The deck design we’ll be creating is made us of various vector elements to produce a layout with a range of patterns. The minimal colour scheme of blues and greens gives quite a retro feeling and overall makes for a pretty cool skateboard deck artwork.

View the vector skateboard deck design

Create a new document in Adobe Illustrator. We’ll need dimensions of around 33x9inches for a typical skateboard deck, but the great thing about vector artwork is we can always scale it to fit any specific sizes later down the line.

Set out a colour scheme for your deck design. This particular scheme is one I picked out from ColourLovers, named I demand a pancake. Fill the whole artboard with a solid filled rectangle.

Single click somewhere on the artboard with the rectangle tool active to open up the options box. Create a square at 1x1inches in size.

Give the square a fill from the colour palette, then hit the Enter key to bring up the Move options. Enter 1 inch horizontally then click the Copy button.

Repeatedly press the CMD+D shortcut to repeat the transformation, then replace the colours of each square to fit the colour scheme. Select all the squares then add them as a ‘new’ Art Brush by clicking the new icon at the bottom of the Brushes palette.

Make sure the direction of the brush is flowing vertically to allow the brush to create a striped effect when added to a path.

Use the Pen tool to draw a path across the artboard. Hold Shift to keep the lines straight to provide 90 degree angles. The striped brush will glitch at the corners but we’ll fix this next.

With the path selected go to Effect > Stylize > Round Corners. Adjust the radius until you have nice smooth flowing stripes with no kinks.

Draw a couple more striped lines across the design, overlapping lines with others. Change the stroke weight to 0.5pt and 0.25pt to create different sizes lines.

On any path that crosses another in two places, use the scissors tool to split the path and delete out the overlap to give the appearance of two lines weaved over and under the other.

The overall deck design is now split into a number of different regions. Use the Pen tool to roughly outline these regions in different colours. Use the shortcut CMD+Shift+[ to send the fills to the bottom of the stack, then press CMD+] to bring them up a level above the large blue background. The rough outlines will then be hidden by the striped paths.

Elsewhere on the artboard draw a blue filled circle, then align a clear square with no stroke or fill centrally using the Align palette. Drag these shapes into the swatches palette.

Copy (CMD+C) and paste in front (CMD+F) a duplicate of the yellow region, then replace the fill with the circle/square swatch to create a cool dotted pattern fill.

Draw and rotate a square to 45 degrees somewhere on the artboard. Carefully add another rectangle to cover the lower half, then use the Divide option from the Pathfinder palette to split the crossing paths. Ungroup then delete out the excess, leaving two triangle shapes.

Replace the fill colour of the upper triangle, then duplicate copies of the shapes and move them into place to create a tessellating pattern. Use CMD+Y to enter outline mode to carefully align them all.

Zoom right in and align a square to the centre of the pattern. Use outline mode to align the corners perfectly to the existing points.

Make a copy of the square, then use it along with the Intersect option from the Pathfinder palette to clip down each triangle. Press CMD+F to paste in another square for use with the next shape.

Remember to change the colour of the square when using it on the final two triangles, as the pathfinder tool converts the clipped shape to the colour of the shape that is being used as a tool.

Drag this series of shapes into the swatches palette to create a new pattern swatch.

Add this swatch fill to one of the regions of the design to create a cool retro style tessellating pattern.

For one of the other regions, draw a long thin rectangle and rotate it to 45 degrees. Hold ALT and Shift while dragging out a duplicate, then hit CMD+D repeatedly to create a series of lines.

Select all the lines and create a Compound Path by going to Object > Compound Path > Make, or hitting CMD+8.

Make a copy of the fill for this region and send it to the top (CMD+Shift+]). Select both items and hit the Intersect option from the Pathfinder palette to clip the lines to size.

Draw another series of diagonal lines, this time in the opposite direction and flowing across the whole design. Use the deck background rectangle as a tool this time to clip down the rectangles. Press CMD+[ to send them below the other objects to sit above the background.

Our abstract design of various pattern files is just about complete. Now let’s tidy up the document and mock up the design as a skateboard deck.

Select the series of striped paths and go to Object > Expand Appearance to convert them to solid shapes.

Group all the elements of the design together then draw a temporary shapes matching the size of the artboard. Select this along with the design and hit the Crop button from the Pathfinder palette.

The design elements are now neatly trimmed to the edges of the artboard and the design itself is ready to be exported as an EPS, PDF, TIFF or even PNG file.

To gain a preview of how our design will look, we can use the cool skateboard deck template from Nunosk8. Paste a copy of the design into the Photoshop document and trim it to size.

Our abstract, patterned and pretty retro looking design looks super cool when mocked up on the skateboard deck template. The limited colour palette of blues and greens helps balance the design by making sure no particular area stands out more than another.

Download the source file

  

In this very interesting tutorial we will have the opportunity to create something unusual. We will create a Corn Cob by using Adobe Illustrator. We will use some great tools such as Blend Tool, Envelope Distort and of course the Pen Tool. Blend Tool will help us to create the grains, Envelope Distort will help us to form the cob and we will practice the usage of Pen Tool by creating beautiful green leaves.

Let’s get down to business!

Grains

Create new illustrator document with 500 x 500 pixels in size.

For the start grab the Rounded Rectangle Tool from the Tool Panel and create the shape as it shown on the picture below.

Apply radial gradient.

Let’s make a small reflection on the top. Under the Object select Path > Offset Path. Set the value for Offset to -2.

Apply a nice linear gradient and using the up arrow key on the keyboard nudge the new shape for the few pixels upwards. Group (Ctrl / Cmd + G) the grain.

Now we have to create the smaller grain for the top of the cob. Duplicate (Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F) the grain we already have, scale it down and holding the Shift key keyboard (for straight dragging) drag the scaled copy upwards.

Select both grains and under the Object select Blend > Make.

This will create the row of grains. Select Object > Blend > Blend Options. For the Spacing set the Specified Steps. In this case we will set the value for the Specified Steps to 46.

Expand the row of the grains (Object > Expand) and duplicate it (Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F). Move the copy to the right and rotate it a bit, as it shown on the picture below.

Let’s distort our rows a little bit. Select the left row of the grains and under the Object select Envelope Distort > Make with Warp. Under the Style select Bulge (Vertical) and set the value for the Bend to 1%.

We have to distort the right row of grains as well. Select it and under the Object select Envelope Distort > Make with Warp. This time set the Style to Arc (Vertical). Set the value for Bend to -1%. This will bend the row to the left side. Under the Object select Expand.

Reflection will help us to create more grains . Under Object select Transform > Reflect. Set the Axis to Vertical and hit the Copy button. This will create a mirror image. Place the reflected copy on the left side.

Create a copy ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F) of the left and the right row and place them as it shown on the picture below. Feel free to scale down the end rows by using non-uniforme scale.

Group (Ctrl / Cmd + G) the grains. Grab the Pen Tool (P) from the Tool Panel and draw the shape as it shown on the picture below. Set the Fill color to #FFE73B.

Under the Object select Path > Offset Path. Set the value for Offset to -10.

Take a good look at the shape we have just created. You will notice it contains more anchor points then the larger shape. Grab the Delete Anchor Point Tool (-) and remove some of the anchor points. Feel free to adjust the handlers of the anchor points in order to create nice and round corners.

Set the Fill color of the smaller shape to #FBC415. Select both shapes and under the Object hit Blend > Make. Bring up the Blend  Option box and under Specified Steps set the number to 35. This will create a nice color transition.

Send the blanded object behind the grains (Shift + Ctrl / Cmd + [).

Blend Tool is amazing Illustrator feature. You can create a color transition for the objects with irregular shape. There is just one thing you should keep on mind. Make sure to create two objects or paths with the exact same number of anchor points. That way you will ensure that each anchor point of one object (path) has the correspondent anchor point on the other object (path).

Leaves

In this part we will exercise drawing with Pen Tool (P). Get ready for creating nice curved paths and combining some shapes inside Pathfinder Panel.

Let’s start!

Grab the Pen Tool (P) from the Tool Panel and draw the shape as it shown on the picture below.

Apply a nice green radial gradient.

Duplicate (Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F) the leaf and create a small curved path. Select the copy of the leaf and the path and under the Pathfinder Panel hit Divide button

Ungroup (Shift + Ctrl / Cmd + G) the new shape and remove the lower part of divided leaf. Apply linear gradient as it shown on the picture below.

Hereafter we will try our best to create nice details which will make our leaves more interesting.

With the Pen Tool (P) create the path as it shown on the picture below.

Duplicate (Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl /Cmd +F) the shape of the leaf. Select the copy of the leaf and the path from the previous step and under the Pathfinder Panel hit Divide button. Ungroup (Shift + Ctrl / Cmd + G) the new shape, remove the larger part of the shape and apply green radial gradient.

Grab the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel and create a small black circle. With Direct Selection Tool (A) select the lower anchor point and drag it downwards (don’t forget to hold a Shift key on the keyboard for straight dragging). With Convert Anchor Point Tool (Shift + C) turn that anchor point into the sharp corner. This way we’ve created a brush that will help us to improve our leaf.

Grab the new shape and drag it to the Brush Panel. In the New Brush Panel check the New Art Brush and hit OK button.

Make sure to set the Colorization Method to Tint in the Art Brush Option Panel. This way you’ll be able to set the Fill color of the brush to any color you like.

Now when we have the brush let’s create some interesting paths for our leaf. Grab the Pen Tool (P) from the Tool Panel and create a small arc.

Apply the brush we have created few steps earlier.

You will notice that the black shape we have just created overlap the upper part of the leaf . To fix this we will have to expand the brush (Object > Expand Appearance). Create the copy of the upper part of the leaf, select both objects and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Intersect button.

Apply a nice linear green gradient.

Use the same technique try to improve the illustration by creating interesting details. Just make nice curves and apply the brush. After expanding, apply nice green colors and gradients. You should end up with something similar like this.

Grab the Pen Tool (P) again and create the shape as it shown on the picture below.

Apply a green radial gradient.

Duplicate (Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F) the new leaf twice. Nudge one of the copies downwards for 1 pixel and select them both. Under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Minus Front button.

Set the Fill color of the new shape to dark green (#0F4C1A). This way we’ve created a thickness for the leaf.

Create another copy of the leaf (Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F). We have to divide this shape to half. Grab the Pen Tool (P) and create a path as it shown on the picture below.

Select the copy of the leaf and the blue path and under the Pathfinder Panel hit Divide button. It will divide the leaf to half. Ungroup (Shift + Ctrl / Cmd + G) the leaf, delete the lower part and apply the linear green gradient to the upper part.

Few more details and the leaf is ready. Duplicate (Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F) the large shape of the leaf  twice. Rotate one of the copies (you can scale it up as well). Select both of the copies and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Minus Front button. Apply radial green gradient.

With the Pen Tool (P) create the path as it shown on the picture below.

Apply the brush we’ve created earlier.

Let’s turn the path into editable shape. Under the Object select Expand Appearance. You will notice that the shape we have just created overlap the leaf. To fix that we will have to create a copy of the upper part of the leaf. Hit the well known shortcut to do that (Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F). Select the copy of the leaf and the yellow shape and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Intersect button.

Apply nice radial green gradient

Creating a Water Drop

Select the Ellipse Tool (L) from a Tool Panel and create an ellipse. Apply nice radial white-green gradient. We are using a combination with green color because the water drop is semi-transparent and green color is reflecting from the leaf.

With the Ellipse Tool (L) create another, smaller ellipse and place it as you see on the picture below. For this ellipse we will use linear white-green gradient.

Select the larger ellipse and duplicate it (Ctrl/Cmd+C, Ctrl/Cmd+F). Set the Fill color to #206128 and nudge it for 3 pixels to the right. This will be the shadow that the water drop creates on the leaf.

Select all the three ellipses and Group them (Ctrl / Cmd + G). Place it on the leaf.

Use the same technique and create few more leaves with nice details.

And voila!

Conclusion

With the combination of different kinds of techniques, and with some nice colors and gradients we have created quite a neat Corn Cob. The Blend Tool was quite useful in creation process. We have learned how to use the Blend Tool in order to create nice and smooth color transitions. The Autumn is coming, so I am quite sure you’ll find this illustration very useful. If you have any comments or questions feel free to post them in the comment section below, I would be glad to answer them. I hope you like this tutorial as much as you liked Circus Tent and Piggy Bank tutorials. Thank you for following along.

(rb)

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Logo design industry is the fastest evolving industry of the time because the logo design is a crucial element of any company or business as it represents the business image. Designing an impressive and effective logo takes loads of creativity and skill level. Therefore, majority of the companies hire costly designers to get their corporate image created accurately.

Here, we are sharing a collection of 50 incredible Adobe Illustrator Icon & Logo Design Tutorials that help you learn the tips on how to create an amazing logo and icon. Enjoy!

Logo Design Tutorials:

Create the Mini logo

Here in this tutorial you can learn to create the Mini logo. You’ll start with some basic tools and simple shapes. Then, with the Pathfinder options and some Warp effect you’ll get the desired shapes. Finally, you’ll need several gradients and strokes plus some Gaussian Blur and Drop Shadow effects.

Create a Sewed Adidas Logo

In this tutorial artist will show you how to create a sewed Adidas logo. First, you will create the basic shapes using the rectangle and the ellipse tools. For the sewed effects you will use some Roughen and Scribble effects. Finally, for a stitched effect you will use some simple, dashed strokes.

Create the BMW logo

Create the BMW logo. It’s one of the simplest logo tutorials so far. You’ll start with some basic tools and simple shapes. Then, with the Pathfinder options and some Warp effect you’ll get the desired shapes. Finally, you’ll need several gradients, strokes and some simple effects.

Vintage Badge

In this tutorial you will learn Vintage Badge in Illustrator and Photoshop.

Create the Yin Yang Symbol

Int this tutorial artist will show you how to create the Yin Yang symbol. You will only need the Grid, several circles and ellipses along with some basic effects. Once you’ve followed these eleven, simple steps you can easily turn your final result into a nice, little icon.

Create a Grungy Nuclear Warning Symbol

In this tutorial you can learn how to create a Grungy Nuclear Warning Symbol.

Create the QuickTime logo

Here you will learn how to create the QuickTime logo.

Create the Opel logo

In the following steps we’ll be using some classic tools, such as the Rectangle Tool, the Ellipse Tool or the Direct Selection Tool, along with some quite simple effects, such as the Drop Shadow, Offset Path, Reflect & Move and Zig Zag.

Create the Renault logo

Learn how to create the Renault logo. First, the grids and the snap to grid will help you create the basic shapes. Next, you’ll need some simple paths to divide these shapes. Finally, you will use some linear and radial gradient plus some basic effects.

Create the Toyota logo

In this tutorial you can learn to create the Toyota logo. It is all about circles and the Pathfinder panel. You will have to create a series of circles of exact dimensions. Regarding that,the grid and the snap to grid option will ease your work.

Abduzeedo 2010 Logo Design

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a beautiful Toyota logo.

Vector bacterial logo

In this tutorial you will learn how to make a very high quality logo ( vector ) in Adobe Illustrator. so it`s an easy tutorial to learn you how to design a logo in Adobe Illustrator, which is the best program for logo designs, because you create very high quality, ready to print designs.

Create the Volkswagen logo

In the following tutorial you will learn to create the Volkswagen logo. You’ll only need some simple circles, gradients, strokes and some basic effects. You might face some problems with the letter shapes but the grid and the snap to grid will simplify your work.

Create the Audi logo

In the following tutorial you can learn to create the Audi logo. It is mainly about circles, strokes and the Pathfinder pallete. It’s a pretty simple and fast tutorial but you might find some interesting stuff about working with these classic tools.

Create the Mercedes logo

In this new tutorial artist will show you how to create the Mercedes logo. It’s a pretty simple tutorial. Using the Grid, the Ellipse Tool and the Star Tool you will create the basic shapes. Later, with some linear/radial gradients, strokes, gaussian/radial blur and Drop Shadow you will get the final logo.

Artistic Printing Inspiration

Here you will learn how to create Artistic Printing Inspiration in Illustrator and Photoshop.

Create a Top Gun Badge on Illustrator

How to create this vector badge and add some extra feature to it look more awesome, this is a pretty simple tutorial, you probably won’t have bigger problems to execute it, hope you like it (and watch Top Gun, of course).

Icon Design Tutorials:

How to Turn Glasses into a Great Geek Icon

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to make a cool, or should we say geeky, glasses icon. You should be versed in Adobe Illustrator’s tools to complete this tutorial. You’ll learn how to take creative license and create an illustration that uses a photo reference, but differs a bit in the final design.

How to Create a Suitcase Icon in Adobe Illustrator

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a Suitcase Icon in Adobe Illustrator.

Create a Jeans Pocket Icon Using Adobe Illustrator

In this tutorial you will learn how to Create a Jeans Pocket Icon Using Adobe Illustrator.

Create simple but effective Weather Icons in adobe illustrator

In this tutorial you will learn how to Create a simple but effective Weather Icons in adobe illustrator.

How to Create a Clean Style Folder Icon

In this tutorial you will learn how to Create a Clean Style Folder Icon.

Create an Anti-War Icon Using Adobe Illustrator

In this tutorial you will learn how to Create an Anti-War Icon Using Adobe Illustrator.

Create a Nice Award Medal Icon

In this tutorial you will learn how to Create a Nice Award Medal Icon.

Create a Safe Icon in Adobe Illustrator

In this tutorial you will learn how to Create a Safe Icon in Adobe Illustrator.

How to Create a Simple 3D Lollipop Icon

In this tutorial you will learn how to Create a Simple 3D Lollipop Icon.

Create a Super Glue and a Paint Tube Icon

In this tutorial you will learn how to Create a Super Glue and a Paint Tube Icon.

