Most planets you seen online are very similar to earth. Not this one. Alkonst has a bit more chilly of a character due to the ice age it is enduring, with glacial ice sheets extending to the mid latitudes of the planet. The shape of the land masses is an image map, but everything else is procedurally generated in terragen. The clouds could use some work in my opinion.
Now that I see this, I'm more the equator guy I think... ;-)
Looks good!
Looks realistic!
I´ll just mention some things that could improve it in my humble opinion, because I think it´s not much lacking to have a real winner.
In my opinion there could be more depth to it, although I know that it´s perfectly realistic for a planetary shot to look rather flat, just because the space we live in is not much more than the two-dimensional surface of a sphere, the atmosphere so thin.
But maybe you could enhance the depth impression a little bit, for example by adding different hues to the water close to the coast (I don´t know if you used a water shader, in my experience you don´t need it at this scale).
A really big breakup fractal and higher fuzzy-zone softness for the ice could also increase the impression.
I like the contrast in the right part of your polar cap very much!
One more thing I am wondering about is the lower hemisphere, no iceage there?
My best Regards,
J
Thank you for your comments. I took your advice into consideration for the final version. I already had different colored water around the shore, but I made it much more visible (at least on my computer) as well as reworking the ice and clouds. The southern hemisphere does have ice, but this image is looking "down" at the planet so the southern ice cap isn't all that visible. Enjoy (hopefully haha)!
http://gannaingh32.deviantart.com/#/d5ll84v
Another very high quality render/image Darth!
Have you been doing any fine printing with your images?