Digital Illustration - BD

When I first was presented with the idea of making a digital illustration, I didn’t know what to do but at home when I looked out my window and saw the stars and thought “I should do the solar system for my STLP project.” Here are the step by step instructions of how it came to be:

Step 1:  I started with a black background.

Step 2: I wanted to add something different, something new so I thought of a white hole.

Step 3 : I used the painting brush fresco for the white hole making it lighter and fading it out as it gets farther from the middle to show depth.

Step 4: To make the Earth, I started with a blue circle then added some green continents and next added darker greens with the water bleed tool to mimic elevated mountains. 

Step 5: To make the moon, I started with a light gray circle next to the Earth. To make the moon more realistic, I used the water bleed tool on a darker grey color to mimic the moon’s craters.

Step 6: Then I made the Sun. To create the sun I started with an orange circle then I used the water bleed tool to make it look like it was radiating light into the solar system.

Step 7: Then I made a meteor. I wanted the meteor to look like it was moving, so I added a fiery trail that tapered off into space. 

Step 8:  Then I made Saturn. I started with a brown circle and then added layers of different colors to make it look  more realistic. Then I added the ring by drawing the general shape and then blended it in using the gaussian  blend tool. 

Step 9: I added more detail to the ring of Saturn by adding darker dots inside the ring to give it depth.

Step 10: To complete the picture, I added stars to the background by using the glimmer tool.