Create a Wallet Icon

In this tutorial artist will show you how to create a nice wallet icon. Give it and you will learn how to use built in patterns to create a nice textile texture or how to create a sewed effect using dashed stroke along with some basic Illustrator tools and techniques.

Create a Band-Aid Icon

Here is another simple tutorial on how to create a band-aid icon. You start with a simple rectangle and some warp effects. After you expand this shape you will use a linear gradient, a nice pattern and a strokes. Finally, using basic tools and some simple effects you will create the smaller components.

Create a Simple Coin Stack Icon

In this tutorial you will learn how to Create a Simple Coin Stack Icon.

Create a Google Buzz Icon

Here you will learn how to Create a Google Buzz Icon.

Create a Simple Trunk Icon

In this tutorial you will learn how to Create a Simple Trunk Icon.

How to make a realistic vintage typewriter in Illustrator

In this tutorial you will learn how to make a realistic vintage typewriter in Illustrator

How to Make a Detailed Printer Icon Using Illustrator

In this icon design tutorial, we will construct a desktop printer icon that is rich in detail. We will use the industry-standard vector illustration tool: Adobe Illustrator. The icon we will make is from our Perspective general icon set. Ready? Perhaps you should serve yourself a cup of coffee and grab a bag of chips to pass the hunger while we draw our icon (it could take a while to finish)!

Syringe Icon Tutorial

Here you will learn how to Create a Syringe Icon.

Simple Paint Brush Icon

Here you will learn how to Create Simple Paint Brush Icon.

How to Create a Simple Cardboard Box Icon

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a simple cardboard box icon.

Create a Safe Icon in Adobe Illustrator

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a Safe Icon in Adobe Illustrator.

Make a Headphones Icon Using Adobe Illustrator

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a realistic image of headphones using simple and understandable techniques. It turns out that to get a good result there is no need to do it in a complex way. This tutorial is easy for any beginner to complete.

Vector Retro Television

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to make a stylish retro television in Adobe Illustrator. You will learn how to draw basic shapes, modify them and apply gradient and gradient mesh for more realism. Hope you enjoy this illustrator tutorial.

How To Create a Colorful Logo Style Icon

In this tutorial we will learn how to build the graphic in Illustrator using a range of tools and techniques.

Create A Sleek Bevel Styled Icon With Just a Few Illustrator Tools

Here you will learn how to Create A Sleek Bevel Styled Icon With Just a Few Illustrator Tools.

Simple Skull Vector Icon

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a simple skull vector icon.

Create a vector stop watch icon

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a vector stop watch icon in Adobe Illustrator. The tutorial is covering all the steps needed to create a great looking, realistic stop watch. Only the basic tools in Illustrator such as Ellipse, Rectangle, Gradient and transformations are used to achieve the result you see here.

Create a Simple Storefront Icon

In this tutorial artist will show you how to create a simple storefront icon using some rectangles, Illustrator Effects, and gradients. This icon is great for use in e-commerce sites and the techniques in this tutorial can easily be applied to other icons, illustrations, and logos.

Creating a Money Roll Icon

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a Money Roll Icon.

Vector coffee cup tutorial Illustrator

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a Vector coffee cup tutorial Illustrator.

Create a Tasty Burger Icon in Illustrator

In this delicious tutorial artist will show you how to create a three-dimensional, scrumptious burger using Adobe Illustrator. Remember that I’m a vegetarian, so you should definitely appreciate the effort!

Design a Stylish Wallet Icon in Illustrator

In this simple tutorial artist will show you how to create the wallet icon from my Women’s Icons using Adobe Illustrator CS4.

create a yummy vector cupcake

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a yummy vector cupcake.

Windows 7 icon with Illustrator

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a Windows 7 icon with Illustrator.

How to Create a Vector Smiley Icon

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a Vector Smiley Icon.

Create a Stylized GPS Icon

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a Stylized GPS Icon.

Related posts:

1. 50 Excellent and Useful Adobe Illustrator Tutorials
2. 150 Useful Adobe Photoshp Web Design Layout Tutorials and Techniques
3. A Round-Up of 50 Amazing and Fresh Photoshop Tutorials

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Today, we’ll learn how to create a simple but effective anaglyph illustration.

Before we begin, I suggest you buy a pair of 3-D glasses or read this guide on how to create your own.

We’ve included the Photoshop and Illustrator files at the bottom of this post; download them to explore more.

If you follow this tutorial to create your own anaglyph, please share your results and experience with us in the comments.

Step 1

First, open Adobe Illustrator and create an A4 canvas (21 × 29.7 cm or 8.27 × 11.69 inches).

Step 2

Create two circles using the Ellipse tool (the shortcut is L). Draw an elliptical shape on the bottom and a perfect circle above it (holding Shift + L will make it proportional).

Step 3

Use the Pen tool (P) to create the fuse. To get square shapes using the Pen tool, hold Option/Alt and click on the point on the curve that you want to turn into a vertex.

Step 4

To create the flame, just repeat the same procedure. Practice drawing round and square shapes with the Pen tool; with time, it will get easier.

Step 5

Now let’s add some color to our little bomb. Select the circle and bottom of the fuse using the Selection tool (V), and go to the Gradient panel. Let’s create a radial gradient that fades from white to black, using a perfect white (C:0, M:0, Y:0, K:0) and perfect black (C:0, M:0, Y:0, K:100).

Using the Gradient tool (G), position the gradients as shown below. And add a 10-point black stroke to both, which should give you something like this:

Step 6

Let’s add some plain color to the fuse. Select it and choose a dark yellow (C:36, M:46, Y:100, K:10), with no strokes.

Step 7

Select the flame shape using the Selection tool (V). And in the Gradient panel, set a classic flame gradient, using some yellow (C:5, M:0, Y:90, K:0), orange (C:0, M:90, Y:85, K:0) and brown (C:15, M:100, Y:90, K:79).

Don’t forget: unless it’s a radial gradient, it will not look as soft as we want. Using the Gradient tool (G), place it as in the screenshot below:

Step 8

Remember the first ellipse we did in the beginning? Select it, and choose a total black fill.

Now got to Effect → Blur → Gaussian Blur, and set a radius of 40 pixels.

You should get this shadowing:

Step 9

Now let’s create some reflections. Using the Pen tool (P), draw this shape with a white fill:

Open the Gradient panel, and create a white gradient with a transparency. Just set the opacity of one of the colors to 0% to get this effect:

Open the Transparency panel, and set the opacity of the two shapes to 50%.

Our bomb is done. Now let’s create the anaglyph effect.

Step 10

Open Adobe Photoshop and create a 550 × 550-pixel canvas, with a 72 DPI.

Step 11

Copy the bomb from Illustrator (Command/Control + C), and paste it in Photoshop (Command/Control + V). Pasting it as a Smart Object is better because you will be able to scale it without it looking pixelated.

Step 12

Create a simple gray-to-black gradient background using the Gradient tool (G).

Step 13

By clicking on the bomb layer using the Selection tool (V), you can select only the shape of the bomb, which is quite useful when you need to work with only this space.

Step 14

Let’s create a new layer (Command/Control + Shift + N). With the bomb selected, go to the Color panel and choose a blood red (R:255, G:0, B:0). Using the Paintbucket tool (G: it’s in the same place as the Gradient tool — just hold your mouse over it), fill the entire selected area.

Step 15

Go to the Layers panel, and duplicate the original bomb layer by pressing Command/Control + J. Then, group this new layer with the red shape layer, and call the group “Red.”

Step 16

Select the red shape layer. In the Blending Modes panel, choose the one called “Screen.” You should get this result:

Step 17

Let’s repeat the same procedure of creating a new layer, filling it with color, duplicating the bomb layer, creating a group (“Blue”) and blending the color layer with the bomb layer. This time, though, use a light blue (R:0, G:240, B:255).

Step 18

Pay attention to these next steps, or else you might not achieve the 3-D effect. First, select the group “Red,” and open the Blending Modes panel. Select the one called “Multiply.” Repeat this procedure with the “Blue” group. Your image should have gotten a bit darker.

Step 19

Using the Selection tool (V) move the “Red” group gently to the left and the “Blue” group to the right; not too much, just a bit so that they are out of the center. This will create a depth effect, so put on your 3-D glasses to see if it works.

Step 20

Let’s try some depth effects. Group all of the layers (Command/Control + G), and name it bomb_1. Duplicate the group, and call the second one bomb_2.

Using the Free Transform tool (Command/Control + T), resize bomb_2 and flip it horizontally (right-click while using the Free Transform tool). Place this group behind the first one. You should get this, the final result:

The result

I hope you had a great time following this tutorial and that you learned a bit about how to create anaglyph images. There are a lot of other ways to achieve this effect; this is just a introduction. Keeping working hard, and please share your results with us.

Written by Marcos Torres. He is a Brazilian illustrator and art director who works for a marketing agency and for Abduzeedo as a tutorial designer. You can see more of his work by accessing his website or by following him on Twitter.

So, what were your results from following this tutorial?

If you find an exclusive RSS freebie on this feed or on the live WDD website, please use the following code to download it: s2MX9m

Vivid Icon Set – 240 High Quality Icons for just $18

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Today, we’ll learn how to create a simple but effective anaglyph illustration.

Before we begin, I suggest you buy a pair of 3-D glasses or read this guide on how to create your own.

We’ve included the Photoshop and Illustrator files at the bottom of this post; download them to explore more.

If you follow this tutorial to create your own anaglyph, please share your results and experience with us in the comments.

Step 1

First, open Adobe Illustrator and create an A4 canvas (21 × 29.7 cm or 8.27 × 11.69 inches).

Step 2

Create two circles using the Ellipse tool (the shortcut is L). Draw an elliptical shape on the bottom and a perfect circle above it (holding Shift + L will make it proportional).

Step 3

Use the Pen tool (P) to create the fuse. To get square shapes using the Pen tool, hold Option/Alt and click on the point on the curve that you want to turn into a vertex.

Step 4

To create the flame, just repeat the same procedure. Practice drawing round and square shapes with the Pen tool; with time, it will get easier.

Step 5

Now let’s add some color to our little bomb. Select the circle and bottom of the fuse using the Selection tool (V), and go to the Gradient panel. Let’s create a radial gradient that fades from white to black, using a perfect white (C:0, M:0, Y:0, K:0) and perfect black (C:0, M:0, Y:0, K:100).

Using the Gradient tool (G), position the gradients as shown below. And add a 10-point black stroke to both, which should give you something like this:

Step 6

Let’s add some plain color to the fuse. Select it and choose a dark yellow (C:36, M:46, Y:100, K:10), with no strokes.

Step 7

Select the flame shape using the Selection tool (V). And in the Gradient panel, set a classic flame gradient, using some yellow (C:5, M:0, Y:90, K:0), orange (C:0, M:90, Y:85, K:0) and brown (C:15, M:100, Y:90, K:79).

Don’t forget: unless it’s a radial gradient, it will not look as soft as we want. Using the Gradient tool (G), place it as in the screenshot below:

Step 8

Remember the first ellipse we did in the beginning? Select it, and choose a total black fill.

Now got to Effect → Blur → Gaussian Blur, and set a radius of 40 pixels.

You should get this shadowing:

Step 9

Now let’s create some reflections. Using the Pen tool (P), draw this shape with a white fill:

Open the Gradient panel, and create a white gradient with a transparency. Just set the opacity of one of the colors to 0% to get this effect:

Open the Transparency panel, and set the opacity of the two shapes to 50%.

Our bomb is done. Now let’s create the anaglyph effect.

Step 10

Open Adobe Photoshop and create a 550 × 550-pixel canvas, with a 72 DPI.

Step 11

Copy the bomb from Illustrator (Command/Control + C), and paste it in Photoshop (Command/Control + V). Pasting it as a Smart Object is better because you will be able to scale it without it looking pixelated.

Step 12

Create a simple gray-to-black gradient background using the Gradient tool (G).

Step 13

By clicking on the bomb layer using the Selection tool (V), you can select only the shape of the bomb, which is quite useful when you need to work with only this space.

Step 14

Let’s create a new layer (Command/Control + Shift + N). With the bomb selected, go to the Color panel and choose a blood red (R:255, G:0, B:0). Using the Paintbucket tool (G: it’s in the same place as the Gradient tool — just hold your mouse over it), fill the entire selected area.

Step 15

Go to the Layers panel, and duplicate the original bomb layer by pressing Command/Control + J. Then, group this new layer with the red shape layer, and call the group “Red.”

Step 16

Select the red shape layer. In the Blending Modes panel, choose the one called “Screen.” You should get this result:

Step 17

Let’s repeat the same procedure of creating a new layer, filling it with color, duplicating the bomb layer, creating a group (“Blue”) and blending the color layer with the bomb layer. This time, though, use a light blue (R:0, G:240, B:255).

Step 18

Pay attention to these next steps, or else you might not achieve the 3-D effect. First, select the group “Red,” and open the Blending Modes panel. Select the one called “Multiply.” Repeat this procedure with the “Blue” group. Your image should have gotten a bit darker.

Step 19

Using the Selection tool (V) move the “Red” group gently to the left and the “Blue” group to the right; not too much, just a bit so that they are out of the center. This will create a depth effect, so put on your 3-D glasses to see if it works.

Step 20

Let’s try some depth effects. Group all of the layers (Command/Control + G), and name it bomb_1. Duplicate the group, and call the second one bomb_2.

Using the Free Transform tool (Command/Control + T), resize bomb_2 and flip it horizontally (right-click while using the Free Transform tool). Place this group behind the first one. You should get this, the final result:

The result

I hope you had a great time following this tutorial and that you learned a bit about how to create anaglyph images. There are a lot of other ways to achieve this effect; this is just a introduction. Keeping working hard, and please share your results with us.

Written by Marcos Torres. He is a Brazilian illustrator and art director who works for a marketing agency and for Abduzeedo as a tutorial designer. You can see more of his work by accessing his website or by following him on Twitter.

So, what were your results from following this tutorial?

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Adobe Illustrator is one very useful program for creating vector artwork. The tools and features available in Illustrator make it easy to create digital illustrations, whether from scratch or by tracing a photograph.

But this is not all Illustrator can do. Businesses can create impressive graphs using Illustrator’s Graph tools. Marketers can use the impressive Type tool and other type features to design single-page ads. Designers create logos and other marketing graphics that need to be scalable in Illustrator. In short, Illustrator is a comprehensive vector program that is difficult to master.

The aim of this article is to provide one more resource for those of you yearning to learn more about Illustrator. We’ll look at one of the less-mentioned features: the Warp tools, also known as the ‘Liquify tools’.

For you Photoshop gurus, these are similar to Photoshop’s Liquify tool, except that the Liquify effects seen in Photoshop are broken down in Illustrator into seven different tools: Warp, Twirl, Pucker, Bloat, Scallop, Crystallize and Wrinkle. These seven tools are all a part of Illustrator’s Liquify package.

At first glance, some of these tools may look the same, but each has a special effect. And we’ll explore the various effects by creating an ornamental illustration involving branches, vines and flowers. You’ll be able to save and add each of the design elements to your collection of Illustrator symbols as well.

So, open up Illustrator, and get ready to dive into a learning experience that is sure to improve your logos, illustrations, posters and more.

Accessing The Tools

In versions CS to CS4, the Liquify tools are located in the toolbar directly below the Rotate tool and above the Live Paint Bucket tool. In Illustrator CS5, the Warp tools are in the same location but now underneath the new Width tool.

Simply click and hold the Width tool to view a pop-out menu of the seven Liquify tools. Then release your mouse over the tool you want to use. Or simply use the keyboard shortcut Shift + R to access the basic Warp tool.

To keep the Warp tools handy, click on the “Tearoff” arrow to the right of the pop-out box. This will detach the tools from the toolbar so that you can access them much more easily while working.

Basic Use

Before diving into a design project, you will need to know some of the usability features of the Liquify tools. For instance, all of the tools can be used to warp an object inward or outward, as shown in the image below (created using the Bloat tool). When creating an inward warp, you need to start with the crosshairs outside of the path. The opposite goes for an outward warp: keep the crosshairs inside of the path.

When using the tools, simply click once to reshape the image, as done with the Bloat tool above (this feature does not work with the basic Warp tool). Or drag the tool across the image for a more dramatic effect, as in the following example, done with the Twirl tool:

For better results along paths, make sure that the crosshair icon in the center of your brush is on the path that you want to reshape when clicking on the object. This will ensure that the brush selects the actual path, rather than having more of a pushing effect against the path.

To open the “Options” box and change the settings for a Warp tool at any time, simply double-click the tool’s icon:

All of the tools have the same basic brush dimension options, which include width, height, angle and intensity. Basically, the width and height options change the shape of the brush; although, a quicker way to adjust the brush’s shape is to hold down Option/Alt while dragging the mouse across the screen. (And hold down Shift + Option/Alt to keep the dimensions of the brush proportional.)

The angle option adjusts the angle of the brush. For instance, if your brush is an oval shape, it would be angled to the left at 120° and to the right at -120°.

The intensity option, of course, adjusts how much of a change each stroke makes. If you want more control, select a lower number. If you want a dramatic change, select a higher number. If you are using a pressure-sensitive tablet device, the “Pressure Pen” option lets you control the intensity with the pressure of your pen on the tablet.

The lower half of the “Options” box contains adjustments specific to the reshaping brush you have selected. Many of the tools include “Detail” and “Simplify,” but the Twirl, Pucker, Crystallize and Wrinkle tools include several other options as well, covered in more detail later. Keep in mind that the best way to learn each Warp tool is to play around with the options yourself.

Using Warp, Twirl And Wrinkle To Create Vines

The Warp, Twirl and Wrinkle tools do an amazing job of creating wood grain and branch or vine shapes. The easiest way to do this is to create a brown rectangle and then fill it with lines. You can either use the Line Segment tool to create and duplicate line patterns in a slightly darker brown than the rectangle background, or follow the easy tutorial on creating a wood grain texture from VecTips.

