The Making Of....

This section explains on the making of my mid-autumn festive calendar. The tools i used in illustrator and the idea of making the calendar.

I thought of using the mid-autumn festival is because personally i felt joyful and fun celebrating this festival. The gathering of families, beautiful lanterns creates a colorful atmosphere and also the magnificent sight of the full moon.




First of all, I had the background of the calendar established, that is the night view and used Mesh tools to fit in certain colors and contrast where the higher the sky the darker it gets and vice-versa.



And then i added in some brightly lit stars and some dim lighted stars to make a stary effect. I used the feather effect on the stars and then added some white outer glow to it so that is as though glowing.



Then the mountains were added on it. The mountains were drawn with the pen tool and added color to it. in order not to have the mountain to look plain and 2D, I used the mesh tool to add a wavy lighter toning across it to make a soft effect for the mountain.



The moon comes next, simple done it but i think it gives a glowing moon effect. First, a circle was drawn, then feather effect was added and then inner glow and outer glow was added and placed on the night view back ground, something like this came out.



Quite satisfied on the effect though, haha..

After that, the cloud was drawn using the twirl tool, just twirl and twirl till i get the marshmallow effect, sweet. Anyway, i lower the opacity of the cloud so that it look abit cloudy and foggy effect. Was put around the moon to make it look cloudy.

Then the darker clouds which a farther away from the mountains appeared darker, some larger, and some smaller were placed as a background to strenghten to mountain night effect.



The word written is Zhong Qiu means Mid-autumn in Chinese as it is a Chinese custom to celebrate the mid-autumn festival since centuries ago although now it is celebrated across the western continent. The Chinese word written as though as it is written with a Chinese brush pencil with the traditional black ink.


Here comes the Jed Rabbit, one of the symbol and legendary animal for the mid-autumn festival where it is said to be living on the moon making Chinese herb medicine. Simple shapes were drawn and then colors added. then i used the mesh tool to give a gradient effect on it.


The lanterns! This is what we see the most on mid-autumn festivals. Colorful from red, green, yellow hung up all over the streets. The whole lantern was drawn with the pen tool, color was added and stroke taken out. and then, i used the inner center glow to add another brighter glowing on it. then i used mesh tool to add some color effects on the sides. Lastly, a lantern glows, so i used the outer glow effect to finish it.





This is Chang'E, well.. .. anyway... XD is the Moon goddess where legends were told that she floated to the moon after accidentally swallowing her husband Hou yi's immortality pill and thus, living on the moon for the next eternity. Chang'E was drawn using pen tool traced from a figure of her i drew on paper. Then colors were added and layers were placed at the right angle.