Use of Composition

 

Use of Composition

For this piece I worked a lot on composition.  I was mostly inspired by the colors used in Destiny on the moon destination and the idea of someone waiting on a mysterious planet.  I also really wanted to incorporate a planet in the back ground.

Reference and Inspiration

When coming up with the idea for the kind of composition I wanted to do I found that the rule of 3rds brought it out the best and before I created my scene, I really tried to make sure that the mannequin was placed in a spot that caught the eye.

Rule of 3rds

To start my project, I began in Maya with a scene full of space and mountain assets.  I moved the assets around and created a sphere for my background planet.  I also added some more lights and adjusted the lights that were already in the scene and created a camera for my beauty render. 

Putting Scene together in Maya

I then created an ID map, normal, AO, Z depth, and toon shader render layers to use in Photoshop.

Layers in Photoshop

In Photoshop, I began making different layers with the render passes.  I used the ID map for selecting objects to individually put color or gradients on them.  The AO map was used to bring out the shadows and a few highlights.  It mostly set the mood in the illustration.  I used my toon shader to create the lines and details in my illustration and Z depth was used to create a slight green fog over the environment.  I did not use my normal map but it was helpful for showing me where the highlights and shadows are. 

Using Toon Shader

To bring more character into this piece I created some FX to give my building into the distance some light, rocket blast to my space ship, and heavier green fog or light to my environment.  For all these effects I painted them onto my scene with an airbrush that had color dodge and then I would adjust the opacity.

Creating Fog

The last effect I added to my scene was the stars in the background.  To create my stars I applied it only to the background and under the planet.  To create this effect I used the noise filter along with the gaussian blur filter.  I then adjusted levels and on the effect itself I added outer glow.

Creating Stars