DESIGN A LOWPOLY PLANET
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INTRODUCE SOME GLOW
All the effects like glow, halo, flares and lighting are almost always made in post processing, not in a
3D redactor, because it’s much easier and faster. Let’s make a little diffuse glow around the emission
polygons, to make it look shiny. Select the Magic Wand tool, and click on every yellow light polygon, except
the sun. Then make the selection of a new layer by pressing Cmd/Ctrl+J or go to Layer>New>Create on a
new layer. Then go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur, and use it with five to six pixels. After this, change the blend
mode to Screen.16
MAKE THE STARS
To make the space more beautiful and
realistic you should add some stars. Usually such
things are made with Soft brushes, but in low-poly art
a pencil will do a much better job. So create a new
layer, take the Pencil tool with a two to three pixel
radius to make big stars, then make one-pixel-radius
small stars. You can use white and blue colours for
them, and you should only put them on the dark side
of the space. Don’t make too many as they might take
too much attention away from the main model.17
REFLECT THE LIGHT
To make the two colour light scheme
look even better, you should manually create
patches of reflected light on the borders of the
model. It’s a very tricky thing, so be careful. Create
a new layer, using the Pen tool, select sharp and
thin borders that are addressed to the Moon, and
paint them with a bright blue colour like #00e1ff.
These patches should be solid with no gradient.
This will add a depth to the scene, but don’t make
too many of them.QUICK TIP
If you find a mistake that cannot be fixed in
Photoshop, you can render it again. You can
either delete objects you don’t need, so you
don’t have to wait for the whole scene to render,
or, if you see the part you need appear before
the render finishes, press Esc and save the
image. Paste it on the top of the first layer and
erase everything that you don’t need.18
FINALLY LIGHT
UP THE SUN
Now last, but not the least,
you can create a filling light
from the Sun. Start by
creating a new layer, pick a
really bright yellow colour
like #ffff87 and then select
the Gradient tool. Now
drag a Radiant Gradient
from the Sun, forming the
big spot of light. After this,
go to the Blend modes of
the layer and change it to
Screen option. Now adjust
the Transparency of the
new layer by 50-60%, or en
more, if you’d like a much
mor brighter light in your
final scene.