This image should be a cover for music album telling a story about a man, who saw planets.

I must say, I never ever used any 3d rendering applications, and I barely draw anything, I work as UI Designer, and all I know is Photoshop

It started from realy quick and rough sketch to decide what composition should be there. So we se a really small man who go away from set of planets, leaves them behind. That's what was in my head, when sketched.

Opened Cinema 4D.. so much strange buttons. Let's see what we can do with landscapes

Now adding some planets. Here I faced my first problem: how do I create spheres with some random faces? Push all the buttons untill I have satisfying result!

Well.. Not the best, but something. I used here duplicated and rotated platonic objects, found some effects, tried them all, liked explosions.

Now moving to Photoshop. Adding background.

Enhancing planets and ground. Adding our lonely austronaut.

That's all for now, but not the end. I think to remodel ground and planets, and all :D

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PS

After some thoughts I messed more in photoshop and came to this result, I think it's final. 

Watch final presentation at my site here

http://www.radya.ru/i-saw-planets