Workshops

Photoshop
Gary Tonge
COUNTRY: England

Gary is
concept art
THE SCIENCE
Vivendi and
director at
Swordfish
Studios/
S
d also
al
creates conceptpt art
a on
OF PAINTING
SPACE
a freelance basis. He’s
worked for Capcom and nd
National Geographic.
www.visionafar.com

DVD Assets
All the files you
Scenes set in space are always on an
need are in the Gary
Tonge folder in the
enormous scale. Gary Tonge explains
Workshops section.
SOFTWARE:
how to balance the many facets and
Photoshop CS3 (demo)
subjects in a galactic vista
pace – my favourite frontier! energy, so they tend to become the focal

S One of the challenges I

enjoy most is that of
capturing the essence of a
point of any piece that depicts them.
Further out again come galaxies. Maybe
100 billion or so stars make up the
space-based scene: with such vast average galaxy, never mind the many
distances and sheer majestic spectacle light-year distance between one star
involved, this is nature’s grandest stage. and another.
Depicting such scenes is fantastic fun Space scenes can be wonderful, awe
but creating a truly captivating piece inspiring images that capture the
can be complicated, as there are so viewer’s imagination and let them to
many facets that need to be balanced. fall into the piece. This workshop aims
Take for instance the sheer scale of to help you to understand how celestial
the subjects in a scene such as this. You objects work together and how you can
have planets, which are normally at use the enormous scale differentials to
least the size of the world we all live on. your advantage to increase depth,
Then there are stars: well, they drama and compositional balance. So
completely dwarf planets and are pure get your rocket ready!

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 Workshops
Sketch your ideas 100-1,000 million miles away from the
1 First off, think about what you viewer – and the distant stars, at least five
want to focus on in the scene. I know to ten light years from the viewer. Get this
from the outset that this image will be part right and much of the piece will fall
quite difficult to balance, mainly because into place.
I want to have no immediately
identifiable focal point. Instead, I want Get that lighting right
to gently balance the subjects’ size and 4 Right from the outset you have
position to really increase the feeling of your primary light sources, so pay
depth and drama, but also keep the scene particular attention to making sure your
gentle and majestic. Sketch out a number lighting is absolutely right. The viewer
of compositional try-outs to nail what will rely on the light to help describe the
you’re after before beginning your proper position of each subject – shadows are
painting – it will pay enormous dividends rare between heavenly bodies, so you
in the end. must get the photonic behaviour right.
I can’t emphasise this enough.
Ringed planet render
2 The most complicated part of this
scene perspective-wise is the ringed
planet. The ring system around this world
will either draw the eye into the piece, or
totally undo the composition if created
poorly. Hence I build a simple model and
render it in the position I want (also
enabling me to try a few angles quickly).
I’ll paint over this in the end, but those
ring lines are priceless.

Scale and distance

3 fundamentals
I can’t emphasise enough how important
it is to nail the distances and scaling with
objects of this nature. As this simple
diagram explains, the basic language of
this piece will rely on the interplay
between the framing planet at bottom
left, the enormous distance to the binary
star system – which is going to be about

Starting the nebula

5 A good proportion of the
perception of depth is going to be created
by a swirling construction of nebula
clouds being gravitationally drawn
towards the stars. Place some initial rough
strokes down so you can get a feel for how
these misty bodies will diffuse the
distance and create a good divide between
the clear up close objects and the less
well-defined glowing mid-distance
subjects. Paint these clouds on to a
separate layer if you’re unsure of what
you want with them.

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 In depth The science of painting space

Movement in the image

9 A sense of movement in images of this kind is an excellent way
of adding to the believability of the scene. I’m not talking about a fast
moving vehicle, just the gentle insinuation that things are shifting
slowly. Take note of the red lines on this piece, showing the type of
movement I was working towards. The movement is implied subtly
to demonstrate things such as inertia, gravity and spatial eddies.

Lighting the
6 focal points
As you’re going to be painting a large
body of darkening clouds over these stars,
punch out their brightness and colour
with some very large soft brush dabs, or
the Gradient tool set to Circular, so you
can get a good high bright level from
these before you paint the brightness
back. Doing this will help you greatly as
you want to paint dark back into the piece
to create balance – and the dark clouds
are effectively in front of the bright stars.

