SDL2025-G01C02-I16 Celestial Surface

Celestial Surface of embossed filter effects and random shapes

Item Identity: SDL2025-G01C02-I16

Title: Celestial Surface

Artist: Sam Diellor Luani

Collection: SDL InnerSpace Origins

Section: Raster Retro

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• Overlapping craters like layered history.

• A visual study in planetary geology and digital realism.

Photo-realistic image of a cratered surface, like the Moon or a planet, featuring numerous craters of varying sizes. Some craters overlap, and the rugged terrain includes ridges and valleys. Lighting from one side accentuates the depth and contours, highlighting the topography and geological features shaped by impact events. The signature SDL appears in the bottom right corner.

Celestial Surface: A texture born from trash. A technique born from frustration.

This is one of my oldest “asteroid textures,” created in 1995—long before SDL InnerSpace had a name. It’s never been used in any work, but it’s stayed with me for decades. Why? Because it was a moment of discovery.

I was deep in a series of planetary images, struggling to create a plausible surface texture. Everything felt too deliberate, too artificial. In a moment of irritation, I opened a “test document”—a trash page filled with circles, splashes, lens flares, and random shapes—and applied an emboss filter. No expectations. Just a click.

And this emerged.

It was an aha moment. A revelation that textures don’t always need to be built—they can be found. This accidental creation didn’t make it into the series I was working on, but it shaped the technique I used for all the textures that did. It taught me to save my trash, to recycle chaos into form. And it’s why you’ll find impasto-like “artistic renditions” in SDL InnerSpace too—because sometimes, a filter on a forgotten scrap is all it takes.

This piece is a tribute to that moment. To the accidents that become methods. To the trash that can become treasure!

Not AI-generated. No synthetic spirit here. Just human-crafted space nostalgia.