Fractal Geometry and Photoshop Collaging

I wanted to show you my process for creating this digital art with a fractal as my inspiration, taking it farther with collage elements and filters -- but there are so many ways you could start with a fractal and grow it into something very personal and in a style you like. The options are endless. 

One thing I don't like in this piece is how muddy the colors get with all of the layering but since the subject is war, I feel the muddy colors are appropriate. And personally, I tend to use dark colors so the next one I make, I am going to force myself to brighten up the palette. 

This is a screenshot of my original fractal created in Ultra Fractal plus two more fractals that I made to add to the photoshop art.

I opened the original fractal in photoshop, rotated it and added layers. I duplcated the fractal and blurred it and changed the opacity to 50%. Then I imported images of an antique globe and war planes and clouds, added more fractals and found an image of waterdrops on clear glass which I then filtered with the Glass filter. 

I created this GIF animation to show you the order in which I added layers, effects, and used filters.