Hello and welcome to a step-by-step for my latest image! I had a request to make it and since I had some time on my hands I was happy to oblige. It's been way too long since I've been doing that anyway. Here we go:
This is the geo of the 'crater'. There are some cloud shadows on top - my apologies. And actually it's a vortex. The Vortex was modelled in a popular sculpting program - my first foray into it.
Initially I wanted to have a mystical green light shining from the bottom of it but I deviated ... looking at it now - maybe I should've stuck with it.
Maybe it might be worth doing another version. Anyway - here's one early render:
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Here we have the first 'real' render of the final image. There is an eco-system with some shrubs covering everything. While it looks pretty good in that resolution, my computer gave me some problems rendering it in a higher one. Should have worked with dynamic population in Vue I guess.
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Here is the final render out of Vue. Yes, it looks too dark. The reason why it's so dark is that I wanted to keep the contrast without the highlights blowing out. The eco system is painted in and there are cloud shadows from a cloud layer above the camera.
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This is the first step in Photoshop. I color corrected the render a bit and since I wasn't happy with how the lake looked, I replaced it with something in a lovely blue. Once I put that new water in, I knew I was on the way:
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Here's the final painting in Photoshop. Cloud layers, glares and a much softened, humid atmosphere help this along. Then I 'borrowed' some birds from somewhere and it is done:
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As a last bonus, here's a side-by-side of the original render and the final:
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I hope you enjoyed this quick and dirty show and tell. Please let me know if you have any questions! Until next time! :)