Spacescape One

Spacescape One

And now for something completely different...
After seven years of 3D (basically Bryce) images, this is my first attempt to make a drawing completely in Photoshop. Mainly, I wanted to run through some tutorials, plus I needed a vertical background for my new second monitor at work.
Today's little exercise was made possible by the wonderful tutorials at:

http://www.solarvoyager.com/tutorials.asp

specifically Dinyctis' "How to make a planet" (even though I didn't use a texture) and Greg Martin's "How to Make a Realistic Star Field".
Everything, including the signature, was done in Photoshop CS3. Hope you like it.

Thanks for looking and commenting.
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Far from the civilized systems of our realm, there is a bright star, too young and hot for habitable worlds, too metal poor for miners. Its farthest gas giant is a cold world, orbited by a cold moon. The Crux fills the sky in glorious splendor, a consolidation to those of us who guard this frigid place.

They say there is no dissent in the Orphean Star Kingdom. But "They" are the ones who support our great Alexander III, or the ones who fear him. For me, it is both. There is no contradiction there, no illusions. I have met our charges. Some may claim to fight for freedom; some may just be failures in their struggle to achieve their own domination. All would seek to break the peace, unleash forces of chaos: machines with souls, constructs with rights, new social chaos. That is how the Empire fell. Freedom is not worth collapse and darkness.

But it doesn't matter what I think. I guard the ones the King's Guard sends, the ones condemned to perpetual internment. But it could be worse. They could be dead. And every cell has a window. I don't know why they complain.

--Warden Jurlan Bez Alcarno, Antillica Prison