The Process

Originally, I planned to do all twelve zodiac constellations. However, I began to wonder if it would be too many and a peer asked me the same question. I decided instead to choose a few famous constellations.

I reused the Leo but shelved the rest of the vectors I had made.

Constellations

I used reference images to trace the shapes of constellations in Illustrator. Originally, I had done nine of the twelve zodiacs but I kept only Leo when I switched plans and then traced six other well-known constellations. Together, they were: The Big Dipper, Ursa Major, Canis Major, Orion, Leo, Lyra, and Cassiopeia.

Stars

I created a shape reminiscent of a star or sparkle in Illustrator and added a translucent circle behind it to represent a glow.

The biggest part of this project was spent moving these stars in After Effects and fiddling with their timing as they moved from one shape to the next.

As the constellations shifted, most of the stars simply moved to a new area, but if the next shape had less stars, they would overlap. When this occurred, I would make the lower star subtly fade out.

Trim Paths

My initial idea for this video was the stars drawing the constellations out. It seemed like a difficult task, but then I learned how to use Trim Paths, a setting in After Effect that could draw lines automatically. I put this off as a final thing to try once I completed the main work.

As a finishing touch, I experimented with using Trim Paths to make the stars of the last constellation, Cassiopeia, merge into one. I traced my Illustrator lines in After Effects and applied the setting to each.

Afterwards, I knew I had to try doing the same to the beginning. I made the stars draw out the first constellation, the Big Dipper, then went further and had more stars emerge from it to draw Ursa Major.

The original image used for the zodiac constellations

Zodiac traces, layered on top of each other

Final seven traces, along with pile of stars

The Leo zodiac with nine glowing stars

The Big Dipper growing into Ursa Major