Travel poster- The Destinations

This poster is my first official poster idea which will be to show my destinations that are available to get to. This isn't my final copy of this poster as i need to make it look more retro. The five planets that I have recreated in illustrator are Earth, Mars, Saturn, Uranus and the pink to purple planets is a planet called GJ 504b this is a from the solar analog 59 Virginis. This is a very unknown planet but i chose it because I wanted something different for my travel company to sell. I used lots of different techniques to create this over all poster as I made each planet individually.

The first thing I did was use the ellipse tool to create my round planet, then I used the shift key to make sure it was an evan perfect circle.  

Next I filled the circle in with my pink to purple gradient. i had already made this from my previous attempt at this planet, so all i had to do was used the eyedropper tool (i). 

What I did next was really the main step, I selected my circle and used the alt and L keys whiled holding them I dragged my shape up to the top so that it was only covering the top part of the circle. When i let go of the shape it created another one of my circles where i had dragged it to. i then coloured this new circle plain black.  

         

After turning the new circle black I turned the opacity down to 10%. This is very important.

This step is were the layers come out. What i am doing in this screenshot is dragging my original black circle down using the same alt and L keys to make sure they are the exact same. This has to be repeated over and over all the way down the circle grabbing each new circle each time, keep doing this till you have covered the whole shape. 

Then using the selection tool click and drag around the whole shape so you are getting all the circles you have made. 

 

Once all of your work is selected you need to click on the side bar and find the pathfinder tab, when I had found it and click on it i then had to find and select the divide button. 

With the whole shape still selected I right click on the shape so the drop down bar appeared. I then pressed the ungroup button this is very important so that we can make my planet one whole circle.   

This next step is the last as all there is left to do is to select as much as I can of the black circles around my planet and delete them. I find that selecting them with the selection tool and clicking and dragging around my shape dose this the best. 

I made sure that I selected all of the smaller parts around the edge of my planet. This is the last step in how I made my GJ 504b planet. 

Then finally I was finished and could rearrange planets placement.  

The next planet that I wanted to make was mars. I had an idea what the planet would still be realistic but I wanted it to have a cartoon look to it as well so that`s what I did. The first step to create this planet was to make a circle with the ellipse tool. I coloured this a orange so that it would be lined to mars.
     

What I did next was start to add in texture to the planet as mars has lots of colour sand as well as tall boulders and mountens. I used the pen tool to create shapes for the boulders then coloured them a darker tone of the orange shade. After I made the bigger bolder I used the ellipses tool to create smaller round rocks so that there would be different shapes to show of the different types of rockets that can be formed. Then I used the pen tool to create a light shadow. I used transparency settings to dull the colour down so I created a better shadow.        

The next step was to add in more dimension on the rocks. I did this by zooming in on the circle rocks so that I could create the small half crescent that would help with the dimensions.   

The last step that I did was caring on with making rock type shapes with different tones of orange. I played around with the transparency of the shapes in till I was happy with the overall look.    

Next I wanted to create the planet Uranus so I started with the ellipse tool and created a even circle. I then coloured it  in a light blue.    

Then to add in the details I used the pen tool again to create my shapes to help detail. I chose to create curve lines that variety in colour and opacity.  

Next I added in the ring that loops around the planet. To do this I used the same steps that I used for my GJ-504-b design. What I mean by this is that I used the pathfinder tool so that when I put the ring down where I wanted it the sections separated and I could take out the part of the ring that I didn't want to see as it should be behind.  

Lastly I added in some final detailed with the pen tool making sure there is some more curvy lines that look like the go around the whole planet.

These screenshot show how I made the ring that goes around the planet. This was made with the ellipses tool. After I was happy with the placement I made the fill section of the shape with the no fill and the colour of the stroke with the colour you want it. Then I made the stroke thicker so that the ring can stand out.  

The next planet I made was earth as earth is the planet that the customers are coming from. Once again I made the base of the planet by using the ellipse tool and colouring it in a blue colour.       

Lastly I used the pen tool to create the earths continents. I used images from google to help me get a better though on the shapes of the continents. I used two tones of green to show that the lighting would be lighter on middle and darker on the edges of the planet.