ID:257896
 
Well, i was doing some asset works for a game for class- and my idea was involving space and asteroids, so i had to figure out how to make an asteroid look cool.

Anyways, i kinda figured out how to make one using photoshop, so i decided to post how i came to figure it out.

Basically i did a shape outline by creating a work space. All i really did was make a black background, and erase my shape.


Then i created a base shade for the contours of the rocky surface. I used a brush with 20% opacity, this shading has three levels.


This shade dither can be made by simply making differents layers for each level of darkness, then blurring a couple of times- then sharpening it.


After making the shading, you want to start making the craters inside of the asteroid, if you choose. Basically just make oblong shapes here and there, with depth illusions by making those larger borders as though from perspective. I used a 25% opacity for this.


Do a couple more layers on the craters if you want, to make the shading on the outlines more solid. This one added about 2 more layers of shade atop the base crater contours at about 25% opacity again.


Next you want to merge all the layers together, except for the black workspace layer. Then Sharpen the image of the merged layers. (Remember not to merge the black background with it)


After that, it's time to give it a texture. I personally have a large database of personal textures at my disposal, so you may have to make one yourself, or you could google one. This is mine.


Next, take the texture you've chosen and use a layer style on that merged image. use a pattern effect on "multiply" style. This'll leave the shaded craters in tact.


Almost at the end, you want to create shading once again to give some sort of depth. Just take a 20% opacity brush, creating a new layer atop the image, then just brushing away to find a shading you like. Finally, change the layer to be "Soft Light", thus lightly accenting the shades.
Merge the layers, and you have an asteroid. (probably a bit much to merge to one step of the tutorial, but it's not all that difficult, its just time consuming to get the shades) This is also where you can take the liberty to do some brightening up of the image.


The shading scheme i used was:


Annnd your done. Merge all the images except for the black background/workspace and do what you want with it.

And as always, use posterize/saving as gif to reduce color count. It helps save resources and reduce size.

Just use the magic selection tool to select the empty part of the black background/workspace,then switch to your image that was merged, and invert selection to delete the excess of the asteroid image. Create a stroke or something around it if you want a hard outline.

This would be my finished asteroid.


Ps: Some colors may seem really dark, or really discolored. Thats due to the fact that even after years of using photoshop, i can't get the images i make to match the contrast/ darkness of the images it saves as, so i usually have to brighten the images before i post them - and even then they look really dark and discolored still.

If somone could help with that, that'd be great :)


Anyways, hope this helps, i doubt it does, and i know its probably not very detailed- but oh well!


That isn't pixel art, though.
Still pretty cool.
Good tutorial! I like the texture layer idea. I tried my hand at it (not an asteroid, tho).


(The last layer was me using some white to brighten up the column and face on the column)

Arketos wrote:
Ps: Some colors may seem really dark, or really discolored. Thats due to the fact that even after years of using photoshop, i can't get the images i make to match the contrast/ darkness of the images it saves as, so i usually have to brighten the images before i post them - and even then they look really dark and discolored still.

If somone could help with that, that'd be great :)