The following illustrations were created as part of a series on instagram in which I tried to create magical girl characters based off the zodiac signs. For each design many different elements were taken into account and in this project I'll explain my creative process in each illustration. This series is not complete yet, but I will update this project as I make more zodiac signs.

The first zodiac sign I did was scorpio, since its my own zodiac sign. For the designs in this series I wanted to take a lot of things into consideration. The personality of the sign, the tarot card, the planet that rules the sign, the color that is associated with that sign, the sign's element, and of course the sign's symbol. 

For scorpio I got a lot of inspiration from the tarot card, that was the death card. I gave her a grim reaper inspired design. Even though the death card in tarot does not carry a scythe I still decided to add the scythe since its commonly associated with the image of death and would be more recognizable. As a reference to the flag though I added a five petal white rose to the scythe, since that is the flower depicted in the flag of the tarot card. The death imagery also ties into the planet that rules scorpio, pluto, the god of death.

The cape was colored black outside, since its the color of the scorpio sign but the inside was colored in a blue color with a small heart pattern. I wanted to convey scorpio's personality, a person who is very mysterious and dark but very sweet and sensitive underneath the facade they put on. The outside of the cape represents the dark and mysterious exterior and the inside represents the more sensitive emotional side.

To reference the sign's symbol, the scorpion I gave her segmented armor, her entire outfit is made of segments that remind me of the way a scorpion's body looks. I also made her heel resemble a scorpion's tail.

I also made her hair of water because Scorpio is a water sign. I also added some extra flowing water around her. I did the same thing for all of the other signs, I used their hair as a way to represent the element.

I also designed a civilian form to show how she would look transformed and a transformation item, in the case of scorpio I wanted the skull she has on her cape to be in the transformation item and I thought the hairtie was a good option.

After scorpio I let my followers vote on which zodiac sign I should do next and the first winner was Gemini.

When I read about this sign a lot of themes around communication and expressing one's thoughts out loud came out, so I felt like a microphone would be a good weapon for her. I also have her a small music box that the microphone is connected to because I felt it would look more interesting than just the microphone.

The symbol for Gemini are the twins so duality was also a big theme with this sign, because of this I made a split design with the colors. Her dress is split in two colors and her boots are two different colors, and so on. I also made her transformation item earrings since they also came in a pair.

The planet that rules gemini is mercury so as a reference to the god mercury I added wings to her boots and to her tiara. I also made sure to reference the tarot card, the lovers, by adding lots of heart shapes to her design. And for her hair I thought a good way to represent air would be clouds, so I gave her this fluffy cloud like hair. I also designed a civilian form for her and I tried to keep her shirt in a split design to keep with the theme.

The third zodiac sign to be voted was Sagittarius. For sagittarius one thing was obvious, she had to have a bow and arrow since the symbol for the sign is the archer. I added other arrow symbols in her design like her earrings, her transformation bracelet and her gloves that have the sagittarius symbol on them. I also made the arrow in her bow magical since I felt it would be more fitting for a magical girl.

The archer is often associated with the image of a centaur so for that reason I decided to make her shoes look like hooves to reference the horse aspect of the centaur. I also took the planet into consideration, jupiter, and in roman mythology jupiter is the got of thunder so I added a subtle thunder effect to her arrow.

I made fire a big part of this illustration since sagittarius is a fire sign, but I made the fire in her clothing and hair purple since its the color associated with this design. I kept the fire around her orange to contrast better with the mostly purple design.

I also referenced the tarot card, the temperance. Since the temperance portrays the figure of an angel I decided to give her wings as a small reference to that. I also wanted her too look adventurous since when I read about sagittarius personality it was all about exploration, trying new things and discovering more about the world and about yourself. To add to this adventurous vibe I gave her goggles and a pouch.

I also designed her a civilian form and since sagittarius is all about experimenting I felt like giving her some dyed purple tips to her hair, it felt like she would be the type to try different colors until she found one she liked.

The fourth sign I did was Capricorn. During my research I noticed that capricorn is a very career oriented sign. To reference that I decided to get inspired by a business woman when making her design. 

 gave her a suit and made one of her powers to summon this mini shop menu that she could purchase magical items from. I imagine she would run some sort of magical service and would have to manage how much she spends in items, versus how much she would be paid for the job. 

I also gave her a pocket watch and made her transformation item a wrist watch, as a reference to the planet, saturn, god of time. I imagine the pocket watch has some sort of time manipulation power.

I obviously gave her the goat horns, sinnce the symbol for capricorn is a fish goat, and I also gave her the hoove inspired shoes. Since the symbol is not just a goat but a fish goat I also added some fish elements, her gloves and her pants have a scale pattern to it and her suit has a shape that resembles a fish tail in the back.

For the colors I wanted to do brown and green at first since those are the colors for the sign, but after doing many tests I couldn't get the brown to look good, since I felt black worked a lot better on her suit. I decided to let myself deviate a bit from the sign's colors and use black instead. I still made sure to make the tree around her brown to keep it somewhere on the illustration.

