[Contest Entry] Vision of Julia "On the Exotic Shores of a Black Hole contest "

Here's my entry for the art contest by Hive account@geekpowered found here.. Hope I'm not too late. I had a lot of fun putting this image together. I hope everyone likes it! I just realized this is my first original post, guess it's time to introduce myself on that thread.

Inspiration
My favorite scenes from the story are the visions John has of an android Julia. The potential future between John and his AI got me hooked on the story. How will they escape the black hole and get to that future? Did John's visions inspire him to turn Julia into an android? Can't wait to find out!

Methods
I didn't have much time and I'm strongest with Photoshop, so I went that route. I spliced together 5 different photos, all found on Pexels. I'll post the photos in order to help give you an idea of how I brought it together.

I used a picture of an aurora against the night sky as the main backdrop.

I used a photo of breaking waves as the beach in John's vision. I used the erase tool to shape it right, then adjusted opacity until I liked it.

Next came an image of a spiral galaxy to represent the black hole. I added a black circle and smudged it in position at the center.

I found a nice image of a woman in a skirt in a nice pose for Julia's body. Sorry I didn't have time to make the skirt white, the top blue, and add a shawl.

I found the perfect face for Julia and added the finishing touches. The right side of Julia was gently erased to create a gradient in opacity.

And there it is! I wanted to include John floating in his space suit, tethered to the ship. Maybe next time.