messing with the opacity and flow yourself to see what kind of effects you can create.

Then rinse and repeat.

Here's something I did last night, it might illustrate what I am saying a little better.