For her hair I needed to reference the earh element so I made it out of leaves, and put it into a very practical bun. For her civilian form I gave her a business suit because I imagined her as a business woman in and out of magical girl form.

The fifith sign to be voted was Pisces. The pisces sign's symbol is fish, so I added a lot of sea elements to her design, like her fish tail shaped ponytail, her dress that cascades in the back like a waterfall, the gemstones that are all shaped like waterdrops and pearls that are all over the design. I also found a way to include her symbol in her necklace and in her hairtie. 

Pisces was very associated with the spiritual so I added the potion bottles to make a reference to magic and witchcraft. Since pisces is a water sign her hair was made of water like with scorpio, but I also wanted to have the water around her going inside the potion bottle. I feel like that made the illustration more dynamic.

For her weapon I took inspiration from the planet that rules over pisces, neptune and I gave her a trident. I did combine the trident though with her tarot card that is the moon and I made it a  moon trident. It also worked very well because I managed to keep the shape of the raindrop in the trident as well.

For the colors I went with a blue, teal and purple palette. The color for pisces is this teal seafoam green color, but I wanted to add the blue because of the water element and some purple since its a color that represents the mystical, which tied into the spiritual personality of the sign.

I also designed her civilian form and a transformation item. I picked the necklace as the transformation item since it was very eye catching on the original design and it had the pisces symbol in it.

The sixth sign to be made was Taurus. As I researched the sign I noticed a theme with comfort and stability. I decided then I wanted to try and incorporate square like shapes since in shape language they evoke a sense of stability. I also noticed a lot of places said that Taurus's love food, and I decided to make her a magical girl cook. 

In the first few sketches I made her design resembled a maid outfit more, but I wasn't really happy with how it was looking. Then I realized that instead of taking inspiration from that I could look over a chef's uniform for inspiration and I think it worked really well, specially since the chef uniform has an overall more square like shape.

I gave her the bull horns since the symbol for this sign is the bull and like the other girls that had hooved animals as a part of their symbol I added some hoove inspired shoes for her.For her weapon I knew the whisk would be a good magic wand but I also added a magic bowl in which she can mix her ingredients with the magic wand.

The planet that rules over Taurus is venus, so I made sure to include some venus symbols on her earrings. I also made sure to give her a transformation item that was a beauty item since venus is the goddess of beauty. I also thought the compact with little aplicator worked very well as mini versions of the bowl and the whisk.

To reference the element I made her hair leaves, since the element for taurus is earth and the color palette worked very well since the color for taurus is already green.

The seventh sign to win the poll was Libra. For Libra I knew I wanted to turn the scales into a weapon or wand, and I from the start knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to do a staff that had two weights at the ends so when she holds it like that over the shoulders it looks like a scale. I made the weights into gemtsones since I thought it worked better with the magical girl theme.

The tarot card for libra is the justice, and when I saw this the image of a blindfolded lady with the scales and a sword came to mind. I managed to create this helmet that covers her eyes to reference the blindfold. I wanted to include the sword too but I didn't find a good way to incorporate it into the design. I originally intended to include it as a belt but it was just making the design too busy.

The planet that rules Libra is also venus, and this time I used her shoes as a way to incorporate the venus symbol. I added it into her heels. I also tried to keep her design very feminine and delicate.

For her hair I had to evoke the air element, but this time instead of the fluffy hair I tried making this long hair with these large curls. I feel like this shape evokes the idea of a wind current. I also kept her dress very flowy and light to help convey the air element.

I also designed her a civilian form and for her transformation item I chose glasses, since they could turn into the blindfold during the transformation. I also managed to include the libra symbol as the bridge of the glasses.

The last zodiac I have done so far is aquarius. For her I knew I wanted her weapon to be potion bottles since it could be a way to reference the aquarius symbol, the water bearer. I ended up also giving her a staff that would also function as a magic broomstick. I wanted to add some witch imagery for her since she already had the potions as her main weapon.

The personality of aquarius is all about expressing creativity, not conforming and trying to make a world a better place. I imagine she wouldn't be able to just watch injustice happen without doing anything. Because of that I decided to get inspired by a super hero uniform, and I have her this very tight form fitting jumpsuit. The large sleeves also help create a silhouette similar to a cape.

I also tried to include many aquarius symbols in her outfit, you can see it in her neckline, her sleeves and her boots. There is also a lot of stars in this design, that's because the tarot card for aquarius is the star. She has stars in her hair, a star in her staff and even star shaped freckles.

For her hair I again decided to do the fluffy cloud hair to represent air, but with the addition of the stars it resembled a sky themed hair. Which also tied in perfectly to Aquarius's planet, uranus, the personification of the sky.

For her transformation item I decided on keys, because her magic staff already looked like a key shape a little, and I managed to incorporate the aquarius symbol in the main star key. I made a matching keychain for it and I added some other ordinary keys. I think she probably added those to the keychain for convenience. Its a very unusual transformation item but I felt like aquarius would be the last sign to have anything conventional.