Double-click on the Warp tool and change the width to 50 points, the height to 50 points and the intensity to 30%. This is the basic and most well-known of the Liquify tools, but maybe only because it is first in the menu. With this tool, you have to move the mouse to make changes; simply clicking in one spot does not reshape an object.

To get a glimpse of how this particular tool works, drag the Warp tool across the top of the rectangle, while ever so slightly shaking it up and down. The Warp tools tend to distort if used too much, so if you do not like the effect created, hit Ctrl + Z to erase moves and try again. Keep sweeping the Warp tool across the rectangle in small sections until you have created lines that look like wood grain:

Tip: If you followed the technique of creating individual lines, go to Object → Path → Join before moving on to the next step.

Now for the fun part: creating a vine to save as a symbol. Double-click on the Twirl tool to see its settings. In addition to the settings for the regular Warp tool, you will notice a “Twirl Rate” option. This affect how fast or slow, as well as which direction, the tool turns in a circular motion. A negative number will twirl the tool clockwise; a positive number will turn it counter-clockwise.

Use the settings in the image above, and then click on each corner of the rectangle. Make sure the crosshairs stay on the outside of the rectangle. The Twirl Rate is set to make the tool turn counterclockwise; but rather than opening up “Options” every time you need to change the direction, use the hot key: Option/Alt. Make sure, though, to click first and then hit the hot key, or else Illustrator will think that you are trying to change the brush size rather than the direction of the twirl.

The best part of the Twirl tool is its ability to produce many unique shapes. If you want, you could go crazy twirling the tool across the entire page. Create something like the graphic below by changing the intensity to 50% and the twirl rate to 50. Then start in the upper-left corner of the wood, and drag the tool up and down the graphic; then swipe it once briefly horizontally across the center. Results will vary depending on your motions.

Or you could be more controlled with your movements using Twirl and create vine-like branches, like the ones below. To get a similar look, use the same settings that you used to create the four twirled corners of the wood piece; only make the brush smaller by holding Shift + Option/Alt and clicking and dragging your mouse across the screen. Change the size to create different-sized branches. Now click along the edges wherever you think a small branch should be. Remember to hit Option/Alt after clicking the mouse to change the direction of the twirl.

Vines are not perfectly circular, though, so add some character to each one by clicking it with the Twirl tool, again changing the brush size as needed.

The Warp tool is excellent for molding shapes, which is exactly what this ornamental branch needs at this stage of the process. Double-click on the Warp tool, and change the width and height to 50 points and the intensity to 50%. Then, start pushing the brush against any sharp or straight edges. You can also pull out some of the edges or pull on a few twirled vines.

You may want to play around with the Warp tool to see just how far you can stretch graphics. Change the intensity to 100%, and start stretching and pulling on branches. You may get something like the following:

Now double-click on the Wrinkle tool. You’ll notice that this tool comes with extra settings. The “Horizontal” and “Vertical” settings control the direction of the wrinkles. When working on a complex image with multiple anchor points, you may want to select “Brush Affects In/Out Tangent Handles,” rather than “Brush Affects Anchor Points,” to limit the effects of the tool. To add a slight texture to the smooth parts of the ornamental wood design, use the following settings:

The longer you hold the Wrinkle tool, the more it will wrinkle the image. You can create something like the following texture by dragging the tool across the smoother sections of the graphic, making sure the crosshairs of the cursor are close to the edges to be wrinkled.

You may notice that the Wrinkle tool works almost like sound waves and creates some really interesting effects. Change the intensity to 100%, and drag the tool across the entire design. Now your branches will look almost mossy, or at least tangled with vines.

Using Pucker, Scallop And Warp To Create Flowers

Here’s one easy way to create flowers. Start by creating an oval shape and filling it with a gradient. Then double-click on the Pucker tool, and change the intensity to 50%. Make the size slightly larger than the width of your oval but not as high. Then click and hold over the center of the oval until the sides come together in the middle.

If the brush is higher than the oval, then the entire shape will disappear because the Pucker tool draws points on a path together. Just as when you draw fabric together, however, the Pucker tool does not delete points of a path but simply gathers them together, shrinking the total area:

Now right-click on the puckered oval, go to Transform → Rotate, enter 90°, and hit “Copy.” Place this rotated copy over the first petal. With this petal selected, go to Transform → Rotate again, enter 45°, and hit “Copy.” Select this last petal, go to Transform → Rotate, and create a 90° copy. Now select the entire flower, right-click, and select “Group.” Right-click again, and select Transform → Scale. Set “Uniform Scale” to 50%, and hit “Copy.” Place this copy over the center of the larger flower, and “Group” the entire image again.

Select the Warp tool, and using an intensity of 30% and an appropriate size, sweep it across the petals to create a wilted look. If the center of the flower looks loose, then use the Scallop tool at an intensity of 30% or less and click once on the center. Make sure the size is no larger than the center petals. Create a few variations:

You may want to play around with the Pucker and Scallop tools to see the different effects they create. As mentioned, Pucker draws points together, and it will do so even when you are dragging the brush across an image. Below, the brush was dragged outward on five different sections of the flower, using an intensity of 100%.

The Scallop tool can create quite a variety of designs with its multiple settings. Keep in mind, though, that the higher the number for “Complexity” and “Detail,” the more the effect will just look like thick black strokes. The first flower below was created using a complexity of 5, detail of 10 and intensity of 30%. The second flower has a complexity and detail of 2 and an intensity of 30%; the scallops are much more noticeable. Increase the intensity to 100% and drag the brush counter-clockwise on the flower to create an image like the third flower below.

Using Bloat And Crystallize To Create Mossy Vines

The Bloat tool is similar to Warp in that it can be used to shape objects, except that it “bloats” outward or inward, almost as if someone put a magnifying glass up to the object and captured the resulting image.

Before selecting Bloat, draw a long rectangle, and fill it with a brown and green gradient. Double-click on the Bloat tool, and change the intensity to 50%. Click “OK,” and hold Shift + Option/Alt to give the tool about the same circumference as the width of the rectangle. Begin bloating the rectangle into a vine shape. You may want to start at each end first:

Continue shaping the vine with Bloat. Try long strokes across the length of the vine, both above and underneath. To create thinner lines, place the crosshairs of the brush outside of the paths to push against the shape. To make parts of the vine thicker, place the crosshairs on the inside of the image.

Further shape the vine with the Bloat tool, adding stubs by using a smaller brush size and dragging sections of the vine outward. You may want to change the intensity to 100% to create more dramatic strokes. Change the size of the brush as needed.

Although quite similar to the Scallop tool, the Crystallize tool is unique in that it creates more of a starburst effect, almost as if groups of crystals were bursting out of the image. You can use this effect to create fur for animal illustrations or to draw fungus (as you will be doing next).

Double-click on the Crystallize tool, and change the intensity to 100%. Click carefully on different areas of the inside of the vine, changing the size of the brush to create different looks. Notice the difference in effect from placing the brush closer or farther away from the edges. Remember to hit Ctrl + Z to erase brush strokes if needed. You can also click a few times on the outside of the vine using a smaller brush size to create more of a spiked effect:

Now change the intensity to 50%, and click on some of the “crystals” to grow more interesting fungus shapes. Try some clicking and dragging to elongate the crystals.

Create different vine shapes, add a few leaves, and then scale, rotate and reflect each piece. Put them all together to create your unique vine illustration, made using the entire Liquify tools collection.

In Conclusion

The Liquify tools in Adobe Illustrator are a hidden gem of sorts. Not many tips for them are available online, yet each tool can produce a unique warp effect, and all are exceedingly useful for various projects. Just remember that, as with most other tools, the best way to learn the Warp tools is to use them over and over and over. Play around with the settings for each one to see what amazing designs this incredible set of tools is really capable of. Then share what you have learned, or display your art for the online design community to enjoy!

(al) (il)

© Tara Hornor for Smashing Magazine, 2011.

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The logo style graphic we’ll be creating is made up of four colourfully striped ribbon style elements. The four pieces are interweaved to create a kind of pseudo Penrose Stairs type illustration. The addition of subtle gradients and shadows really helps bring the design to life by adding depth and a third dimension.

View the full size ribbon logo design

Create a new document in Adobe Illustrator and draw four squares on the artboard. Give each one a colour fill to create a simple colour palette. Here I’ve picked out a green, lilac, pink and grey colour.

Select the rectangle tool and click on the artboard. In the options window enter the dimensions of 5x5mm.

Copy the square (CMD+C) then paste in front (CMD+F). Hit enter on the keyboard to bring up the Move command and enter 5mm in the Horizontal field. Repeatedly press CMD+F and CMD+D to repeat these steps three more times.

Give each of the squares a colour fill according to the palette then stretch them by dragging the lower most handle vertically while holding Shift.

Hold the Shift key while rotating the object to 45 degrees. Copy and paste duplicates and carefully rotate and position them to form a square.

For the final shape we want one end to be tucked under the previous shape, but the other end over the top of the next shape. Shorten down shape and create the full edge from two pieces.

Carefully align the two pieces to give the impression of a single line, but send the last piece to the top of the stack with the CMD+Shift+] shortcut.

Toggle on Outline mode (CMD+Y) and zoom in to check the alignment of the elements. Make any necessary tweaks to overlap the lines exactly.

Make duplicates of the four colour swatches, then replace the fills with gradients. Colour pick samples from the original swatch, but adjust the gradient handles with light and darker tones.

Select all the objects with the same colour fill then use the Eyedropper tool to switch the solid colour for the gradient. Repeat this process for all four colours.

All the gradients are currently flowing horizontally, but we can adjust the angle manually with the Gradient tool. Select all the shapes on one edge then click and drag to set the gradient angle.

The subtle gradients are already bringing the design to life in comparison to the flat solid colours.

Elsewhere on the artboard create a rectangle at the dimensions of 20x5mm.

Give this new rectangle a gradient fill from black to transparent, then adjust the Transparency to Multiply at 30%.

Copy, rotate and position this new rectangle carefully into place where each edge intersects the next to create subtle shadows. This will help add depth and a touch of realism.

Use the same black to transparent fill to create a circle, but change the gradient from linear to radial.

Squash this circle down then position it underneath the main logo graphic to give the impression of a three dimensional scene. The logo now seems to be floating in space rather than being sat on a flat surface.

Our colourful ribbon graphic is now complete. Even though we didn’t have a live client for this project, hopefully the Illustrator tips and techniques will help you create great looking vector logos designs for your future clients.

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The original design that spurred this idea was based on the country of Canada, so for my own design I’ll base it on the text Great Britain. The dividing lines across the text follow the crude angles of the Union Jack design and two shades of each colour are used to add a range of tone.

View the full size text effect design

Open up Adobe Illustrator and type out the wording of your choice. Here I’m using the free yet pretty cool Nevis font.

Select the Line tool and begin drawing intersecting lines across the text. The Union Jack’s angles all cross in the centre, but for The Stars and Stripes you might want to use more horizontal lines with minimal vertical lines. Otherwise, if you’re creating a generic design, just go mad!

Select both text elements and convert them to outlines by pressing CMD+Shift+O. Then create a Compound Path using the shortcut CMD+8.

Draw a selection over the whole design, shift-click the words to remove them from the selection then make a Compound Path of all the lines.

Select both the lines and the text then click the Divide option from the Pathfinder palette. This will make cuts through the text wherever a lines passes over it.

Right click and select Ungroup, then select and delete the excess linework from around the eges of the wording.

Toggle on Outline Mode (CMD+Y) to see the otherwise invisible linework that is still present between each letter. Go through and delete anything outside of the letter outlines.

Give everything a thin 0.25pt white stroke to make each individual mosaic shape visible. If there are any really tiny shapes, merge them with their neighbours using the Pathfinder tool to create larger objects.

Use the colour picker to select light and dark tones of each colour in the flag. Here I’m using a photograph of the Union Jack.

Randomly select shapes across the design while holding the Shift key then replace their fills using the Eyedropper tool on the first colour swatch.

Continue the process with each colour in the palette, selecting random shapes from the mosaic until the majority of the design has a blue, red or white fill.

The flat colours look a little… flat, so make a duplicate and use the base colour to create gradients flowing to a lighter tone.

Select the first flat colour swatch then go to Select > Same > Fill Colour. Click the new gradient swatch with the Eyedropper tool to replace all the fills.

Repeat the process of replacing colours until the whole design is made up of gradient fills. The gradients really help bring the design to life with added depth over the flat colours.

Currently all the gradients are flowing in the same direction, so go through and adjust the angle of each shape with the Gradient tool to add variety to the design.

Switch over to Adobe Photoshop to finish off the design. There’s nothing we can’t do in Illustrator, but Photoshop tends to handle effects such as noise and shadows a little better. Fill the background with a cool blue gradient to harmonise with the blues in the text effect.

Add a touch of Noise using the Filter > Noise > Add Noise menu option. Just 2% will add enough to create a subtle noise texture.

Paste in the text effect design from Adobe Illustrator and give it a subtle Drop Shadow using Photoshop’s layer style effects.

CMD-Click the layer thumbnail of the text to load the selection and fill a new layer with white. Add a Noise filter of around 12% to this layer.

Change the blending mode of the noise layer to Multiply to render the white area transparent, then reduce the opacity until the noise provides a subtle texture to the text.

This finishes off our abstract geometric mosaic style text effect. The intersecting lines really makes for a cool looking design while the colours and gradients help lift the text from the screen.

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Here’s the simple vector cartoon robot character we’ll be making in this tutorial. It’s essentially made up of lots of basic shapes such as rectangles and circles, but we’ll bring it to life with varied stroke weights, gradient fills and subtle highlights.

Open up Adobe Illustrator and create a new document. Select the rectangle tool and draw the basic head shape and an antenna. Switch to the circle tool and add shapes to either end of the antenna. Press CMD+Shift+[ with the lower circle selected to send it underneath the rectangle.

Draw a circle to form an eye, then go to Object > Path > Offset Path. Enter 1.5mm in the Offset option field to create a slightly larger circle aligned exactly to the original.

Use a mix of basic shapes such as rectangles, circles and rounded rectangles to finish off the robot head with a range of features. Group pairs of elements like the eyes then align everything up centrally.

Add various buttons and dials to the body of the character with more basic shapes, keeping everything centered with the head.

Draw the basic outline of the hand with a large circle. Copy (CMD+C) and Paste in Front (CMD+F), then hold ALT and Shift while scaling the new circle down.

With both objects selected use the Subtract option from the Pathfinder pallete to punch out the smaller circle from the larger circle.

Draw a square, rotate it by 45 degrees then position it centrally over the circular ring. Toggle on Smart guides to make the alignment easy (CMD+U). Use the Pathfinder once again to punch out this square selection.

Select all the shapes that make up an arm, copy and paste in front. Go to Object > Transform > Reflect and select the Vertical option to flip the objects, then position them on the opposite side.

Even though we’ve only used standard tools with just a couple of custom shapes our robot is starting to look pretty cool!

Grab the Polygon tool and click and drag a shape onto the artboard. Before releasing the mouse increase or decrease the number of points to 5 with the keyboard cursor keys.

Align this pentagon exactly with the lower corners of the body rectangle. Toggle on Outline mode (CMD+Y) for a clear and precise view.

Draw a diagonal line running parallel to the lower half of the body with the line tool. Copy/Paste and flip the line and position the duplicate on the opposite side.

With both lines selected go to Object > Blend Make, then head back to Object > Blend > Blend Options. Change the Spacing to Specified Steps then alter the number to suit.

Finish off the robot with a couple more rectangles and heptagons as legs and feet, then clip off the bottom of the feet with a temporary rectangle along with the Pathfinder tool.

Draw a selection around all the shapes that make up the robot, copy and paste in front then click the Merge option from the pathfinder palette. Clear out the fill and bump up the stroke to 5pt aligned to the outside.

Go through each individual element and adjust the stroke weight according to its prominence in defining the profile of the character. Use 3pt for important objects like the head, 2pt for no-so-important elements and 1pt for the finer details.

Now we can begin to add some colour. Give each shape a colour fill. I’m using two tones of grey for the body parts, red for key areas and blue or yellow for buttons and dials.

To add a little more depth to the otherwise flat design, we can switch out the solid fills with cool gradients. Create swatches for each of your colour selections with a light-dark gradient tone and replace the fills. Adjust the angle of the gradients where necessary with the Gradient tool.

We can also add more depth by creating a series of subtle highlights. Copy and paste a duplicate of the antenna and fill it with white. Draw a temporary shape that cuts through the circle then clip out the shape with the Pathfinder palette.

Change the opacity of this clipped shape to around 20% to create a soft reflection which gives the impression of a shiny or glossy material.

Repeat the process for each shape across the robot’s body to add subtle light reflections to add more depth and a touch of realism to the design.

Finish off the design with a little shadow. Begin with a circle filled with a soft grey to transparent gradient.

Squash the shape down and position it under the robot’s feet. Use the shortcut CMD+Shift+[ to send the shadow to the bottom of the stack.

This leaves our cool retro style vector robot character complete. Even though it’s made from basic shapes and simple colour fills those varied line weights, gradients and highlights really help bring it to life and lift the character from the screen.

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Adobe Illustrator is a powerful tool that you can create fluffy, vague, sparkling, gelatinous, glossy, glittery, retro and revolutionary effects with. Creating a particular text effect in Illustrator is not that difficult now; thanks to the availability of huge number of tutorials that guide you through each step.

Here we have gathered a collection of around 50 amazingly helpful tutorials that let you create breathtaking typographic effects in Illustrator. Some of them also use Photoshop to give the text effect its fully refined look. Let’s have a look at this collection.

Text Effects in Illustrator

Create a Poster Theme Illustration in Illustrator
This following tutorial lets you create beautiful poster theme illustrations simply, using Adobe Illustrator.