Other body scaling working. Note how light intensity is

7 Try to find opportunities to playing a big part in the understanding
generate depth and scaling reference. of how close these clouds are to the stars.
One excellent way to do this is to position
moons around a featured planet: they
give an excellent sense of scaling between
the two bodies. Coupled here with the
rings it really helps underline the large Creating star
scale of the moon, but it’s tiny compared glows
to the planet. (Note: this moon was When trying to create
a glowing star, the
actually removed in the final image as it
clashed – caused a tangent – with the
standard brush modes
can be a little difficult to
10 Distant object
diffusion
space station.) work with. I tend to use a The furthest objects depicted in an image
mode such as Colour
Dodge or Linear Dodge
such as this are the distant stars and
Nebula depth galaxies in clear space. These are much
8 Working up a sense of depth in
and select a
complementary colour further back than the nebula and
that works well with the
the nebulous clouds is paramount to the existing painting. Work
therefore obscured by anything in the
balance of this piece, but can also be a delicately with a brush main scene, no matter how subtle.
little tricky. You want to draw the viewer mode of this type (I Placing areas where you can see out to
normally have the
within the arms of the clouds, towards these distant heavenly bodies is good idea
opacity set to about 10
the stars, and this might take a little to 20 per cent) and work (it adds further depth), but also take into
balancing. I recommend you place these up the glow with a few account how easily they can be occluded
gentle dabs with a big
brush strokes on a new layer until you’re by quickly dropping their intensity when
Soft brush.
fairly certain the shapes you have are the slightest cloud gets in the way.

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 Workshops

Planetary detailing
111 The closest large-scale subject in
the piece deserves a lot of attention. Try to
use the defined light positions to the full,
and detail terrestrial clouds and other
features with great respect for how the
light would strike them. This is one
opportunity to really add to the depth in
the near subjects. Note the repositioned
moon in this shot: the light on it from the
stars and also secondary light from the
planet striking the darker side really help
to convey that it’s small and on the far
side of the planet.

Light creating depth

12 I’ve painted a tear in the side of Scaling from small History brush viewer, the ring objects 100-200m
the nebula clouds that’s letting a 13 to large Y diameter (for the larger ones), the planet
large change
substantial amount of light out. By Take a look at this crop: there’s a If you have a rt – 4,000km in diameter maybe, the moon
at’s be en great in one pa
th
highlighting the wisp-like clouds at the deliberate procession of objects falling but not 1,000km. These subjects all work in
of the image
h back to
centre of this crop you can help the viewer away into the distance, while being larger another, brus unison to describe the very large distances
as
the old version
to understand their relative distance in mostly as they fall away. The craft – needed.
being handled here and make them easy
the scene. maybe 10 metres tall – is not far from the for viewers to comprehend.

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 In depth The science of painting space

14 Powerful
diffusion
light
16 Adding an element
of humanity
Remember that your light sources here are Although none of the vehicles in this
stars. Their light is incredibly bright – so scene are large or imposing, I’ve depicted
much so that in space they’d blind you them in a way that makes them quite
instantly if looked at unprotected. This dramatic and ominous, their dark bodies
light will punch its way through clouds, being at odds with the glowing nebula or
much as it does in an overcast day on the light-bathed ringed planet. This
Earth. But in this case I’ve used the light choice is quite important, because you
to create incredible glowing arcs of want to differentiate these subjects from
clouds, the two different tinted stars the rest of the piece. Why? Partly because
mixing their colour properties in they’re not natural, but more
the nebula clouds. The end importantly because they’re
result is a deep and glowing absolutely tiny in relation to
focal area that has an Fast colour w the rest of the objects
With Gradien
ash
ethereal quality to it. t set to shown. Their very dark
Circular stretc
Note also the moon that h the radius appearance helps the
from the centr
e of the
I’ve diffused deliberately intended wa
sh, with
viewer understand that
to imply that it’s colour at 0% there’s very little distance
Opacity
at the end of
impinging on to the nearer the between them and the craft.
radius.
cloud arcs. The different craft types help
add to the progression of scale as
well. The smaller fighter craft, flanking
this large carrier and then the much-
larger-again station are maybe 50-100km
away from the viewer – not even a spec in
this scene as a whole.

Cloud creation The final image

Clouds are some of my 17 The final piece is a deceivingly
favourite subjects:
they’re fascinating to complex balance of very diverse subjects.
paint and I’m very The goal of artwork of this kind is to
comfortable creating
create a vision that’s easy to take in yet has
them without reference.
However, I’ll often put lots of interesting features that will draw
Delicate detailing my clouds on a new layer the viewer in and around the piece, where
15 Try to spend time gently adding so as to protect the they can discover lots of little nuances
underlying painting.
details that will help create layers of Clouds can get quickly that help them understand the majestic
interest in the scene, adding movement out of hand and it’s and epic subjects described and their
and aiding compositional balance. These important that you can relative positions, even over such
go back to where you
wispy clouds may look incidental, but I were if things go south.
enormous distances. It might take you a
placed them very deliberately to Plus the new layer gives while to grasp the more difficult aspects
complement the rest of the composition. you a freedom to really of capturing such depth and scale, but I
experiment – great when
They’re also very good barriers between working with clouds.
think it’s really worth the extra effort as
the nebula and the very distant stars. the results will speak for themselves.

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