Oh, no offense taken, my friend. Just tryin' to answer your Q as best I can. This shot took about 2 weeks on-and-off between me pitching various compositions to Doug. IIRC, this was my third or fourth revision submit. Once I got the composition OK from Doug, it took about three days or so to work it all out into a pretty picture.
One main hurdle one has to consider is, for print resolution, you have to render SUPER BIG, like close to 7000 px across for the pixel resolution to hold up. The background I created, while made up of hi-rez components, perhaps could have benefitted from a bit more pixels for clarity, but that's what I had to use in the time I had to do it in. I like the way it turned out nevertheless, as not everything in every shot ever taken is in perfect focus. But, if asked back, I have some new ideas for creating space-drops that I will try out.
Hope that helps ya see into me head, thus process a bit more. Thanks much for your interest in my work, my friend.
deg