GREEN and RED plasma canons done - cool thing with photoshop is the function motion blur. i'll give it a good blur to make it look on the move
these 3 truxton ships (red green and blue) with weapons raging.
Then i'll do about 3-4 different types of smaller alien ships being ripped apart and one large mothership.
Good thing with once i have the components the theme can be built up pretty quickly - at a guess about 30 or 40 ships in the scene.
No bevel and emboss here - i just made a pattern template and soom in and out to get the desired look