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steve-burg — Homage to Chesley Bonestell
Published: 2010-07-19 05:42:11 +0000 UTC; Views: 13459; Favourites: 141; Downloads: 3930
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Description
A recreation of one of the most famous images in astronomical art.The original painting "Saturn As Seen From Titan" by space art pioneer Chesley Bonestell helped to define the genre, and captivated the public imagination when it was originally published in LIFE Magazine in 1944.
You can see the original here: [link]
This image was created in Lightwave 3D. The terrain was made by deforming a subdivision surface with a displacement texture I painted in Photoshop. The snow and rock textures were procedurally generated, and blended using an alpha mask also painted in Photoshop.
This is the straight 3D rendered output, with some very minor contrast adjustments.
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Comments: 43
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Hey !! Lovely work.
Did you blend the planet with the background in Photoshop or was it rendered with the image?
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A very nice rendition. But why is the ring shadow missing from the right limb?
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I've long been a fan of Chesley Bonestell's space art and "Saturn as Seen from Titan" has long been my favorite. You've done a wonderful job recreating his masterpiece and is a great homage to his work. Thanks for sharing!
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Well thank you for your kind remarks!
I have always loved Bonestell's works - I think his art was one of the major influences that prompted me to pursue a career in art. I continue to go back to his art, I suppose because it gives me the feeling that I really can journey to other worlds
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Greetings,
Superlative! If Chesley Bonestell were living today, I would think he had personally updated his original classic painting of Saturn from Titan's Surface. In all honesty, you are one of the few digitial artists creating digital art that equals, possibly exceeds, traditional hand-painted works of art. Thank you for including my version [link] of Chesley Bonestell's painting in your favourites.
Best regards,
Michael C. Turner
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Thank you for your very kind comment!
I learned illustration with traditional media (there wasn't really an alternative at the time), and on some level that legacy remains with me. When making a painting was a fairly difficult undertaking - with a high probability of going irrevocably wrong - a lot of planning and forethought was an integral part of the process. There was no "undo" button!
I read a description of the amount of preparation that Bonestell put into his paintings, sculpting models, plotting the perspectives, calculating the lighting - and it is extraordinary. I think that's why his work has such conviction.
Anyway, it is a pleasure to meet you here on DA and certainly it's my pleasure to include your art in my favorites!
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Greetings,
You are indeed most welcome and the pleasure is mutual. I appreciate the deviantWatch. Thank you for sharaing a bit of your artistic history, your art truly reflects the same. Yes, Bonestell was most certainly a master . . .
My best,
Michael C. Turner
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woooooow... everything looks nice. Love the details on the mountain, and the far away Saturn looks Gorgeous!!!
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Thanks - I was just trying to match the work of "the Master" - Chesley Bonestell
It was interesting to try and recreate this as a 3D scene, and capture the lighting
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Bravo! Very well done. When I saw it in the gallery, I knew it looked familiar. I love it.
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I opened this without even seeing the title or name of the author, i just saw it in the Forgotten Galaxy message and I thought "that looks like Bonestell" 
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Some adjustment to color and contrast, a very slight blur. But no paintover
The bounce light on Saturn and the specular gleam off the snow were made by special lights positioned to get those effects.
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It looks spectacular man, especially the lighting 
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I did it in a very laborious way, making small adjustments in Photoshop and reloading the image. It was not fun - but no other way to do it at the time...
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Thanks - I left word on your main page
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Very recognisable seeing the link. Great scene.
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It's a famous image - hopefully I did it justice as a 3D scene
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Thanks so much! Wherever he is now, I hope Mr. Bonestell would approve
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I instantly recognized the picture! perffect! my only crit is that the sky seems a bit greenish compared to the original, but thats minor nitpickin
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Thanks 
The sky color was tricky, since the image looks slightly different in various reproductions (in books and on the web). It's definitely a little greener than the one in the link - I think I was matching to a different version at the time (7-8 months ago)
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Thank you - I hope I captured same feeling as the original artist
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Thank you - hopefully I did the classic painting justice
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Beautiful! Right down to the ring light on the night side of Saturn! Its a great and throughly faithful recreation. Its interesting, too, that you used 3D to do it, as Bonestell, when doing the original, made plaster models of the mountains, photographed them, then painted OVER the photographic print to create the finished painting. Kind of what we do with digital modeling today!
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The more things change...
That ring bounce light is a cheat - I put a spotlight there to get that - after I figured out I wasn't going to get it to happen with a button push 
Bonestell really was incredible. It's very clear his work influenced Kubrick, especially in the jagged lunar landscapes seen during the moonbus sequence in 2001.
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Oh, yeah! He certainly had an influence on 2001. Clarke was a huge fan of his work, too. Bonestell was a genius, and a visionary. I think he, more than anyone before him, gave the world an esthetic appreciation of the solar system for the first time. I still get a thrill of awe and wonder when I look at his work, even knowing some of it has been made obsolete by new discoveries.
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If our solar system doesn't match Bonestell's vision - somewhere out there, I'm sure there are places that do
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Very True! Even if those conditions didn't happen in our Solar System, they surely did SOMEWHERE. He never flew off into the realm of fantasy.
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I'm of the opinion that there's no need to fly off into fantasy. Reality is strange enough - especially when you start delving into quantum physics and the like.
I read a very interesting book called "Biocentrism". It takes the "observer influences the outcome" idea to its absolute conclusion by proposing that reality exists ONLY as quantum probability, until the act of being observed by consciousness of some kind collapses it into a subjective reality. Very mind-bending stuff - but extremely interesting
It's pretty much Schrodinger's Cat - but there is no box, and there is no cat - until you expect to see one and open the box.
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Thanks - I always loved the Bonestell painting, so it was a great exercise to try and capture the lighting and overall scene...
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