Gas Giants are exceptionally large planets composed almost entirely of gas and liquid as opposed to the hard-surfaced terrestrial planets. They are recognizable by their distinctive banded pattern of horizontal stripes and often colourful cloud tops. This is the result of complex weather patterns often due to different cloud bands blowing in opposite directions at high speeds, and certain elements responsible for the different colours.

This is a much harder pattern to create digitally than one would think, there's much more than using the liquify tool on a gradient in Photoshop or worse still - just manipulate an image of Jupiter which will always reveal familiar features that gives that away. So hopefully this resource pack will save hours of time and add that same weight of value to your space scenes. This is usable in both 2D and 3D art, but first read these terms of usage:

Conditions of use
You are NOT allowed to use these in commissioned work or other commercial products without direct permission from me, and chances are I will ask for a small portion of the profits if the stock plays a prominent role.
You CAN however use these in deviations you want to make available as prints, provided they are only sold as deviant prints like most artists here do.
You are not allowed to re-distribute these images passing them off as your own stock material. This includes changing the colours, adding shading, rendering 3D spheres using the maps, turning them into brushes, picture tubes or textures etc.
You MUST credit me and link back to either this or my main dA page under any deviation you use these images in. I helped you, so you help me.
Tips for 2D artists!
If you have no 3D programs, then the "Premade Planets" gives you the option to use a planet that's tilted on an angle rather than just "straight-on". The premade planets are uniformly-lit, so you are in total control over what "phase" the planet appears in and can add a glowing atmosphere around it to your liking. Just open one, duplicate the layer, select the black areas around it and "cut" to get the planet off the background and drag it into your scene.

You can however try to use the texture-maps to make your own planets too. You can even overlay different maps over each other, play with the colour balance or gradient map features etc in Photoshop to create an endless array of new gas giant maps based on existing ones.
Tips for 3D artists!
Obviously the way to go is use one of the "Texture maps" on a 3D sphere and you practically have an instant planet! But you can also create a set of concentric spheres, each ever so slightly larger than the one underneath and use different maps on the outer spheres with another map again as an alpha, which can give nice "mixed patterns" (how the premade planets were made actually)

You can "tile" the texture if the planet is up close like in the preview art too, to help avoid loss of detail on closeup renders. Be careful though, while the maps join seamlessly to the left and right, they may not at the top and bottom.
Tips for Vue artists!
If you use Vue Infinite or higher you are lucky and can use both the maps and planets! for true 3D planets, follow all steps mentioned above for 3D artists and make the planet really huge and push it way beyond Vue's "world limits" and have the "aerial perspective" of the atmosphere fairly high.

Vue infinite and xstream has the "custom" planet feature, load Vue's default planet (which always appears beyond the atmosphere), click "custom" and search for the premade planet of your choice, a great asset to your sci-fi scenes if you want to avoid Vue's familiar Solar System planets.

Enjoy! please adhere to the conditions of use, and remember almost all my art is NOT stock material unless I have clearly stated otherwise like here

Used offsite with my permission on Celestia Motherlode.net here [link]