How to Create a Neon Text Effect Using Adobe Illustrator
Create appealing and tempting neon text effects by using Gradient Mesh, 3D Modeling, Art Brushes and Transparency palette. Let’s begin!

How to Create Colorful Neon Text with Adobe Illustrator
This tutorial teaches you some quick tips on how to create a colorful neon text effect. In this tutorial, you will learn the use of thick font and the Round Any Corner Script to create letter shapes and other techniques to create neon text effect.

Creating a custom Font : Understanding the Dynamics of Blend Tool
This tutorial is designed to help you create a custom Font, while at the same time accepting the dynamics of the Blend Tool.

How to Create a Colorful, 3D Text Effect
This tutorial is shared here to let you learn the technique of creating some colorful and appealing 3D texts.

Create an Airport Time Table Type Effect
In this quick tutorial, you will learn to create an airport timetable text effect. Creating such an effect is ideal for websites, posters and even logos.

How to Create a 3D Sketch Text Effect
This tutorial lets you learn how you can play with the 3D options in Illustrator to create 3D letters while also transforming them into a sketch text. Add any color that you like as the transparency allows you to place it on any background.

Create a Jar Illustration and Splashy, Purple Text Effect
This tutorial walks you through creating a jar illustration with a splashy purple text effect. You will see how different layered shapes and opacities are used in this tutorial and how the paths and the Pathfinder tools are used to enhance the result and give your text dimension and style.

Create Colorful, Layered Paper Type in Illustrator
Let’s create some vividly colored illustrations with layered text and ribbons. Here, you will learn to use Illustrator effects expansively to optimize your work.

How To Create a Cool Chrome Text Effect in Illustrator
The following tutorial helps you get the skills required to create cool retro chrome text effects by using Illustrator. This tutorial teaches you all the steps from beginning to end.

How to Create a Retro Style Textured Logo
This tutorial helps you learn to create a retro vector seal logo by using Illustrator with Ryan Quintal. This extremely easy to follow tutorial lets you create an awesome final effect.

How to Create a Paper Style Alphabet using Illustrator 3D
With this, you will learn to create a paper style alphabet and the shadows of them by using 3D modeling. This tutorial is perfect for creating logo designs.

Create a Chalkboard Type Treatment
This tutorial lets you create amazing chalkboard type treatments by using some gradients, a bristle brush, and some freebies from Vector Mill.

Learn to Create a Variety of Script Lettering
This tutorial showcases three unique approaches to create different script lettering styles. The tutorial starts with a simple basic script and leads you to more advanced techniques.

How to Create an Entangled Lettering Illustration
Creating a perfect entangled lettering illustration is what you will learn in this tutorial. You can also learn casting shadows and highlighting through abstract color shapes.

Create a Variety of 3D Lettering Effects for Poster Design
This tutorial teaches you different techniques of creating simple 3D lettering effects in the context of poster design.

Create a Green Viscous Text Effect
This tutorial helps you learn the use of existing font and 3D tools of illustrator to add dimension and create a green viscous text effect.

How To Create a Simple Sticker Text Effect
This tutorial showcases the technique of using text and the Round Any Corner script to create a simple sticker effect. Such text effects can be used in graphics, including shapes and symbols.

Create a Furry Calligram in Illustrator
Here you will learn to create your own calligram by manipulating a typeface, rendering fur and by adding dog features and various details.

Learn to Create a Variety of Beveled Lettering
This tutorial is designed to teach you different techniques of creating beveled lettering styles. The tutorial starts with the least complex and moves on to the most polished and professional look.

Cool Typography with the Blend Tool in Illustrator
Here you will use Illustrator’s Blend tool first and then use Photoshop for some final retouches in order to create cool typography.

Create a Top Gun Badge on Illustrator
Here, you will see how to create a vector badge and then make it look more appealing by adding some features. Simple to execute.

Tron Legacy Tutorial
In this tutorial, you will use Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop and Cinema 4D. This is an interesting tutorial that helps you learn all three of these programs simultaneously.

Vintage Badge in Illustrator and Photoshop
In this tutorial you will see how to create a vintage badge by using Illustrator and Photoshop. Take a look!

Grungy 3D Text In Illustrator
Use Illustrator to create appealing grungy 3D text with some smart shadow techniques.

Create a Silky Ribbon Text Effect
This tutorial teaches you to use the Pen and Gradient tools in order to create a swirling ribbon text effect. You can also use this effect to create different shapes and scrolls.

How to Create a Glassy Text Effect in Illustrator
In this tutorial, you will see how to create a splendid glassy text effect by using Illustrator. Here you will learn some clever techniques to enhance your skills.

Create a Mummy Text Effect
This guide helps you give your text some classic mummy treatment by using a few gradients and the Appearance panel.

Create a Polished Raised-Type Treatment
Learn to create a polished, lifted-type treatment by using the Appearance panel, some gradients and transforms. You can also apply the treatment to other fonts and vector elements as well.

Create a Reusable Retro Type Treatment
Here you will see how to create retro type treatments by using some powerful Illustrator features and texture effects, Warp effects, and some simple layering.

Create a Glossy Smooth Text Effect
This guide lets you discover how to create a glossy smooth text effect by using multiple fills and strokes with various blending modes and different opacity settings.

3D Golden Text Effect
This tutorial will be great for beginners who want to create professional 3D text effects in Adobe illustrator. Here, you will see how to create text using 3D extrude and the techniques to clean up the broken shapes and then apply glow to the 3D text.

Golden Text with Diamonds
This tutorial showcases the use of the appearance palette and scatter brushes to create this stylized text with diamonds. Several other useful techniques will also be taught in this tutorial that will help you in your future endeavors. So let’s get started!

How to Add Decorative Glamour to Your Ordinary Script Font
Learn to add glamour to your ordinary scripts in simple to follow steps and add some extra sparkle to your ordinary font.

How to Make a Flesh Ripping Zombie Type Treatment
Follow the artist’s steps and create flesh ripping zombie characters and type treatments for this blood-curdling illustration.

Creating an Environmentally Friendly Green Type Treatment
This tutorial lets you create some cool and soothing environmentally friendly green type treatments that you can apply to your different projects.

How to Create Candy-Cane Typography With Photoshop and Illustrator
Learn how to craft some lip smacking Candy-Cane type by using Illustrator and Photoshop and create the appeal that you always wanted to harness.

How To Create Detailed Gothic Linework Typography
This step by step explanation demonstrates the design process for an amazing gothic typographic design.

Multi-Stroke Tips for Adobe Illustrator
In this tutorial, learn to add multiple strokes to objects in Illustrator using the Appearance panel.

Produce a Glowing Neon Open Sign Using Illustrator CS5
Here you will see how neon tubes are produced in the Illustrator world by simply altering a path and adding stroke colors with Gaussian blur. This will allow you to produce our own glowing neon open sign in Illustrator CS5.

Create a Bubble Text Effect
Use different tools such as Ellipse, Rectangle, Rectangular Grid and Twirl along with some basic effects to create this Bubble Text Effect.

Stylish text effect tutorial using Illustrator
Here you will see how to use Illustrator to create stylish and elegant text effects with a subtle vintage look that can be applied to any specific typeface.

Create a Simple Blood Text Effect
This is an extremely easy to follow tutorial that will teach you how you can create simple blood text effect.

Create a folded paper text effect
Create a simple folded paper text effect by watching this tutorial and also see how to improvise the final look.

Make Grunge Type with Live Trace and the Pathfinder
This tutorial aids you in creating a grunge type effect by simply creating a vector texture with Live Trace first and then applying it to the text.

How to Create a Piped Frosting Text
This tutorial will help you learn how to create a paste text effect. You will also learn the use of different tools to create the text effect that can be used to demonstrate a piped frosting effect.

How to Create a Gummy Text Effect
Here you will see how to use the Offset Path function and various other coloring techniques to create cool and cute gummy text effects.

How to Create a Zodiac Themed Graphic Style
This particular tutorial helps you learn the basic techniques to create a complex graphic style, using only the Appearance palette and commands from the Effect menu. This lets you create designs based on zodiac signs. Let’s get started!

How to Create Smoky Brushes and Type In Illustrator CS4
Here you will see how the smoky brushes and type are created in Illustrator. You will be amazed to see the realistic results.

You may also want to consider our previous posts:

• Vector Illustration: 60+ Illustrator Tutorials, Tips and Best Practices
• 80 Best-Of Adobe Illustrator Tutorials, Brushes, .EPSs and Resources
• 53 Killer Photoshop Illustrator Effects and Tutorials
• 50 Excellent 3D Adobe Illustrator Tutorials
• 50 Excellent Adobe Illustrator Video Tutorials

(rb)

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Today we will will go through creation process of a Medieval Knight Shield in Adobe Illustrator. We will try to create nice, shiny Shield that can be used as the website icon or a company  logo. Creation process is quite simple. All we have to do is to use simple shape as ellipse, to distort it a little bit and to combine it with other shapes. Beside that we will get the chance to play with nice metal gradients, trying to create an impression of the light reflection on the shiny metal.

In the end, our shield should look something like this:

Now let’s get down to work!

Combining Elements in Order to Create the Shape of the Shield

Set the new illustrator document in 500 x 500 pixels in size.

Grab the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel and create the ellipse.

To distort the ellipse grab the Direct Selection Tool (A) from the Tool Panel and click on the lower anchor point. Hit the down arrow key on the keyboard to nudge the anchor points downwards for the few pixels.

Select the Convert Anchor Point Tool ( Shift + C ) from the Tool Panel and click on the nudged anchor point. It will make a sharp corner.

Use the Add Anchor Point Tool (+) to add the anchor point as it shown on the picture below.

With the Direct Selection Tool (A) remove few anchor points. Set the Fill color to none and for the Stroke color chose any color you like.

Under the Object select Transform > Reflect. Set the Axis to Vertical and hit the Copy button. This way we will reflect the path we have just created.

Holding the Shift key on the keyboard move the reflected path to the right. With the Direct Selection Tool (A) select lower endpoints and under the right click hit Join.

Grab the Pen Tool ( P ) from the Tool Panel and close the path.

Grab the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel and create the ellipse. Place it as it shown on the picture below.

Select both objects and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Minus Front button.

We have to do the same thing to the right side. But instead to trying to do exact the same thing and to create symmetrical shield we will simple divide our object to half, remove the right side and reflect the left side.

Grab the Line Tool (/) from the Tool Panel and create the vertical line (hold the Shit key on the keyboard for straight dragging). Select both objects and align them under the Align Panel by hitting Horizontal Align Center. After that hit a Divide button under the Pathfinder Panel. It will divide the Shield exactly to half. Remove the right side of the Shield.

Under Object select Transform > Reflect. Set the Axis to Vertical and hit the Copy button. Move the reflected part to the right until the middle parts meet. Under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Unite button. It will create the final shape of our Shield.

Applying Gradients

Select the Shield and under the Object select Path > Offset Path. Set the value for Offset to -10. It will create the scaled copy of the Shield.

Let’s apply a nice metal linear gradient to our Shield. Under the Swatch Panel open the Swatch Library. You can find amazing source of the metal gradients. Chose one of them and apply it to our Shield. In case you don’t like them feel free to adjust some of those gradients or to create your own metal linear gradient.

Select the red shape and under the Object select Path > Offset Path. Set the value for Offset to 2.

Apply linear gradient to the new shape as well. It will represent the inner part of the metal frame,

and the red radial gradient for the color of the Shield.

Select the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel and create a small circle for the screw.

Scale it down and place it on the metal Part of the Shield. Duplicate the circle ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ), set the Fill color to #58595B, nudge it downwards for 1 pixel and send it backward ( Ctrl / Cmd + [ ). It will be a tiny shadows from the screw. Group the circles.

Duplicate ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ) the screw six more times in order to create enough of them for the entire Shield.

Creating Details

Roughly speaking, our Shield is done. At this point we have to try our best to improve the illustration as much as possible. First, we will create the reflection for the metal part of the Shield.

Select the largest part of the Shield and under Object select Path > Offset Path. Set the value for Offset to -1.

Select the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel and create a big ellipse. Place it as it shown on the picture below. Select the blue ellipse and the scaled shape of the Shield we’ve made in previous step and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Intersect button.

You should end up with something like this.

Select the inner part of the Shield, as it show on the picture below, and under the Object select Path > Offset Path. Set the value for Offset to 1.

Select the shape we have just created and the blue shape and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Exclude button.

Ungroup ( Shift / Ctrl + Cmd + G ) the new shape and remove the lower part. Apply the same gradient we have used for the larger part of the Shield. You should end up with something like this.

Now we will change the gradient a little bit. Make sure to set the lower part of the reflection to light gray color. It will create a nice illusion of light reflection.

Let’s do create a similar reflection for the red part of the Shield.

Grab the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel, create the ellipse and place it as it shown on the picture below.

Duplicate the red part of the Shield ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ) and holding the Shift key on the keyboard select the gray ellipse as well. Under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Intersect button.

Set the Fill color of the new shape to white (#FFFFFF) and lower the Opacity to 5%.

Duplicate ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ) twice the red shape. Scale them up and rotate both of them. Select them and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Minus Front button. Set the Fill color of the new shape to white (#FFFFFF). You should end up with something like this.

Create one more copy ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ) of the red part of the Shield. Select it together with the white shape we’ve created in previous step and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Intersect button.

Lower the Opacity of the new shape to 15%. Under the Object select Transform > Reflect. Set the Axis to Vertical and hit the Copy button. Move the reflected shape to the left and place it as it shown on the picture below.

There are many different shapes of the Medieval Shield you can create. Just feel free to be creative. Try out some other colors as well.

The Conclusion

There are many ways to create a nice shiny Medieval Shields. The great thing about creation process is that you can use different shapes and forms and to combine them in order to create nice Shields. Using the same technique try to create a Medieval Shield in perspective. Applying reflections, highlights and shadows will lead to professional look of the illustration. I hope you like this tutorial. If you have any questions or comments please post them in the comments section below. Thank you for following along!

(rb)

Go to Source

  

Today we will will go through creation process of a Medieval Knight Shield in Adobe Illustrator. We will try to create nice, shiny Shield that can be used as the website icon or a company  logo. Creation process is quite simple. All we have to do is to use simple shape as ellipse, to distort it a little bit and to combine it with other shapes. Beside that we will get the chance to play with nice metal gradients, trying to create an impression of the light reflection on the shiny metal.

In the end, our shield should look something like this:

Now let’s get down to work!

Combining Elements in Order to Create the Shape of the Shield

Set the new illustrator document in 500 x 500 pixels in size.

Grab the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel and create the ellipse.

To distort the ellipse grab the Direct Selection Tool (A) from the Tool Panel and click on the lower anchor point. Hit the down arrow key on the keyboard to nudge the anchor points downwards for the few pixels.

Select the Convert Anchor Point Tool ( Shift + C ) from the Tool Panel and click on the nudged anchor point. It will make a sharp corner.

Use the Add Anchor Point Tool (+) to add the anchor point as it shown on the picture below.

With the Direct Selection Tool (A) remove few anchor points. Set the Fill color to none and for the Stroke color chose any color you like.

Under the Object select Transform > Reflect. Set the Axis to Vertical and hit the Copy button. This way we will reflect the path we have just created.

Holding the Shift key on the keyboard move the reflected path to the right. With the Direct Selection Tool (A) select lower endpoints and under the right click hit Join.

Grab the Pen Tool ( P ) from the Tool Panel and close the path.

Grab the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel and create the ellipse. Place it as it shown on the picture below.

Select both objects and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Minus Front button.

We have to do the same thing to the right side. But instead to trying to do exact the same thing and to create symmetrical shield we will simple divide our object to half, remove the right side and reflect the left side.

Grab the Line Tool (/) from the Tool Panel and create the vertical line (hold the Shit key on the keyboard for straight dragging). Select both objects and align them under the Align Panel by hitting Horizontal Align Center. After that hit a Divide button under the Pathfinder Panel. It will divide the Shield exactly to half. Remove the right side of the Shield.

Under Object select Transform > Reflect. Set the Axis to Vertical and hit the Copy button. Move the reflected part to the right until the middle parts meet. Under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Unite button. It will create the final shape of our Shield.

Applying Gradients

Select the Shield and under the Object select Path > Offset Path. Set the value for Offset to -10. It will create the scaled copy of the Shield.

Let’s apply a nice metal linear gradient to our Shield. Under the Swatch Panel open the Swatch Library. You can find amazing source of the metal gradients. Chose one of them and apply it to our Shield. In case you don’t like them feel free to adjust some of those gradients or to create your own metal linear gradient.

Select the red shape and under the Object select Path > Offset Path. Set the value for Offset to 2.

Apply linear gradient to the new shape as well. It will represent the inner part of the metal frame,

and the red radial gradient for the color of the Shield.

Select the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel and create a small circle for the screw.

Scale it down and place it on the metal Part of the Shield. Duplicate the circle ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ), set the Fill color to #58595B, nudge it downwards for 1 pixel and send it backward ( Ctrl / Cmd + [ ). It will be a tiny shadows from the screw. Group the circles.

Duplicate ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ) the screw six more times in order to create enough of them for the entire Shield.

Creating Details

Roughly speaking, our Shield is done. At this point we have to try our best to improve the illustration as much as possible. First, we will create the reflection for the metal part of the Shield.

Select the largest part of the Shield and under Object select Path > Offset Path. Set the value for Offset to -1.

Select the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel and create a big ellipse. Place it as it shown on the picture below. Select the blue ellipse and the scaled shape of the Shield we’ve made in previous step and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Intersect button.

You should end up with something like this.

Select the inner part of the Shield, as it show on the picture below, and under the Object select Path > Offset Path. Set the value for Offset to 1.

Select the shape we have just created and the blue shape and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Exclude button.

Ungroup ( Shift / Ctrl + Cmd + G ) the new shape and remove the lower part. Apply the same gradient we have used for the larger part of the Shield. You should end up with something like this.

