Step 9
The next step is simply to continue adding circle shapes as elements using clipping masks like in the last step. In my other circles, I decided not to desaturate the applied image. This makes it blend with the piece much better. Experiment though! You might come across something that looks much better. Here’s my outcome. I added circles near the corners of the piece to fill up the composition, and another at the bottom left again just to spice things up.

Step 10
After using the color applied images to form the images in the circles, I realise that my desaturated applied image didn’t really work well. Instead of just changing it, I added another circle with a clipping mask on top, but this time, instead of brushing black though, I brushed white. The initial logic of brushing black was because it was under the rendered mountains. Now, however, since this circle is on top, brushing white to give it a ’shiny orb’ effect makes sense. Unlike other elements, I made sure this one was right on top of other layers and covered significant parts of other elements. Layering properly with the correct shadows is extremely important. This gives your piece depth.

Step 11
At this stage, I’m quite happy with the weight and composition of this piece. But I’m not really happy with the overall feel of the piece – it’s really boring at the moment, with only mountains and recycled clip masks of the same image. It’s time to add a new element. I decided the piece needed something edgy, and also, as a rule, I try to include as much detail in everything I put into my piece. This is so that in the end the effect of “Fineness” shows through, and the elements arent huge chunky blocks. I decided on this stock image of an industrial plant. The stock u can find from related web.

The high spire on the right of this image is a good choice, it sticks out the most and is very usable in our piece.

Zooming in, I begin to isolate that part of the piece I want. I do this using the polygonal lasso tool. I don’t usually do this to render, however, the magnetic lasso misbehaves on this, the white in the background and the white of the pipes are way too similar, causing the magnetic lasso to cut this image quite badly. Go all the way around and close the lasso.

Hit Ctrl-I to invert your selection, which is the object you actually want. Hit Delete. This deletes off everything else and you’ll be left with a fairly clean cut-out object.
Step 12
The reason I chose a long-ish (vertical) element was because I wanted to have an element that added detail into the piece, but not ruin the shape of it. Now I’ll adjust the element and align it with my initial composition.

Aligning it with my composition means that the elements will have to be parrallel with those red lines above. This ensures that the new elements do not mess up the flow and weight of this piece. Taking the render, I hit Ctrl – T to free transform it, and hold down Shift as I rotate the render to be parrallel with my skeleton.

You might have noticed I varied the sizes of the renders and made the one at the bottom lighter and desaturated. This is to try to give variety to the elements I added.
Step 13
I’m done with adding renders and high-detail elements, so now for some simpler shapes. While I think of what shapes I should add, I’m always bearing in mind that the shape shouldn’t disrupt the flow and weight of this piece. However, I want to avoid using boring straight rectangles just to fill up the composition. I need to use something simple yet appealing. I decided on an L shape.

I started off holding down Shift to pentool a normal, L shape, but I felt was slightly boring, so I decided to curve it. For those who are newer with the pentool, you can achieve this by adding two pentool points on either side of each of the L corners and then remove the initial corner so a curve is created between the two new points you’ve made. By dragging the 2 points and by moving the curve, I’m able to make a nice curved L shape. After my shape is done, I right-click > Create vector mask.
Hint – It’s a good idea to hold down Shift while you manipulate this shape. This will keep everything straight.
Step 14
Now we have these shapes, it’s time to apply them to the piece. Again, using an L shape is a good idea, because if you rotate it 45 degrees, whichever direction the L shape points to, it will always be parallel with the flow of the piece.
Vector masks mean you can paint whatever you want to the layer and it won’t affect the overall shape of the object. I fill each layer with a dull blue and vary this slightly for each of the shapes. I take a soft brush and brush the edges of the shapes slightly white and black to make it look better. This is similar to the brushing of the orbs using clipping masks in Step 8.

Step 15
Something I do with all my pieces is to add some sort of texture. In this case, I wanted to keep the background clear, so I decdided to use splatter brushes behind the composition. The 2 brushes below I downloaded from Deviantart.com – they’re by artists quells and Osiris2735 respectively. I arranged these splatters behind the pieces so only the drippy parts show. Satisfied with some light splattering, I decide the piece needs some more effects.

Step 16
Effects serve the purpose of hiding the “rawness” of the piece, and in this case, it’ll turn a bunch of renders into an art piece. The piece has a snowy, icy atmosphere, but it’s missing something that goes hand in hand with cold mountains… clouds! I downloaded a great cloud brush pack from Deviant Art.

After that, it’s a simple matter of brushing them around the piece. Now the piece is starting to look less flat and much nicer.

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