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I've wanted to create a planetary desktop for so long. Now I know how.

The red one is the first planet I've ever created. I'm so damn proud of this.

Absolutely stunning.

The planets are really, really cool, but the background seems kind of boring, without the depth (that it's always associated with space), both space-wise as color-wise. Depth.

Sniperwhere wrote:I'm so damn proud of this.

You should be, because these are some fucking awesome planets. :D

Jesus Christ, dude. Amazing stuff.

Donfuy wrote:The planets are really, really cool, but the background seems kind of boring, without the depth (that it's always associated with space), both space-wise as color-wise. Depth.

Sniperwhere wrote:I'm so damn proud of this.

You should be, because these are some fucking awesome planets. :D

My biggest issue is in fact the background. I think the stars are too clustered and it lacks a "spacey" feel to it.

And thanks for the feedback, guys.


One question: Do you think it's time I graduate from GIMP and move onto Photoshop or keep using GIMP?

Sniperwhere wrote:One question: Do you think it's time I graduate from GIMP and move onto Photoshop or keep using GIMP?

If you have the option to upgrade to Photoshop, do so immediately.


I really like the wallpaper, especially the fact that the closes planet has a nice smooth texture while the middle has a rough one. I agree with Donfuy about the depth though, I only wish some of the stars in the background were varied in size, brightness, or even slight tints of color.

I still think it's brilliant.

Now /this/ needs lens Flare.

Techno wrote:

Sniperwhere wrote:One question: Do you think it's time I graduate from GIMP and move onto Photoshop or keep using GIMP?

If you have the option to upgrade to Photoshop, do so immediately.


I really like the wallpaper, especially the fact that the closes planet has a nice smooth texture while the middle has a rough one. I agree with Donfuy about the depth though, I only wish some of the stars in the background were varied in size, brightness, or even slight tints of color.

I still think it's brilliant.

I was using Scatter HVS(or something) which made the star effect, which maybe I should go back and replace.


And I tried the lens flare. Ew. GIMP 2.2 is not the tool for that.

And thank you for the comments guys. I really appreciate it.(and I'm not just saying that. My day has been made. :) )

One of the rules I learned in a really simple painting class was to never identify your light source. Of course, this rule can be broken, but I think for the best effect here you need to completely remove the giant sun that is in the top right. It's distracting and is really annoying to look at.

From there, I agree with a couple others: redo the background. It needs more of a "I'm in the dark and there are faint stars that are all around," rather than the stars being so clustered and taking up the bulk of the image. The whole thing is too flat as opposed to being deep.

I think you have a good start but it'll be quite a bit of work before I personally find it truly stunning. Appreciate the effort though! I'm sure it took a long time and that is something to be proud of, regardless of all the things I'm being picky about.

Well the background seemed like one big noise section, but the planets were really well rendered imo. Promising stuff.

They're unrealistically close together. >:( There would be interplanetary crashes!

But the image itself is pretty nice.

Manus Australis wrote:One of the rules I learned in a really simple painting class was to never identify your light source. Of course, this rule can be broken, but I think for the best effect here you need to completely remove the giant sun that is in the top right. It's distracting and is really annoying to look at.

From there, I agree with a couple others: redo the background. It needs more of a "I'm in the dark and there are faint stars that are all around," rather than the stars being so clustered and taking up the bulk of the image. The whole thing is too flat as opposed to being deep.

I think you have a good start but it'll be quite a bit of work before I personally find it truly stunning. Appreciate the effort though! I'm sure it took a long time and that is something to be proud of, regardless of all the things I'm being picky about.

The pickier you are, the happier I am. Because I can't be expected to learn from "Good job"'s all the time, not that I mind them. It's detailed feed back like that which help me know what to change. So thank you.

And yes. The planets are a little to close. Gotta fix that as well.

Did you use a render for the planets?

Also if you can, upgrade to photoshop. This will also sort out your star problem, as i can send you some fantastic star brushes which would make this look epic.

Still i think that this wallpaper is very impressive :)

4.5/5
(if the stars were a little better would be a 5)

Aphex_n wrote:Did you use a render for the planets?

Also if you can, upgrade to photoshop. This will also sort out your star problem, as i can send you some fantastic star brushes which would make this look epic.

He did say he made them. And on many occasions, he has thought about photoshop, but he always sticks to GIMP D:<

It just feels so foreign to me. Like I'm starting all over again.

Anyways, thank you for the compliments. I still need to get around to fixing those issues.

I agree that the planets are awesome but the background isn't - it just looks like a bunch of noise right now. Spreading the stars out more (after all, there is a lot of space in space) and adding some more variation among them would make this look a lot better. This illustrates pretty well what I mean.

PsychoSnail wrote:(after all, there is a lot of space in space)

Nuh-uh! It's all relative! D:<

PsychoSnail wrote:I agree that the planets are awesome but the background isn't - it just looks like a bunch of noise right now. Spreading the stars out more (after all, there is a lot of space in space) and adding some more variation among them would make this look a lot better. This illustrates pretty well what I mean.

I know. I just need to find the time for that as each star will need to be custom. :/

Anyways, I decreased the density of the stars in the background and removed the sun. Now I need to get to work on the better stars. Also lowered space cloud density.

Ah, that looks better. The clouds could stand out from the blackness a little more in my opinion, but that doesn't really matter.

Another planet. I tried to give this one a ring, but the process I had in mind didn't work. Oh well. At least I got a planet that's better textured than anything i've ever done before out of it. :D

Yum!
It looks pretty cool.

Stars are a -huge- improvement over your last one. Now if you could just vary their size, this would look incredible.

Planet is great, as usual.

I think stars a bit over showed (it makes me look to the stars, more than the planet), but it's great though.

Stars are a real hit and miss with this kind of thing. they're either good, or they're bad. But never "all right" XD

Anyways, glad you like the planet.

I think my one issue with stars is after I spend an hour or two on the planet itself, I look at the background and involuntarily think, "oh geez, how long's that gonna take." I'm gonna have to lose that atitude and be more patient.

Me playing around in photoshop. And before you ask about the stars, it wasn't laziness this time. I actually have no clue how to make good stars in photoshop. Any suggestions?

CS4 btw.