Moon Cultivation — Xianxia Sci-Fi Book Cover

A commissioned cover for Moon Cultivation, a novel by Maksym Pachesiuk that fuses xianxia — the "kung-fu magic" tradition of Chinese fantasy — with a science-fiction setting. The core challenge was holding both genres in a single frame: the martial, mystical world of xianxia and the hardware of a far-future sci-fi world, with neither one overpowering the other.

The artwork was illustrated entirely by hand, with no AI used at any stage of the process. It was developed from the author's detailed brief and a set of stylistic references he provided, then worked into a composition built to read clearly at thumbnail scale on a storefront and keep rewarding attention at full size.

The title was treated as a design problem of its own: a custom logotype, drawn and stylized separately, then integrated into the final cover.

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