Now we will change the gradient a little bit. Make sure to set the lower part of the reflection to light gray color. It will create a nice illusion of light reflection.

Let’s do create a similar reflection for the red part of the Shield.

Grab the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel, create the ellipse and place it as it shown on the picture below.

Duplicate the red part of the Shield ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ) and holding the Shift key on the keyboard select the gray ellipse as well. Under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Intersect button.

Set the Fill color of the new shape to white (#FFFFFF) and lower the Opacity to 5%.

Duplicate ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ) twice the red shape. Scale them up and rotate both of them. Select them and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Minus Front button. Set the Fill color of the new shape to white (#FFFFFF). You should end up with something like this.

Create one more copy ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ) of the red part of the Shield. Select it together with the white shape we’ve created in previous step and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Intersect button.

Lower the Opacity of the new shape to 15%. Under the Object select Transform > Reflect. Set the Axis to Vertical and hit the Copy button. Move the reflected shape to the left and place it as it shown on the picture below.

There are many different shapes of the Medieval Shield you can create. Just feel free to be creative. Try out some other colors as well.

The Conclusion

There are many ways to create a nice shiny Medieval Shields. The great thing about creation process is that you can use different shapes and forms and to combine them in order to create nice Shields. Using the same technique try to create a Medieval Shield in perspective. Applying reflections, highlights and shadows will lead to professional look of the illustration. I hope you like this tutorial. If you have any questions or comments please post them in the comments section below. Thank you for following along!

(rb)

Go to Source

  

Today we will will go through creation process of a Medieval Knight Shield in Adobe Illustrator. We will try to create nice, shiny Shield that can be used as the website icon or a company  logo. Creation process is quite simple. All we have to do is to use simple shape as ellipse, to distort it a little bit and to combine it with other shapes. Beside that we will get the chance to play with nice metal gradients, trying to create an impression of the light reflection on the shiny metal.

In the end, our shield should look something like this:

Now let’s get down to work!

Combining Elements in Order to Create the Shape of the Shield

Set the new illustrator document in 500 x 500 pixels in size.

Grab the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel and create the ellipse.

To distort the ellipse grab the Direct Selection Tool (A) from the Tool Panel and click on the lower anchor point. Hit the down arrow key on the keyboard to nudge the anchor points downwards for the few pixels.

Select the Convert Anchor Point Tool ( Shift + C ) from the Tool Panel and click on the nudged anchor point. It will make a sharp corner.

Use the Add Anchor Point Tool (+) to add the anchor point as it shown on the picture below.

With the Direct Selection Tool (A) remove few anchor points. Set the Fill color to none and for the Stroke color chose any color you like.

Under the Object select Transform > Reflect. Set the Axis to Vertical and hit the Copy button. This way we will reflect the path we have just created.

Holding the Shift key on the keyboard move the reflected path to the right. With the Direct Selection Tool (A) select lower endpoints and under the right click hit Join.

Grab the Pen Tool ( P ) from the Tool Panel and close the path.

Grab the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel and create the ellipse. Place it as it shown on the picture below.

Select both objects and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Minus Front button.

We have to do the same thing to the right side. But instead to trying to do exact the same thing and to create symmetrical shield we will simple divide our object to half, remove the right side and reflect the left side.

Grab the Line Tool (/) from the Tool Panel and create the vertical line (hold the Shit key on the keyboard for straight dragging). Select both objects and align them under the Align Panel by hitting Horizontal Align Center. After that hit a Divide button under the Pathfinder Panel. It will divide the Shield exactly to half. Remove the right side of the Shield.

Under Object select Transform > Reflect. Set the Axis to Vertical and hit the Copy button. Move the reflected part to the right until the middle parts meet. Under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Unite button. It will create the final shape of our Shield.

Applying Gradients

Select the Shield and under the Object select Path > Offset Path. Set the value for Offset to -10. It will create the scaled copy of the Shield.

Let’s apply a nice metal linear gradient to our Shield. Under the Swatch Panel open the Swatch Library. You can find amazing source of the metal gradients. Chose one of them and apply it to our Shield. In case you don’t like them feel free to adjust some of those gradients or to create your own metal linear gradient.

Select the red shape and under the Object select Path > Offset Path. Set the value for Offset to 2.

Apply linear gradient to the new shape as well. It will represent the inner part of the metal frame,

and the red radial gradient for the color of the Shield.

Select the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel and create a small circle for the screw.

Scale it down and place it on the metal Part of the Shield. Duplicate the circle ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ), set the Fill color to #58595B, nudge it downwards for 1 pixel and send it backward ( Ctrl / Cmd + [ ). It will be a tiny shadows from the screw. Group the circles.

Duplicate ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ) the screw six more times in order to create enough of them for the entire Shield.

Creating Details

Roughly speaking, our Shield is done. At this point we have to try our best to improve the illustration as much as possible. First, we will create the reflection for the metal part of the Shield.

Select the largest part of the Shield and under Object select Path > Offset Path. Set the value for Offset to -1.

Select the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel and create a big ellipse. Place it as it shown on the picture below. Select the blue ellipse and the scaled shape of the Shield we’ve made in previous step and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Intersect button.

You should end up with something like this.

Select the inner part of the Shield, as it show on the picture below, and under the Object select Path > Offset Path. Set the value for Offset to 1.

Select the shape we have just created and the blue shape and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Exclude button.

Ungroup ( Shift / Ctrl + Cmd + G ) the new shape and remove the lower part. Apply the same gradient we have used for the larger part of the Shield. You should end up with something like this.

Now we will change the gradient a little bit. Make sure to set the lower part of the reflection to light gray color. It will create a nice illusion of light reflection.

Let’s do create a similar reflection for the red part of the Shield.

Grab the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel, create the ellipse and place it as it shown on the picture below.

Duplicate the red part of the Shield ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ) and holding the Shift key on the keyboard select the gray ellipse as well. Under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Intersect button.

Set the Fill color of the new shape to white (#FFFFFF) and lower the Opacity to 5%.

Duplicate ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ) twice the red shape. Scale them up and rotate both of them. Select them and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Minus Front button. Set the Fill color of the new shape to white (#FFFFFF). You should end up with something like this.

Create one more copy ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ) of the red part of the Shield. Select it together with the white shape we’ve created in previous step and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Intersect button.

Lower the Opacity of the new shape to 15%. Under the Object select Transform > Reflect. Set the Axis to Vertical and hit the Copy button. Move the reflected shape to the left and place it as it shown on the picture below.

There are many different shapes of the Medieval Shield you can create. Just feel free to be creative. Try out some other colors as well.

The Conclusion

There are many ways to create a nice shiny Medieval Shields. The great thing about creation process is that you can use different shapes and forms and to combine them in order to create nice Shields. Using the same technique try to create a Medieval Shield in perspective. Applying reflections, highlights and shadows will lead to professional look of the illustration. I hope you like this tutorial. If you have any questions or comments please post them in the comments section below. Thank you for following along!

(rb)

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Advertise here with BSA

A new resource for the design community has just launched called DesignTNT, it offers fantastic high quality premium design goodies such as: Vector art, Photoshop brushes, addons, textures, web design resources and design tutorials. And best of all? We have 20 monthly subscriptions (worth $19) to giveaway to our readers and followers. The subscription will give you unlimited downloads from the extensive DesignTNT’s products library.
All you have to do is leave a comment below telling us why you would like to win a subscription.

All About DesignTNT

DesignTNT is a fresh website where you can find premium design resources for all types of creative professionals.
Check out the design goodies you can find at DesignTNT:

• Addons – they have just the addons you need for your favorite software such as Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. Make your job a lot easier by using our presets, styles, actions and scripts.
• Brushes – here you can find an amazing library of PS brushes, from floral swirls to grunge and abstract, all top notch resources. You can use their PS brushes starting with CS version of Photoshop, so download and enjoy!
• Textures – improve your designs and save you time with ready to download and use textures! As a designer, you don’t always have the time to create your own textures. DesignTNT has an attractive collection of textures for you to use in your design projects.
• Tutorials – improve your skills and learn some new tricks to become a better designer! DesignTNT’s tutorials will give you some valuable tips and update your performance in using programs such as Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop among others.
• Vectors – save precious time on your design projects with the royalty free vector sets from DesignTNT! These vector resources are just what you need to create amazing artwork with less effort.
• Web – Save time and money in creating or updating your website with premium web resources! If you consider that your web presence is very important, then this is the right place to be!

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DesignTNT’s mission is to provide designers and creative professionals of all types with high quality resources they can’t find anywhere else, ALL IN ONE PLACE!

How to Enter

All you have to do is leave a comment below telling us why you would like to win a subscription. Only one comment per reader is allowed and the competition will run for the next 5 days ending on Monday the 18th of July. Winners will be chosen completely at random and will be contacted by email within 2-3 days of the competition ending.

Best of luck to everybody!

Advertise here with BSA

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Advertise here with BSA

Design TNT is a new resource website of design goodies which has just made its entrance into the design industry. The website was launched Yesterday (Jul, 11) and is already getting lots of attention. Design TNT’s mission is to provide all designers out there with high quality resources – all in one place!

And today we are happy to announce a giveaway to help our readers gain access to this new resource! We will give away 10 one month pro access to Design TNT!

How to enter

• Retweet the contest link and post the URL to your tweet in the comments area (To get the URL of your tweet, sign in to Twitter, click Profile and locate your tweet. Then click on the time stamp link of the tweet and you’ll be redirected to the URL of that tweet).
• One entry per person
• 10 random winners will be selected on July 18, 2011

Here are the awesome categories of products you can find at DesignTNT:

Addons – they have just the addons you need for your favorite software such as Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. Make your job a lot easier by using our presets, styles, actions and scripts.

Brushes – here you can find an amazing library of PS brushes, from floral swirls to grunge and abstract, all top notch resources. You can use their PS brushes starting with CS version of Photoshop, so download and enjoy!

Textures - improve your designs and save you time with ready to download and use textures! As a designer, you don’t always have the time to create your own textures. DesignTNT has an attractive collection of textures for you to use in your design projects.

Tutorials - improve your skills and learn some new tricks to become a better designer! DesignTNT’s tutorials will give you some valuable tips and update your performance in using programs such as Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop among others.

Vectors - save precious time on your design projects with the royalty free vector sets from DesignTNT! These vector resources are just what you need to create amazing artwork with less effort.

Web - Save time and money in creating or updating your website with premium web resources! If you consider that your web presence is very important, then this is the right place to be!

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Today we will be learning how to create a cute circus tent in Adobe Illustrator. Get ready to use some basic tools such as Pen Tool and some quite useful Pathfinder features. We will create colorful balloons and flowers as well. The illustration can be used for multiply purpose such as Birthday invitations, Circus posters, etc.

Let us move from words to deeds!

This is what we’ll be creating.

Creating the Lower Part of the Circus Tent

Create a new Illustrator document with 500 x 500 pixels in size.

For the start, grab the Pen Tool (P) from the Tool Panel and create the path as it shown on the picture below.

Holding the Alt key on the keyboard select the path and move it to the right. Don’ t forget to hold the Shift key for the straight dragging. This way we will create the copy of the path. You should end up with something like this.

Select the Pen Tool (P) again and click on the end points of these paths in order to create a shape like this.

Select the Add Anchor Point Tool (+) and add the anchor point as it shown on the picture below.

We need to nudge this anchor point few pixels downwards. To do that select the anchor point we’ve just created with Direct Selection Tool (A) and hit the down arrow key on the keyboard.

Let’s create a nice arc. Grab the Convert Anchor Point Tool ( Shift + C ) from the Tool Panel, click on the new anchor and drag it to right. Don’t forget to hold the Shift key on the keyboard for straight dragging.

Creating the Stripes

Let’s create nice stripes for the tent.

Grab the Pen Tool (P) from the Tool Panel and create the path as it shown on the picture below.

We have to create the copy of this path. Hold the Alt key on the keyboard and click on the path. Holding the Shift key on the keyboard (for straight dragging) move the copy to the right.

Select both paths and under the Object select Blend > Make.

Under the Blend Options set the Spacing to Specified Steps and the value to 3.

Under the Object select Expand and Ungroup ( Shift + Ctrl / Cmd + G ) the paths. Select all the elements we’ve created so far and under the Pathfinder Panel hit Divide button.

Ungroup ( Shift + Ctrl / Cmd + G ) the shape we have created. We will apply nice linear gradients to the stripes.

We will do the same for white stripes.

Now we will create a folded part of the tents side. Grab the Line Tool (/) from the Tool Panel and create the line as it shown on the picture below.

Select the white strip and the line and under the Pathfinder Panel hit Divide button.

Ungroup ( Shift + Ctrl / Cmd + G ) divided strip and rotate the small part for 135 degrees.  You should end up with something like this.

We have to adjust a bit the folded part. To do that grab the Direct Selection Tool (A) from the Tool Panel and adjust the position of the anchor points and angle of the handles.

With the linear gradient we will create an illusion of curled side of the tent.

Select all the elements we have created so far an Group them ( Ctrl / Cmd + G ). Under the Object select Transform > Reflect. Set Axis to Vertical and hit the Copy button. It will create an mirror image. Just move it to the right as it shown on the picture below.

Group ( Ctrl / Cmd + G ) all the elements.

Creating the Upper Part of the Tent

Now we have to create the upper part of the tent. Grab the Pen Tool (P) from the Tool Panel and create the path as it shown on the picture below.

Under the Object select Transfer > Reflect. For the Axis select Vertical and hit the Copy button. Place the copy on the right side. Select both paths and Group ( Ctrl / Cmd + G ) them. Select all the the objects and under the Align Panel hit the Horizontal Align Center.

Grab the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel and create the ellipse.

Now we will have to add and to remove some anchor points. Select the Add Anchor Point Tool (+) from the Tool Panel and add two anchor points to the ellipse.

Grab the Direct Selection Tool (A) from the Tool Panel, select anchor points we don’t need and hit Delete key on the keyboard.

Withe Direct Selection Tool (A) select endpoints and under the right click hit the Join. Do that for the both sides of the upper part of the tent.

With the Pen Tool (P) close the path.

Let’s create red and white stripes for the upper part of the circus tent as well.

Duplicate ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ) the green shape twice. Move one of the copy upwards.

Select both copies we have made and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Intersect button.

Grab the Line Tool (/) from the Tool Panel and create a Vertical line. Hold the Shift key on the keyboard for the straight dragging.

Grab the Rotate Tool ( R ) from the Tool Panel, hold the Alt key on the keyboard and click right above the vertical line.

The Rotation Option dialog will pop up. Set the value for the Angle to 15 degrees.

Hit the Copy button. It will create another line rotated for 15 degrees. To create more of those lines press the shortcut Ctrl / Cmd + D on the keyboard  22 times. It will create the whole round of lines.

Remove unnecessary lines. Select green shape and the rest of the lines and under the Pathfinder Panel hit Divide button.

Ungroup the new shape and apply red and white gradients, just like we did before. Use the same gradients we’ve used for the lower part of the tent.

Set the Fill color of the blue shape to white (#FFFFF). Under the Object select Path > Offset Path. Set the value for Offset to -5. Set the Fill color of the smaller shape to #F1F2F2.

Grab the Pen Tool (P) from the Tool Panel and try to draw the shape as it shown on the pictures below.

Select all the elements of the upper part of the tent (except the green shape) and send it to front ( Shift + Ctrl / Cmd +] ).

Select only red and white stripes (as it shown on the picture below) and duplicate them ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ). Under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Unite button.

Select the shape we have just created and the green shape and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Minus Front button.

Ungroup ( Shift + Ctrl / Cmd + G ) the green shape and apply the same white and red gradients we have already used.

Grab the Pen Tool (P) from the Tool Panel and draw the path as it shown on the picture below.

Creating the Flag

Grab the Rounded Rectangle Tool from the Tool Panel and create a tiny rectangle. Apply linear gray gradient.

We will create the shape of the flag with Pencil Tool (N), but first we have to set parameters for smooth line. With double click on the Pencil Tool icon in the Tool Panel we will bring up the Pencil Tool Options. Set the Fidelity to 2.5 and the Smoothness to 100%. Hit the OK button.

Select the Pencil Tool (N) from the Tool Panel and create a curved line as it shown on the picture below. Don’t worry much about the shape. Just try to create a smooth waves.

Duplicate the path ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ), rotate it a bit and move around as it shown on the picture below. With the Direct Selection Tool (A) select endpoints on the right click hit Join.

With the Pen Tool (P) close the path. Set Fill color to red.

Duplicate the flag twice ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ), scale up one of the copies and rotate it. Select both copies and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Intersect button.

Set the Fill color to white (#FFFFF), Group it ( Ctrl / Cmd + G ) and place it on the handle on the top of the circus tent.

Grab the Pen Tool (P) from the Tool Panel and create the back side of the circus tent. The shape doesn’t have to be perfect. Apply the same red linear gradient we are using from the start of this tutorial.

Send the red shape to the back ( Shift + Ctrl / Cmd + [ ).

Creating details

Select the small parts of the roof (as it shown on the picture below) and duplicate them ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ). Scale them up and move them to the right little bit.

Ungroup ( Shift + Ctrl / Cmd +G ) the lower part of the tent. Make sure to have all stripes ungrouped. Now we will combine some shapes inside the Pathfinder Panel.

Select the stripe and duplicate it ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ). Holding the Shift key on the keyboard select the copy of the stripe we have just made and one of the parts we created in the previous step. Under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Intersect button.

Set the Fill color to #720F16 and make sure to place it underneath the upper part of the circus tent. Repeat this step for each stripe. For the shadow on white stripes set the Fill color to #A7A9AC.

The circus tent is done. Group ( Ctrl / Cmd + G ) all the elements we have created so far.

Let’s move on to the balloons.

Balloons

We will try to create create colorful balloons in just few steps.

