Logo Architect

The Moonlight Palace logo is a representation of the atmosphere and aesthetic we want to create with our jewellery. It's also something I designed custom for the business, because everything so far has been done by our own hands.

First, I searched for references of fantasy castles and palaces to mimic the architecture of the exterior, with constant cross-referencing to make sure it looked somewhat structurally sound. More often than not, purples, blues and pinks were used as theme colours in the references, which I colour-picked and altered for a more shiny, glowing appearance.

For the sketch, I started with the composition: the pillars, waterfalls, and gems; just making sure everything would match what I envisioned. 

For the lineart, I used thicker brush strokes so it would look cleaner, and pop more against the transparent background. This also made the colouring process easier, because in the past, my lines have been too fine to use the bucket tool on, but this time, it was much simpler—nothing like what I'd been dreading.

Then, the fun part: shading. Right off the bat, I wanted to shade those gems. My original plan for the four gems surrounding the large purple stone was to use orange, pink, blue and green, but I figured the orange would clash too much with the other colours because it was much lighter and warmer than the theme I'd chosen. So, I chose pink instead because I thought it would complement the crystal rose well.

Speaking of the crystal rose, it was based off a present we had given to our mum for a (fairly) recent Mothers’ Day. The interior of the palace just looked so plain and boring without anything there so I added the podium and rose to give it some flavour.

It was very fun to shade the gems and rose, but in the back of my mind, I was thinking about how the shading would look when translucent. Instead of making the hallway behind the waterfall and rose dull and uninteresting (in contrast to the bright and gleaming jewels), I decided to make the base colour a dull blue to later illuminate it.

Unfortunately, the water was just a little bit of a pain. The blues I was using were a too purple, but I toned them down and used greys and blues for depth and highlights.

Though tiny, the pearls actually weren’t too tedious to shade. I own a few pieces of jewelry that are adorned with pearls so I used those to serve as a reference. For a first time, I think they had enough of a pearlescent shine to suit the mood.

As for the arch, moon, and outside of the castle; they were fairly low effort. I wanted something that would present the inner contents nicely, rather than distract us from them. However, since there was no background, I made the last minute addition of grass to ground the artwork and bring it all together.

Overall, the process was long and strenuous but it was worth it in the end.