Alright, so I felt like diving into something different today, wanted to whip up a fantasy background. You know, just messing around, seeing what happens.
Didn’t start with a super clear picture in my head, more like a feeling. I was thinking, maybe something with weird lights, maybe some strange plants or rocks, definitely not your everyday landscape. Opened up the ol’ image editor and just started splashing some colors down. Went with deep blues and purples first, classic fantasy stuff, right? Layered some darker tones underneath to give it some depth.
Getting the Vibe Right
Then I thought, it needs that magical glow. Started adding some softer light sources, like maybe little wisps or floating particles. Played around with the brushes a lot here. Getting that glow to look natural and not like a cheap sticker is always a bit of a pain. Spent a good while just tweaking opacity and blend modes. Honestly, sometimes it feels like guesswork.
It still felt a bit empty, so I decided it needed some actual ‘stuff’ in it. What kind of stuff though?
- Maybe some ruined pillars? Nah, done that too many times.
- Floating islands? Maybe, but seemed like a lot of work.
- How about some weird, glowing crystal formations? Yeah, that sounded more fun.
So I started sketching out these tall, jagged crystal shapes reaching up. Didn’t want them perfectly smooth, gave them some texture, made them look like they were emitting their own faint light. Put some smaller ones scattered around the foreground too.
Pulling It Together
The sky needed something too. A plain gradient wasn’t cutting it. Added some swirly, nebula-like clouds, blending them into the background colors. Used a bit of blur here and there to make things look distant. Added a faint moon, maybe two, why not? It’s fantasy!
Then came the fiddly bits. Adjusting the overall contrast, making sure the glowing parts really popped but didn’t overwhelm everything else. Added a bit of atmospheric haze, especially lower down, to give it that sense of scale. Stepped back, looked at it. Tweaked some more. Changed the hue slightly on some of the crystals. Added a few more tiny light specks floating around.
You know how it is, you can keep tweaking forever. But eventually, I got to a point where I thought, okay, this looks pretty decent. It’s got that otherworldly feel I was aiming for. Not bad for just messing around for an afternoon. Felt good to just create something without any pressure, just following the idea.