Grab the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel and create the ellipse. With Direct Selection Tool (A) we will distort the ellipse little bit. Select the lower anchor point and nudge it few pixels downwards. To do that use the arrow keys on the keyboard.

Grab the Pen Tool (P) from the Tool Panel and create simple, irregular triangle.

With the Ellipse Tool (L) create ellipse as it shown on the picture below. Make sure to mach endpoints.

Under the Object select Path > Offset Path. Set the value for Offset to -3.

Let’s put all elements together and to apply some nice gradients.

To lower part of the balloon apply linear gradient with same colors as we used for the radial gradient. With the Ellipse Tool (L) create a small ellipse and set the Fill color to white (#FFFFFF). Lower the Opacity to 25%.

Using the same technique create balloons in oder colors. Group them ( Ctrl / Cmd + G ).

Creating the Background

Beside circus tent and the balloons we have to create a background with cute clouds and a hill with some flowers.

Grab the Rectangle Tool (M) from the Tool Panel and click somewhere on the Artboard. A Rectangle Option box will pop up. Set the values for width and height to 500 x 600 pixels. Apply nice blue, radial gradient.

Grab the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel and create an ellipse. Place it as it shown on the picture below.

Duplicate ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd + F ) the rectangle from the previous picture. Select both, ellipse and rectangle and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Intersect button.

Let’s place our circus tent and balloons on the hill. We will have to create few more details in order to improve our illustration.

We have to create shadow that tent cast on the grass. Grab the Ellipse Tool (L) again and create two ellipses.

Set the Fill color of the larger ellipse to #004B25.

Set the Fill color of the smaller ellipse to #0C381E.

We will create the mirror image of the balloons. Select the group of the balloons and under the Object select Transform > Reflect. Set the Axis to Vertical and hit the Copy button. Move the reflected balloons to the left.

Creating Clouds

Let’s create few cute clouds.

Grab the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel and create many overlapping circles.

Select them all and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Unite button. Set the Fill color to #E6F5F9. Duplicate the cloud ( Ctrl / Cmd + C, Ctrl / Cmd +F ). Scale down the cop of the cloud and set the Fill color to white (#FFFFFF).

Using the same techniques create few more clouds.

Just few more flowers and…

…Voila! We are done.

Feel free to create the circus tent in different colors.

Conclusion

In this quite long tutorial we had an opportunity to use different kind of techniques. We have used Pen Tool, Pathfinder with some of it’s features and Blend Tool. Their combination has resulted in cheerful illustration that can be used in multiply purpose. Feel free to use techniques discussed in this tutorial for creating different kind of illustrations. I hope you like the tutorial. Thank you for following along.

(rb)

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The logo style graphic we’ll be creating is made up of four colourfully striped ribbon style elements. The four pieces are interweaved to create a kind of pseudo Penrose Stairs type illustration. The addition of subtle gradients and shadows really helps bring the design to life by adding depth and a third dimension.

View the full size ribbon logo design

Create a new document in Adobe Illustrator and draw four squares on the artboard. Give each one a colour fill to create a simple colour palette. Here I’ve picked out a green, lilac, pink and grey colour.

Select the rectangle tool and click on the artboard. In the options window enter the dimensions of 5x5mm.

Copy the square (CMD+C) then paste in front (CMD+F). Hit enter on the keyboard to bring up the Move command and enter 5mm in the Horizontal field. Repeatedly press CMD+F and CMD+D to repeat these steps three more times.

Give each of the squares a colour fill according to the palette then stretch them by dragging the lower most handle vertically while holding Shift.

Hold the Shift key while rotating the object to 45 degrees. Copy and paste duplicates and carefully rotate and position them to form a square.

For the final shape we want one end to be tucked under the previous shape, but the other end over the top of the next shape. Shorten down shape and create the full edge from two pieces.

Carefully align the two pieces to give the impression of a single line, but send the last piece to the top of the stack with the CMD+Shift+] shortcut.

Toggle on Outline mode (CMD+Y) and zoom in to check the alignment of the elements. Make any necessary tweaks to overlap the lines exactly.

Make duplicates of the four colour swatches, then replace the fills with gradients. Colour pick samples from the original swatch, but adjust the gradient handles with light and darker tones.

Select all the objects with the same colour fill then use the Eyedropper tool to switch the solid colour for the gradient. Repeat this process for all four colours.

All the gradients are currently flowing horizontally, but we can adjust the angle manually with the Gradient tool. Select all the shapes on one edge then click and drag to set the gradient angle.

The subtle gradients are already bringing the design to life in comparison to the flat solid colours.

Elsewhere on the artboard create a rectangle at the dimensions of 20x5mm.

Give this new rectangle a gradient fill from black to transparent, then adjust the Transparency to Multiply at 30%.

Copy, rotate and position this new rectangle carefully into place where each edge intersects the next to create subtle shadows. This will help add depth and a touch of realism.

Use the same black to transparent fill to create a circle, but change the gradient from linear to radial.

Squash this circle down then position it underneath the main logo graphic to give the impression of a three dimensional scene. The logo now seems to be floating in space rather than being sat on a flat surface.

Our colourful ribbon graphic is now complete. Even though we didn’t have a live client for this project, hopefully the Illustrator tips and techniques will help you create great looking vector logos designs for your future clients.

Download the source file

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A quiet month in terms of quality design tutorial been realised within June, but nerveless their has been some great high freebie certainly worth checking out. I would love to hear your thoughts on this months roundup and what’s your favourite article from the roundup.

Illustrator Tutorials

Create a Cool Vector Robot Character in Illustrator

Looking to learn the basics of Adobe Illustrator? In this tutorial you’ll use various tools and techniques to create a simple vector robot character. With this robot being made of lots of basic shapes it makes for a great tutorial for beginners to get to grips with the Illustrator application.

Quick Tip: How to Create Colorful Neon Text with Adobe Illustrator

Looking to learn the basics of Adobe Illustrator? In this tutorial you’ll use various tools and techniques to create a simple vector robot character. With this robot being made of lots of basic shapes it makes for a great tutorial for beginners to get to grips with the Illustrator application.

How to Create a Realistic Soccer Ball in Adobe Illustrator

In this tutorial you will demonstrate how to create realistic Soccer ball in Adobe Illustrator. Creating an illustration like this may seem complicated, but we will try to keep it simple. There are many different ways to create a Soccer ball, but we will use the simplest method – tracing the reference image with the Pen Tool. The main challenge will be to achieve a realistic look of the ball by using simple gradients and just a few details.

Create a Padlock with Adobe Illustrator and VectorScribe

In this tutorial you will learn how to use Shape Building, Clipping Paths and Opacity Masks to make a metallic Padlock. You will also learn how to use the VectorScribe Adobe Illustrator plug-in to save time when creating vector illustrations and designs.

Photoshop Tutorials

Create a Black Swan Inspired Movie Poster

In this tutorial, you’ll look at how to create a Black Swan inspired movie poster.  You’ll see how to manipulate some stock images into a seamless design, add in elements for depth of field, and finish it all off.

Make a Retro Space Themed Poster in Photoshop

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, Soviet pilot and cosmonaut, was the first human being to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961. In this step-by-step Photoshop tutorial, I will show you how to create a striking vintage-style poster design inspired by Yuri’s journey into space. We will combine stock photos, textures and brushes with blend mode techniques and filters on our way to achive the final design.

Create a Surreal Out of Bounds Photo Manipulation in Photoshop

In this tutorial you will combine several images of water, animals, and people to create a surreal out of bounds photo manipulation in Photoshop.

How To Create a Retro Style Superman Book Cover

Follow this step by step Illustrator and Photoshop tutorial to create a retro style book cover featuring a stylized vector illustration of Superman. We’ll create the Superman illustration with simple vector shapes before laying out the complete retro style book cover with textures in Photoshop.

Web Design And Design Articles

Five important lessons Mark Zuckerberg taught us about business

You don’t get to 600 million friends without doing something spectacular. Mark Zuckerberg knows this more than anyone. But I wonder: do we have any hope of achieving similar success?

10 HTML Entity Crimes You Really Shouldn’t Commit

It has been over a couple of years since I posted my HTML tag and usability crimes posts, both of which are amongst the most popular articles here on Line25. There’s something about this title people just can’t resist! Let’s take a look at ten crimes you may be committing in your HTML content. These won’t exactly land you a life sentence, but I bet almost every one of us will be guilty of at least one of these petty crimes.

Making and Maintaining Your Online Portfolio: Best Practices

Nowadays, with Internet spreading its wings all over the globe, more and more people are switching from physical mediums of business promotion to online marketing. Email marketing is one of the best means of promoting your products and services online. It is also one of the oldest sources of business-to-business marketing used by virtually everyone.

Useful HTML-, CSS- and JavaScript Tools and Libraries

Front-end development is a tricky beast. It’s not difficult to learn, but it’s quite difficult to master. There are just too many things that need to be considered; too many tweaks that might be necessary here and there; too many details to make everything just right. Luckily, developers and designers out there keep releasing useful tools and resources for all of us to learn, improve our skills and just get better at what we do. Such tools are valuable and helpful because they save our time, automate mundane tasks and hence help us focus on more important things.

Top 10 Git Tutorials for Beginners

As a web designer or web developer, you’ve probably heard of Git before, a version control system that has had a swift ascension to ubiquity due in part to GitHub, a social code repository site.

10 Tips for Opening Your Next Blog Post

It happens to me all the time—in fact it’s taken me about 15 minutes just to start this post. You know what topic you want to write about, and you might even have more main points in mind, but you just don’t know how to kick the post off!

Freebies

Seamless Pixel Patterns Vol. 2

Up for grabs is another batch of our popular seamless pixel patterns. The download includes 20 repeatable patterns in PAT format for easy importing into Photoshop.

Calculator PSD icon

Friends, today’s PSD download is an excellent calculator icon in PSD format. The electronic calculator icon comes in fully layered PSD file with each item of the graphic is organized in named folder. The calculator is also isolated on a transparent background as PNG icons format in sizes 512×512, 256×256, 128×128, 64×64 and 32×32. You can use the icons in your web design works. The free fonts used in the design work are Arial and Pocket Calculator. Scroll down and download thecalculator PSD file and icons and let me know your thoughts.

[Freebie] “Educons” Icon Set (PSD Included)

To continue our grateful thanks to our readers and community in general, we are glad to release yet another freebie: Educons, an icon set with 15 quality educational related icons . These icons come in PNG format in 2 different sizes 128×128 and 64×64 pixels along with layered Photoshop PSD file of each icon.

Clean mono icons (vector PSD)

To continue our grateful thanks to our readers and community in general, we are glad to release yet another freebie: Educons, an icon set with 15 quality educational related icons . These icons come in PNG format in 2 different sizes 128×128 and 64×64 pixels along with layered Photoshop PSD file of each icon.

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A collection of fresh illustrator tutorials which which where all created within 2011. This is a great roundup of tutorials which feature tutorials aimed at beginners and advanced illustrator tutorial. These tutorials cover fresh new illustrator techniques which you can incorporate into your designs. We would love for you to share your favourite illustrator tutorials featured within the article within the comments below.

1. Create a Cool Vector Robot Character in Illustrator

Looking to learn the basics of Adobe Illustrator? In this tutorial you’ll use various tools and techniques to create a simple vector robot character. With this robot being made of lots of basic shapes it makes for a great tutorial for beginners to get to grips with the Illustrator application.

2. How To Create A Beautiful Windmill Illustration Using Illustrator

Windmills have been around for centuries and although their construction evolved through time the idea remains the same. Let this tutorial be a tribute to those old fashioned windmills that are hardly met these days.

3. Create a Burning, Vector Match Using Gradient Meshes

In this tutorial you will learn how to create realistic vector fire, using the Gradient Mesh Tool and Screen Blending mode. Believe me, there’s nothing overly complicated.

4. How to Create a Realistic Soccer Ball in Adobe Illustrator

In this tutorial you will demonstrate how to create realistic Soccer ball in Adobe Illustrator. Creating an illustration like this may seem complicated, but you will try to keep it simple. There are many different ways to create a Soccer ball, but we will use the simplest method – tracing the reference image with the Pen Tool. The main challenge will be to achieve a realistic look of the ball by using simple gradients and just a few details.

5. How To Create a Beautiful Vector Portrait in Illustrator

I’ve always love browsing the amazing style of art known as Vexel illustration and recently I decided to finally give it a go myself. Follow this step by step tutorial for the making of my first vector art portrait of Tron Legacy’s Quorra. Learn how the portrait is carefully traced and vectorized in Adobe Illustrator to create an interesting vexel style design.

6. How to Make a Golden Compass in Illustrator

In this Illustrator tutorial, you’ll learn how to create an antique golden compass. We will use simple Illustrator drawing tools such as the Ellipse Tool, Pen Tool and Line Tool. We will get the chance to use gradients and simple vector-drawing techniques throughout the tutorial. If you’re a vector illustration beginner, don’t hesitate to try this tutorial out — I promise it’ll be a great learning experience.

7. Create a Vector, Space Rocket in Illustrator CS5

In this tutorial you’ll learn how to create a colorful rocket from simple geometric forms and 3D effects. We’ll use filters like Blur to create smoothness and movement in some of the illustration elements. Effects like Inner Glow will also be used to accentuate the depth of the 3D forms.

8. How to Create a Cute Piggy Bank in Perspective with Adobe Illustrator

Many people have difficulty in drawing objects in perspective. Most of the time it helps if you have that particular object in front of you, but we still need our imagination.The most important aspects of perspective are size and distance. If you increase the distance between you and the object you are observing, you need to decrease the size of that object. That way you can achieve a nice depth effect in your illustrations.

9. Create a Royal Crown Using Adobe Illustrator CS5

In today’s tutorial you’ll learn how to create a crown using four stages of design: 3-D modeling, creating of elements of the crown, colors, and creating glare on the surface.

10. Create a Semi-Realistic Light Bulb in Adobe Illustrator

In this Illustrator tutorial, you will learn how to draw a light bulb illustration. Most of the time, we’ll be using the Pen Tool, so this is great practice for those struggling with drawing freehand. A light bulb is a complex object that contains many small parts and details, and we will try our best to draw them all, in order to create as close to an accurate portrayal as possible.

11. Create an Adorable Puppy with Negative Space and the Paintbrush Tool

Show you how to create a quick illustration of a puppy using negative space and the ever so versatile Paintbrush Tool (B). I recently became the proud parent of a Blenheim colored Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppy (named Shelley!) and couldn’t help creating a quick vector of her. One of the key characteristics of her is her lovely red and white coat and these two colors gave me an idea.

12. How to make a realistic vintage typewriter in Illustrator

Hello friends, did you guys enjoyed our programming tutorial on how to make a nice typewriter contact form?, well if you nailed that one now you’re probably wondering about the design itself, because it’s useless to have the code if you can’t apply it to a truly brilliant design. Don’t panic because now the second part of the tutorial has arrived and we’re about to show you how to make a great realistic typewriter with Adobe Illustrator.

13. Give a 3D, Vector Robot a Realistic Feel in Photoshop

In this tutorial you are going to learn how to combine different methods from Illustrator and Photoshop to enhance your 3D vector art. Through the process you will learn how to use the appearance panel, 3D extrude and 3D revolve. You will also create a custom art brush, and your own symbol. I am going to show you how to create masks using Channels and Layers, as well as creating Clipping Masks in Photoshop.

14. Create A Cube Embossed With Letters

I will show you how to create a nice cube with some embossed letters on each side. First, you’ll learn to create some simple symbols then using the 3D Extrude&Bevel effect you’ll create the rough cube shape. Next, using basic tools, effect and options you will reach the final result.

15. Draw a Magician’s Hat in Illustrator

In this tutorial, we will make a magician’s hat in Adobe Illustrator. You will use 3D effects to create a reference shape for the illustration process, the Pathfinder Panel to combine different shapes and forms, apply nice gradients, create reflections and highlights, and more.

16. How To Create a Vector Soldier Character in Illustrator

Follow this step by step Illustrator tutorial to create a simple vector soldier character. We’ll begin by building the structure of the character with basic shapes, then adjust the line weights to create definition between the elements. To bring the character to life we’ll add blocks of colour before finishing it all off with a simple shading technique.

17. How To Create a Vector Soldier Character in Illustrator

The key to this satiny ribbon is the careful placement of gradients on its component parts. And once you have the individual elements down, it’s a snap to create award ribbons, medals, or bunting.

18. Create a Shimmering Cityscape in Perspective, Using Illustrator CS5Create a Shimmering Cityscape in Perspective, Using Illustrator CS5

The Perspective tools in Illustrator CS5 make it a lot easier to draw in perfect one, two or three-point perspective. Using symbols in conjunction with the Perspective tools will make quick work of this stylized cityscape.

19. Anyone Up for a Cup of Coffee?

Following along this tutorial you’ll be learning how to use the Pathfinder Panel in Illustrator CS5 with its very useful features. Combining various forms with the Pathfinder tools, we can create nice shapes. Applying the gradients and colors to those shapes, we can achieve great results by creating a nice depth and perspective. Highlights and shadows are very helpful as well and make the artwork look very realistic.

20. Create a Vibrant Abstract Vector Design Illustrator

Follow this step by step Illustrator tutorial to create a vibrant abstract design. We’ll put Illustrator’s Gradient Mesh tool to use to create a colourful shape, then build up layers of objects to create an abstract design with lots of vibrancy, bright colours and transparency effects.

21. Create a Sparkly Female Portrait in Illustrator

In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to create a sparkly female portrait through playing with transparency and overlapping vector shapes. In this tutorial you’ll also learn to experiment with colors and just letting go of your creativity.

22. Create simple golden coins

In the following tutorial I will show how to create a very simple coin stack icon. First, you will need a simple circle and some 3D Extrude&Bevel effect to create the starting coin. Next, you will use multiple fills and strokes to improve the look of this first coin and Transform effect to multiply it.

