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Description
Since some folks have inquired, I put together this overview of some of the elements that go into a 3D "paint-over" type image.

I try and get the 3D render as close to what I'm envisioning as possible, and right down to texture, lighting, color pallet and fog or atmosphere.

In this case, I knew a lot of the scene would rely on the sky, which was going to be painted. But I rendered out a huge 8K image of the planet which would appear behind the clouds.

I usually render out a separate ambient occlusion pass, which I use for various purposes - in this case, to preserve crispness in the shadows as I painted in some additional atmosphere.

The final image is the result of a lot of painted details blended in, and fine tuning of things such as the contrast and color balance. The little dust devils and hovercraft ships were 2D elements painted to match the lighting in the 3D scene.

I experimented with some radical departures from the initial color scheme, but in the end I went full circle and kept the colors more or less as they appeared in the first render.

BTW - the 3D was created in Lightwave 9.6, and the final image was put together in Photoshop

As an illustrator coming from traditional media, I always feel that 3D is somehow "cheating" - but it's a fair amount of work to create a 3D scene, so I guess it isn't really a cheat at all

Description
Since some folks have inquired, I put together this overview of some of the elements that go into a 3D "paint-over" type image.

I try and get the 3D render as close to what I'm envisioning as possible, and right down to texture, lighting, color pallet and fog or atmosphere.

In this case, I knew a lot of the scene would rely on the sky, which was going to be painted. But I rendered out a huge 8K image of the planet which would appear behind the clouds.

I usually render out a separate ambient occlusion pass, which I use for various purposes - in this case, to preserve crispness in the shadows as I painted in some additional atmosphere.

The final image is the result of a lot of painted details blended in, and fine tuning of things such as the contrast and color balance. The little dust devils and hovercraft ships were 2D elements painted to match the lighting in the 3D scene.

I experimented with some radical departures from the initial color scheme, but in the end I went full circle and kept the colors more or less as they appeared in the first render.

BTW - the 3D was created in Lightwave 9.6, and the final image was put together in Photoshop

As an illustrator coming from traditional media, I always feel that 3D is somehow "cheating" - but it's a fair amount of work to create a 3D scene, so I guess it isn't really a cheat at all