Birthright

I've been wanting to do a scene for some time now which focuses more on a nebula rather than a Sci-Fi landscape.  In this scene I tried to stay as true-to-nature as I could by painting a nebula which is dominated by red, orange, and purple gas clouds, as is typically seen in actual emission nebula.  These types of nebula are the major star-forming regions in the galaxy and are made up primarily of hydrogen gas and dust which collapse under gravity to form new star systems.  In this scene which I've called "Birthright", the nebula is brilliantly illuminated by newly formed hot stars at its center.  In the foreground I've placed a desert moon with a thin Mars-like atmosphere which is in orbit around a gas giant visible off in the distance.  I used a number of astronomical images of the Trifid and other emission nebula as a guide to create a more realistic looking scene.

I used Vue 2015 to generate the texture for the moon's surface and Photoshop to complete the thin dusty atmosphere.  Photoshop was used to paint the entire nebula and created using my personal set of cloud brushes.  Photoshop was also used to create the texture for the gas giant which is a modified version of my Saturn stock image which can be found here:  fav.me/d8f7djy

Any comments you may have are always appreciated...