23. Create an Anti-War Icon Using Adobe Illustrator

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a hand grenade with the help of 3D modeling. This tutorial contains plenty of useful tips and description of manual techniques.

24. How to create a cute little monster in Illustrator

If you followed this tutorial to create your own little monster, please share your results and experience with us in the comments.

25. Create a Textured Pool Table in Adobe Illustrator

In this tutorial you’ll learn how to create a vector pool table. We’ll be using the Appearance panel to create textures and add effects; we’ll use the Swatches panel for creating pattern swatches; and we’ll use some 3D and scripting.

26. How to Create a Glamorous Portrait Using Adobe Illustrator

he final result will be 100% vector; therefore will retain its scalable properties. This walk through is ideal for those an intermediate to advanced knowledge of Illustrator. Illustrator CS5 was used for the tutorial although you can do the majority of the elements in the majority of vector programs. A Wacom Bamboo A5 tablet was also used, however you can achieve the same results with a mouse.

27. Quick Tip: Create a Shiny Shield with Illustrator

In this Quick Tip, you’ll learn how to harness the Appearance panel to make the basic structure of a shiny, beveled shield. Once the structure is in place, a few well-placed gradients are all it takes to achieve a sharp, polished look.

28. Create a Lava Island Scenario in Illustrator

In the following tutorial you can learn to create a fluorescent text effect. After we add the text we expand it and add multiple strokes with different blending modes and opacity percentages. Using the Offset path along with various tools and effects we will create the rest of the shapes.

29. Create a Loving Cup of Tea in Illustrator CS5

In today’s tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a quick, loving cup of tea using Adobe Illustrator CS5 using 3D effects and the Bristle Brush Tool.

30. How To Create a Cool Chrome Text Effect in Illustrator

Follow this step by step tutorial to create a super cool retro chrome text effect in Illustrator. We’ll use a range of gradients to give the impression of bright highlights, then take the text into Photoshop for some finishing touches.

31. Create A Lotus Flower With Adobe Illustrator CS5

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to make a Lotus Flower in Adobe Illustrator. We’ll use some basic tools (Ellipse, Direct Selection, Pencil, and more) to draw lotus petals and leaves. Next we’ll color these shapes with the Gradient Mesh Tool. Finally, arrange them to become a complete work.

32. Create A Glowing Flouresent Text Effect

In the following tutorial you can learn to create a fluorescent text effect. After we add the text we expand it and add multiple strokes with different blending modes and opacity percentages. Using the Offset path along with various tools and effects we will create the rest of the shapes.

33. How To Create a Stylish Skull Based Vector Illustration

The skull and crossed pistons mark is a popular adaption of the tradition skull and crossbones symbol and is commonly seen in motorcycle culture, amongst other. Follow this Adobe Illustrator tutorial to create your own underground skull & crossed pistons graphic. We’ll start with a simple sketch, then build up the detail using a range of linework and vector shapes.

34. Create a MIDI Drum Machine in Illustrator

In this fun beginner’s tutorial you’ll learn how to get sophisticated results using a few simple elements and effects. The design is based on M-Audio’s discontinued Trigger Finger Drum Pad Control Surface (see inset).

35. How To Create a Colorful Abstract Poster in Illustrator

Follow this step by step tutorial to create a colourful and vibrant abstract poster design. We’ll create a series of tessellating shapes using Illustrator’s Pathfinder tool, then begin adding colour swatches and gradients to bring the design to life. To finish the poster off, we’ll then import it into Photoshop to add some polish in the form of subtle textures.

36. Create a Padlock with Adobe Illustrator and VectorScribe

In this tutorial you will learn how to use Shape Building, Clipping Paths and Opacity Masks to make a metallic Padlock. You will also learn how to use the VectorScribe Adobe Illustrator plug-in to save time when creating vector illustrations and designs.

37. Create A Fun Scrap Book

Learn how to create a fun & playful scrapbook in Illustrator & displaying it on a background in Photoshop!

38. Quick Tip: Create a Nice Award Medal Icon

In the following tutorial you will learn to create an icon of an award medal. You will use various shapes and pathfinder techniques to make this great looking icon. This illustration can be made without the use of the Pen Tool, so it’s a great tutorial for beginners.

39. Create A Transitor Radio Icon

Learn how to create a Transistor Radio icon in Illustrator and present on a colourful background in Photoshop.

40. How To Create a Grumpy Troll Character in Illustrator

Follow this step by step Illustrator tutorial to create a grumpy Internet troll character. We’ll start the process with a basic pencil sketch then build up a complete vector character design with linework, colour fills and basic shading to create a funny cartoon mascot.

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The original design that spurred this idea was based on the country of Canada, so for my own design I’ll base it on the text Great Britain. The dividing lines across the text follow the crude angles of the Union Jack design and two shades of each colour are used to add a range of tone.

View the full size text effect design

Open up Adobe Illustrator and type out the wording of your choice. Here I’m using the free yet pretty cool Nevis font.

Select the Line tool and begin drawing intersecting lines across the text. The Union Jack’s angles all cross in the centre, but for The Stars and Stripes you might want to use more horizontal lines with minimal vertical lines. Otherwise, if you’re creating a generic design, just go mad!

Select both text elements and convert them to outlines by pressing CMD+Shift+O. Then create a Compound Path using the shortcut CMD+8.

Draw a selection over the whole design, shift-click the words to remove them from the selection then make a Compound Path of all the lines.

Select both the lines and the text then click the Intersect option from the Pathfinder palette. This will make cuts through the text wherever a lines passes over it.

Right click and select Ungroup, then select and delete the excess linework from around the eges of the wording.

Toggle on Outline Mode (CMD+Y) to see the otherwise invisible linework that is still present between each letter. Go through and delete anything outside of the letter outlines.

Give everything a thin 0.25pt white stroke to make each individual mosaic shape visible. If there are any really tiny shapes, merge them with their neighbours using the Pathfinder tool to create larger objects.

Use the colour picker to select light and dark tones of each colour in the flag. Here I’m using a photograph of the Union Jack.

Randomly select shapes across the design while holding the Shift key then replace their fills using the Eyedropper tool on the first colour swatch.

Continue the process with each colour in the palette, selecting random shapes from the mosaic until the majority of the design has a blue, red or white fill.

The flat colours look a little… flat, so make a duplicate and use the base colour to create gradients flowing to a lighter tone.

Select the first flat colour swatch then go to Select > Same > Fill Colour. Click the new gradient swatch with the Eyedropper tool to replace all the fills.

Repeat the process of replacing colours until the whole design is made up of gradient fills. The gradients really help bring the design to life with added depth over the flat colours.

Currently all the gradients are flowing in the same direction, so go through and adjust the angle of each shape with the Gradient tool to add variety to the design.

Switch over to Adobe Photoshop to finish off the design. There’s nothing we can’t do in Illustrator, but Photoshop tends to handle effects such as noise and shadows a little better. Fill the background with a cool blue gradient to harmonise with the blues in the text effect.

Add a touch of Noise using the Filter > Noise > Add Noise menu option. Just 2% will add enough to create a subtle noise texture.

Paste in the text effect design from Adobe Illustrator and give it a subtle Drop Shadow using Photoshop’s layer style effects.

CMD-Click the layer thumbnail of the text to load the selection and fill a new layer with white. Add a Noise filter of around 12% to this layer.

Change the blending mode of the noise layer to Multiply to render the white area transparent, then reduce the opacity until the noise provides a subtle texture to the text.

This finishes off our abstract geometric mosaic style text effect. The intersecting lines really makes for a cool looking design while the colours and gradients help lift the text from the screen.

Download the source file

Here’s the simple vector cartoon robot character we’ll be making in this tutorial. It’s essentially made up of lots of basic shapes such as rectangles and circles, but we’ll bring it to life with varied stroke weights, gradient fills and subtle highlights.

Open up Adobe Illustrator and create a new document. Select the rectangle tool and draw the basic head shape and an antenna. Switch to the circle tool and add shapes to either end of the antenna. Press CMD+Shift+[ with the lower circle selected to send it underneath the rectangle.

Draw a circle to form an eye, then go to Object > Path > Offset Path. Enter 1.5mm in the Offset option field to create a slightly larger circle aligned exactly to the original.

Use a mix of basic shapes such as rectangles, circles and rounded rectangles to finish off the robot head with a range of features. Group pairs of elements like the eyes then align everything up centrally.

Add various buttons and dials to the body of the character with more basic shapes, keeping everything centered with the head.

Draw the basic outline of the hand with a large circle. Copy (CMD+C) and Paste in Front (CMD+F), then hold ALT and Shift while scaling the new circle down.

With both objects selected use the Subtract option from the Pathfinder pallete to punch out the smaller circle from the larger circle.

Draw a square, rotate it by 45 degrees then position it centrally over the circular ring. Toggle on Smart guides to make the alignment easy (CMD+U). Use the Pathfinder once again to punch out this square selection.

Select all the shapes that make up an arm, copy and paste in front. Go to Object > Transform > Reflect and select the Vertical option to flip the objects, then position them on the opposite side.

Even though we’ve only used standard tools with just a couple of custom shapes our robot is starting to look pretty cool!

Grab the Polygon tool and click and drag a shape onto the artboard. Before releasing the mouse increase or decrease the number of points to 5 with the keyboard cursor keys.

Align this pentagon exactly with the lower corners of the body rectangle. Toggle on Outline mode (CMD+Y) for a clear and precise view.

Draw a diagonal line running parallel to the lower half of the body with the line tool. Copy/Paste and flip the line and position the duplicate on the opposite side.

With both lines selected go to Object > Blend Make, then head back to Object > Blend > Blend Options. Change the Spacing to Specified Steps then alter the number to suit.

Finish off the robot with a couple more rectangles and heptagons as legs and feet, then clip off the bottom of the feet with a temporary rectangle along with the Pathfinder tool.

Draw a selection around all the shapes that make up the robot, copy and paste in front then click the Merge option from the pathfinder palette. Clear out the fill and bump up the stroke to 5pt aligned to the outside.

Go through each individual element and adjust the stroke weight according to its prominence in defining the profile of the character. Use 3pt for important objects like the head, 2pt for no-so-important elements and 1pt for the finer details.

Now we can begin to add some colour. Give each shape a colour fill. I’m using two tones of grey for the body parts, red for key areas and blue or yellow for buttons and dials.

To add a little more depth to the otherwise flat design, we can switch out the solid fills with cool gradients. Create swatches for each of your colour selections with a light-dark gradient tone and replace the fills. Adjust the angle of the gradients where necessary with the Gradient tool.

We can also add more depth by creating a series of subtle highlights. Copy and paste a duplicate of the antenna and fill it with white. Draw a temporary shape that cuts through the circle then clip out the shape with the Pathfinder palette.

Change the opacity of this clipped shape to around 20% to create a soft reflection which gives the impression of a shiny or glossy material.

Repeat the process for each shape across the robot’s body to add subtle light reflections to add more depth and a touch of realism to the design.

Finish off the design with a little shadow. Begin with a circle filled with a soft grey to transparent gradient.

Squash the shape down and position it under the robot’s feet. Use the shortcut CMD+Shift+[ to send the shadow to the bottom of the stack.

This leaves our cool retro style vector robot character complete. Even though it’s made from basic shapes and simple colour fills those varied line weights, gradients and highlights really help bring it to life and lift the character from the screen.

Download the source file

Illustration artwork usually depends on abstract lines and color combinations. Thus it allows the artists to extend their creativity by applying different lines and colors’ styles and techniques.

This is one of the reasons that makes the illustration artwork very different from other art fields such as photography which is based on existing scenes and objects.

The illustration artwork is similar to other artwork, it can be traditional using pencils, water colors and other traditional drawing tools or it can be digital using illustration applications such as Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop as a painting tool to finalize the artwork. Both traditional and digital artwork have their own style and beauty as we will see in the below showcase. In these illustration examples, you will find both traditional and digital artwork examples using different styles and creative concepts.

If you enjoy illustration examples and artwork, do not forget to check these illustration examples:

• Brilliant Examples of Photo Manipulation and Illustration Artworks of Lim Si Ping
• The Extraordinary Illustrations of Justin Maller
• 30 Amazing Digital Manga Artwork
• 6 Inspired Pencil Drawing Artists

Eric Bellefeuille

Raphael Vicenzi

Dmitriy Rebus Larin

Jonatan Cantero

Marcos Chin

Alexey Kurbatov

Peter Jaworowski

Jerico Santander

Maroto bambinomonkey

Cristiano Siqueira

Fernando Forero

Laura alejo

Adam Haynes

Grzegorz Domaradzki

Jared Nickerson and Marius Bauer

Pacman23

Glenn Jones

Fil Dunsky

Sergey Ryzhov

Geliografic

Harry Nesbitt

Andreas Krapf

Wesley Eggebrecht

Colwyn Thomas

Cristiano Siqueira

Finally, I hope you enjoy these examples of illustration artwork, share with us your ideas about the traditional and the digital artwork and which one do you prefer the most.

Related posts:

1. Brilliant Examples of Photo Manipulation and Illustration Artworks of Lim Si Ping
2. 30 Eye-Catching Illustration Artworks of Shadow Chen
3. 30+ Stunning Pencil Drawing Artwork
4. 30 Amazing Digital Manga Artwork
5. 30 Creative Examples of Typography
6. Protecting Artwork Copyrights, Think again!!
7. Free Business Illustration
8. 35+ Wonderful Street Art Creative Ideas
9. 27 Creative Examples of Still Life Photography
10. 35+ Surreal Artwork Collection to Visualize Your Dreams

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Step 1 – Vehicle Wrap Make/Model/Year

In this case we dealt with a 2008 Hyundai Accent for our friends at Nerd 1-1. The Hyundai ended up being a great model for our first foray into the vehicle wrap world, mostly due to it being relatively small and sleek– so that initial urge to make the graphic design look like a street racer actually worked!

Why is this important?

Beyond the obvious reasons, you will need the specifics. You can skewer the links below to try and find a pre-built Adobe® Illustrator® artboard template.

Step 2 – Download or Build Your Vehicle Wrap Template

Using the resources listed below; along with anything Google might find for you. Try your best to find a pre-built Template of the exact make and model of your vehicle.

• 6000 Free Car Outlines
• The Bad Wrap
• Car & Truck Pro Vehicle Outlines 2009
• Digital Auto

*Special thanks to Jacob Cass of Just Creative Design for compiling this list of resources.

Step 2.5 – Building The Vehicle Wrap Template

Time to get out the digital camera.

Shoot both sides, the rear end, the hood, and if you can – the roof – at the highest resolution possible. This way if you need to drag the design into Photoshop you’ll have something to work with. Next you will need to trace every nook and cranny on the body of your vehicle.  Remember that every slight angle, bevel, and piece of molding needs to be accounted for in the design, so spare no details. Once you’re done, the template should look something like this:

Step 3 – Applying Your Graphic Design

OK, all of the technical junk is out of the way and you can start to have some fun. In our case, the requested vehicle wrap only needed to reflect the company branding, which is (thankfully) all vector based. So Illustrator© it is!

Create A New Layer

Just to make life easier on the printer and to better organize the design.

Wrapping The Graphics

The original outline of your template works similar to a die-cut in traditional printing, and you are free to let your colors hang as far over the edge as you would like. In fact, if the design is meant to wrap around the edge you will have to do this. Think of it like a bleed.

Dealing with subtle grooves in the body of the vehicle can be a bit tricky if you don’t have real-world access to the vehicle. You will want to go outside and look at just how deep the grooves might be, because your straight line stripe may not look so straight once it goes up and over that door panel molding. Just be aware of this.

Step 4 – Saving Your File

Now that your design is placed on its own layer – on top of the outline template – you are all set to save your file. It may throw you off that the file size is so small and that the document is only 8.5 x 11 but this is intentional as the printer will just want your entire source file. They will blow it up and do the heavy lifting for you. Oh and be kind, save in Legacy, not every printer is using CS5.5.

Now Sit Back and Revel in (Y)Our Work.

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In this tutorial we will demonstrate how to create realistic Soccer ball in Adobe Illustrator. Creating an illustration like this may seem complicated, but we will try to keep it simple. There are many different ways to create a Soccer ball, but we will use the simplest method – tracing the reference image with the Pen Tool. The main challenge will be to achieve a realistic look of the ball by using simple gradients and just a few details.

Let’s get down to business!

We will be creating this.

Tracing the Reference Image with the Pen Tool

Create a new illustrator document at 500 x 500 pixels in size. Open a reference image and lock the layer. This way the image won’t get in our way during creation process.

Create a new layer. Grab the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel and try to draw the circle (don’t forget to hold a Shift key on the keyboard for creating a proportional circle) that will match the shape of the ball. Set the Fill color to white (#FFFFF) and a Stroke color to none. You can make this object invisible in order to be able to draw other parts of the pattern, but don’t forget to make it visible later.

With a Zoom Tool (Z) zoom in for easier drawing. Grab the Pen Tool (P) from the Tool Panel and try to draw each part of the ball pattern. You will notice that the sides of the polygons are slightly curved.

Repeat the previous steps to complete other parts of the pattern as well. Set the Fill color of the each part to black (#00000) or white (#FFFFF) to match the reference image. You should end up with something like this.

Applying gradients

You have to admit that the ball looks quite flat. To be honest, it doesn’t look like a ball at all. To change that we will need to apply radial gradients. It will help us to create an illusion of 3D effects and to simulate the influence of imaginary source of the light. For that purpose we will use white-gray and black-gray radial gradients. Just imagine that the source of the light is above the ball.

As we have said, for the black parts we will use black – gray radial gradient.

For the white parts create a nice white – gray radial gradient.

The Final Touch

Our illustration begins to resemble a real ball. In this step we will create some details that would let help the ball look even better. Let’s create them.

With a Zoom Tool (Z) zoom in the illustration so we can be more precise. Grab the Pen Tool (P) from the Tool Panel and try to draw the shape as it shown on the picture below.

Keep drawing small details for other parts of the pattern as well. It will create a nice depth for our illustration. Feel free to set the Fill color for some of the details to gray. This way it will look like shadows and highlights.

On the following screenshots you can track the process of creating a details.

On the next pictures you can see all of the details we’ve created for the Soccer ball.

There is one more thing to do. Select the Ellipse Tool (L) from the Tool Panel and create an ellipse. Apply gray – white radial gradient. Select the Gradient Tool (G), and drag the anchor point on the top of the ellipse gradient down and in towards the center of the ellipse to skew the gradient. Make sure the gradient smoothly fades from gray to white inside of the ellipse as shown below. Send the ellipse behind the Soccer ball ( Shift + Ctrl / Cmd + [ ) and place it right underneath the ball.

And Voila!

In this tutorial we have shown how to turn a photograph into realistic vector illustration by using very simple techniques such as, tracing a reference image with a Pen Tool and applying nice radial gradients. Feel free to use your creativity and imagination to create other types of sport balls. If you happen to have any questions feel free to post it in the comment section below. I hope you like the tutorial. Thank you for following along!

(rb)

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A great collection of tutorials for how illustrator can be used in order create detailed portrait illustrations of people. If you want to master how to create illustration this is must read resource. We would love for you to share your favourite tutorial featured within the post.

Make Watercolour style portraits

With this tutorial, youare going to work through ways of creating digital portrait illustrations that have a unique and somewhat tactile feel of marker and watercolor. This tutorial will focus on using a drawing tablet and Adobe Illustrator. There will be a focus on technique and technical settings, but the overall product will rely on your own personal style and taste.

Modeling the Human Face in Illustrator

With a simple and direct methods described in this tutorial, you can create a female portrait easily. This process will have you creating anatomically correct human faces in no time.

Vector Tutorial for Illustrator

A great tutorial for creating an illustration portrait of David tenant.

How to Create a Mosaic Portrait from a Photograph

This is a fun way to turn a photograph into an interesting vector portrait. Get sophisticated results with just a few easy steps, then modify it using a wide range of Illustrator’s live effects.

How to Create a Glamorous Portrait Using Adobe Illustrator

The final result will be 100% vector; therefore will retain its scalable properties. This walk through is ideal for those an intermediate to advanced knowledge of Illustrator. Illustrator CS5 was used for the tutorial although you can do the majority of the elements in the majority of vector programs. A Wacom Bamboo A5 tablet was also used, however you can achieve the same results with a mouse.

Creating a Portrait Using Only Four Colors!

This portrait tutorial uses professional techniques that will allow you to create stunning illustrations.

How To Create a Beautiful Vector Portrait in Illustrator

Follow this step by step tutorial for the making of my first vector art portrait of Tron Legacy’s Quorra. Learn how the portrait is carefully traced and vectorized in Adobe Illustrator to create an interesting vexel style design

Create an Inspirational Vector Political Poster

This tutorial is inspired by Sheppard Fairey’s famous political poster series for the Obama campaign in the US. We’ll be showing you how to create this style of design. We’ll start with basic image editing techniques in Photoshop to get our guide layers setup, and then we’ll jump into Illustrator. You don’t need any fancy equipment to do this. I used an older mouse that still has the rubber ball.

Create a Sparkly Female Portrait in Illustrator

In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to create a sparkly female portrait through playing with transparency and overlapping vector shapes. In this tutorial you’ll also learn to experiment with colors and just letting go of your creativity.

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The design we’ll be creating has similar traits to old book covers from publishers such as Penguin. The colour palette replicates the basic printing method of the originals while paper textures with burns and creases give the design that ages and retro appearance.

Open up Adobe Illustrator and create a new document. Use the Circle and Rounded Rectangle tools to create the upper portions of a ‘man symbol’. Use the align palette to centre them both up.

Continue drawing and overlapping shapes with the Rounded Rectangle tool to create the arms and legs. Toggle on Smart Guides (CMD+U) for assistance aligning the shapes accurately.

Select all the shapes that make up the body and merge them together with the Pathfinder palette.

Use the rounded rectangle tool to draw intersecting shapes between the arms and legs. Select each of these shapes individually along with the main body shape then click the subtract icon in the Pathfinder to punch out the shape.

Change the colour of the character to a skin/flesh tone, then copy (CMD+C) and paste in front (CMD+F) a duplicate. Fill this duplicate with blue then punch out the hand areas with temporary shapes using the Pathfinder palette.

Paste in another copy of the body shape. This time fill it with red, then draw a large temporary shape over the whole body excluding the lower legs. Punch out this shape to leave a pair of red boots.

Use the Pen tool to draw in a pair of red pants. The Smart Guides will help lock the points exactly in place over the original body outline.

Draw one half of the basic outline of the Superman emblem. Copy and paste, then go to Object > Transform > Reflect. Merge these two halves with the Pathfinder palette.

Use the Pen tool to draw the upper portion of the cape. The Smart Guides will help align the points and paths again.

Draw the remainder of the cape using the points of the previous shape as starting and ending positions. Send the cape to the bottom of the stack with the shortcut CMD+Shift+[.

Our basic stylized vector Superman is complete. Now let’s move over to Photoshop to lay out the complete retro book cover.

Create a new Photoshop document and paste in a cool paper texture as a background. This particular texture file is a freebie from LostandTaken.

Overlay another paper texture, this time choose one with less creases and folds, but with more prominent grain. Adjust the hue/saturation and change the blending mode to Linear Burn.

Use the marquee tool to draw selections across the top and bottom of the design and fill them with blue. Change the blending mode to Multiply to allow the texture to show through.

Paste in the vector Superman from Illustrator and scale it centrally on the cover design.

Change the blending mode of the character to Multiply at 35%, then duplicate the layer and change the mode to Linear Burn at 50%.

Use the Text tool to type in the title of the book using a classic font such as Helvetica or Gill Sans. Use a colour selection from the limited colour palette.

These handy price tag brushes from DeviantArt user chokingonstatic come in handy to add a retro style sticker to the cover.

The mixture of the basic design style, limited colour palette and various textures all help replicate that vintage style of aged books. If you enjoyed this tutorial, why not create a complete series for all your favourite super heroes?

Download the source file

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In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how I went about producing an elegant logo for an Australian hair salon. Origin Hair Salon advertised on DesignCrowd for a logo update, and this piece was the winning submission.

Let’s start with the client’s brief, which is simple and straightfoward.

Creative Brief

“We are looking for a trendy modern design for our hair salon close to the Perth CBD called Origin Hair. Our clients are predominantly female between 25-40 years old.”

This is the whole brief — there is nothing more to go on. Sometimes it’s a great thing when designers have fewer guidelines to restrict the creative direction as it allows us to spread our wings and explore avenues we might not have otherwise been able to take.

The logo needs to appeal to women between 25 and 40, so it shouldn’t look to funky and childish (as if we were targeting teenage girls, for example) — it’ll need to use elegance and femininity to appeal to this set of women.

The Concept

After playing around with different ideas, the concept I chose to proceed with is the O from Origin blended with curled hair. For this particular project, coming up with a concept wasn’t the hardest part. Making it work in execution was.

Visualization in Software

Let’s jump into the software, and as always, I’m using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to create the logo. The first thing I do is to scan in the sketch from the concept and place it into Photoshop. I then opened up the Character panel and chose a suitable font to start with. Using the Free Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd + T), I adjusted the corners of the sketch to fit the character O.

Once you’ve done this in Photoshop, import the sketch into Illustrator and start drawing the path along the sketch’s major outlines.

Now that the overall shape has been outlined, the next step is to trace the hairs themselves.

Use the Width Tool from the toolbar to adjust the shape of the path to make the hairlines looks more dynamic. This tool is awesome — just rollover the path and drag it left or right to make it thicker or thinner.

After adjusting the width of the inner hairlines, start on the outer hairlines — these hairs should be made thicker.

When all the hairlines have been drawn and sized, move on to the coloring and shading. The first step is to choose a lighter gray for outer hair, and a darker color for inner hair.

Using the Mesh Tool from the toolbar, click on the shape and generate several anchor points. Select the middle point and use the Eyedropper to choose a lighter gray, leaving the ends with a darker shade.

This shading technique has now visually created the negative space and given the logo a little bit of depth.

Using the same technique, finish off the other parts of the hair. The logo mark is pretty much done, so we can move on to the text.

In order to work with the elegant and feminine logo mark, we’re looking for a font with a classic feel, and we’ll give it a slight wave, like the hair. Serif fonts are an appropriate choice here, and I’ve chosen Americana LT Bold. The shape of this font is already great, so I’m not going to modify it. Instead we’ll concentrate on the text effect. The first step is draw a wave line above the text.

Close the wave line path and then select both it and the text. The text should be outlined. Copy one set of text and place it on top of the original text. Go to the Pathfinder panel and crop out the wave text.

Now the text appears in two layers. Select the bottom one and apply the gradients. Because the wave moves up and down, the gradients should be adjusted individually in every character.

And there we have it: our finished hair salon logo!

Need a logo design?

Hire Alan Lee – a freelance logo designer from Hong Kong.

Want freelance logo work?

Find hair salon logo jobs or hair dresser businesses seeking elegant logo design at DesignCrowd.

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we’re publishing. Also, it’s highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

HOW TO: Create an Elegant Hair Salon Logo

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The design we’ll be creating this time makes use of a radial pattern that draws in the viewer to the centre. Alternating colours give the design a cool and funky feel and textures add a touch of authenticity to the artwork.

Create a new document in Adobe Illustrator at the dimensions of your preference and draw a rectangle across the whole artboard.

Toggle on Smart Guides (CMD+U) and draw a small circle from the centre of the rectangle. Copy and paste this circle and scale it larger than the artboard itself. With both selected go to Object > Blend > Make.

Go back to Object > Blend > Blend Options and adjust the settings to Specified Steps with a count of 8.

Draw a line from the centre of the document, then with the Pen tool add a point at the halfway point. Use the Convert Anchor Point tool to drag bezier handles from the point to give a smooth curve.

Select the Rotate tool and ALT-click a pivot point in the centre of the document. In the options box enter 18 degrees and press the Copy button.

Repeatedly press the shortcut CMD+D to repeat the transformation until you have a series of 20 lines spaced evenly around the circle.

Select the concentric circles and go to Object > Expand. Select the Object checkbox to convert this blend into editable paths.

Draw a selection across all objects, then Shift-click the background rectangle to deselect it. Create a Compound Path (CMD+8) then with both the compound path and background rectangle selected, click the Divide option from the Pathfinder palette.

Right click and Ungroup, then delete out the excess linework beyond the edges of the artboard. Elsewhere on the document set up some gradient colour swatches for use in your design. Here I’m using grey, blue and green each with changes in tone from light to dark.

Hold Shift while selecting alternating shapes in the inner portion of the radial pattern. Give these shapes the grey gradient fill with the eyedropper tool.

On the next and subsequent rows select alternating shapes to create a chequerboard style pattern. Continue until you’ve filled the whole design.

Use the green gradient to fill the leftover shapes in the centre area of the pattern, then switch to blue for the next row.

Alternate between blue and green fills until the whole design is filled with gradient colours.

Currently all the gradients are flowing in the same direction. Manually select each shape in turn and adjust the gradient angle with the Gradient tool.

After a lot of clicking and dragging all the gradients will follow the same radial path, which gives the design a much more dynamic feeling.

The vector work is complete, but let’s switch over to Photoshop to give the design a more tactile feel. Paste the design into a large PSD, then import a cool grunge texture.

Change the blending mode of the texture to Overlay to allow the texture and colours to interact with the vector pattern.

Switch back to Illustrator and clear out the fills from all the objects, then add a white stroke. Copy and paste this graphic into the Photoshop document.

Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and enter around 3px to take the harsh edge off the white strokes.

Change the blending mode to Overlay at 50%, then dab a few spots of black with a large soft brush on a layer mask to adjust the impact of these glowing lines.

Add a soft spot of white in the centre of the design and change the blending mode to Overlay to finish off the design with a vibrant highlight.

Our cool abstract radial pattern design is complete and ready for printing as a large format poster. The Photoshop steps really transform the lifeless and flat vectors into a tactile and authentic feeling design while the radial pattern draws you into the centre.

Download the source file

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How To Draw a Vintage Polaroid Camera Icon

In this tutorial we will learn how to create a Polaroid camera icon. We will use lots of layer styles and draw manually with the brush tool to achieve a realistic appearance. Let’s get started!

Create a Vector Chopper with Illustrator CS5 and VectorScribe

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a vector chopper with illustrator CS5 and vectorscribe.

How to Illustrate a Tasty Watermelon

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a simple and great looking Watermelon illustration. Using Blends, Mesh, Brush, and Symbol Sprayer tool.

Draw a Shiny Make-Up Mirror with Adobe Illustrator

In this tutorial we will learn how to create a pretty make-up mirror using mostly grayscale and hard shapes to achieve a shiny metallic effect, also we’ll be using gaussian blur effects and the mesh tool for a better result.

Use Photoshop to Create a Still-Life Lamp Nightstand and Picture Frame

In this tutorial, we will learn how to create the inside of a home from scratch using only Photoshop. In the end, we will create a lamp, nightstand, a picture frame and several other elements using layer styles and filters along the way. Let’s get started!

Create an Open Book Icon In Photoshop

In this tutorial we will learn how to create an open book icon in Photoshop.Let’s get started!

Create a Vibrant Abstract Vector Design Illustrator

In this tutorial how to create a photo-realistic rendering of a car, in this case an Audi A1. This tutorial relies heavily on paths and should take about two hours to complete depending on skill level.

Create a Wacom Product Advertisement in Photoshop

In this tutorial, you willl learn how to create a Wacom tablet product advertisement.You will see how to take a product image and create a theme for an advertisement and then how to execute it with a variety of subtle touches.

How to Make a Golden Compass in Illustrator

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create an antique golden compass. We will use simple Illustrator drawing tools such as the Ellipse Tool, Pen Tool and Line Tool.

Create a Burning, Vector Match Using Gradient Meshes

In this tutorial how to create a photo-realistic rendering of a car, in this case an Audi A1. This tutorial relies heavily on paths and should take about two hours to complete depending on skill level.

Create a Quick Spring, Holiday Scene in Illustrator

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a quick spring holiday scene in illustrator.

Give a 3D, Vector Robot a Realistic Feel in Photoshop

In this tutorial you will learn how to combine different methods from Illustrator and Photoshop to enhance your 3D vector art. Through the process you will learn how to use the appearance panel, 3D extrude and 3D revolve.

Create a Royal Crown Using Adobe Illustrator CS5

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a crown using four stages of design: 3-D modeling, creating of elements of the crown, colors, and creating glare on the surface. Let’s get started!

Design Wedding Rings Using Adobe Illustrator

In this tutorial you will learn how to create wedding rings using 3D modeling in Illustrator.

How To Create a Jeweled Butterfly In Inkscape

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a sparkling jeweled butterfly.

Draw a Magician’s Hat in Illustrator

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a magician’s hat in Adobe Illustrator.

How to Draw a Classic Electric Guitar in Photoshop

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a classic electric guitar in photoshop.

Draw a Vector Traffic Cone with Adobe Illustrator

In this tutorial we will be creating a traffic cone. The creation process is quite simple: We just need to combine a few shapes, use the Pathfinder Panel and Illustrator’s shape tools smartly, and then apply nice gradients.

Create a Vintage Steam Locomotive Poster in Photoshop

In this tutroial you will learn how to create a vintage steam locomotive poster in photoshop.

Creating Vector Eyes with CorelDraw

In this tutorial you will learn how to make a vector based eye using coreldraw.

How to Design a Realistic Gamepad

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create an illustration of a gamepad using the Pen Tool, Gradients and Filters.

How to Draw a Realistic iPhone 4 with Photoshop

In this tutorial how to create a photo-realistic rendering of a car, in this case an Audi A1. This tutorial relies heavily on paths and should take about two hours to complete depending on skill level.

Create a Post-Apocalyptic Matte Painting

In this tutorial we will demonstrate how to create a post-apocalyptic matte painting of an old cathedral. Let’s get started!

Create a Sleek and Clean MP3 Player Interface

In this tutorial, we will design a sleek and clean MP3 player interface. The process involves a lot of manual drawing and lots of layer styles. Let’s get started!

Create a Download Folder Icon in Photoshop

In this tutorial we will demonstrate how to create a download folder icon using different shapes and reflections in Photoshop. Let’s get started!

Create a Fictional Arctic Snow Frog in Photoshop

In this tutorial we will combine several stock images and effects to create a fictional arctic snow frog in Photoshop.

How to Make a Detailed Printer Icon Using Illustrator

In this tutorial we will construct a desktop printer icon that is rich in detail. We will use the industry-standard vector illustration tool Adobe Illustrator.

Create a Centaur Photo Manipulation in Photoshop

In this tutorial we will create one of these mythological creatures by blending several images together and adding some dramatic lighting and depth to the scene.

Create a Realistic Blueprint Image From a 3D Object

In this tutorial we’ll create a a quick mock-up of a 3D car blueprint. Then we’ll place it on an image of a drafting table. This time we’ll use a particular Photoshop 3D Render Mode to create this awesome effect. Let’s get it started!

Create a Fallen, Rain-Soaked, Angel Composition in Photoshop

In this tutorial we will demonstrate how to create a lonely, fallen, rain-soaked, angel composition in Photoshop using photo manipulation techniques. Let’s get started!

Make a Divinely Dark Zen Composition in Photoshop

In this tutorial we will photo manipulate different photos textures and organic elements to produce a mysterious Zen-inspired composition.

Color Your Artwork Using Actions in Photoshop

In this tutorial we will demonstrate how to use actions to help color your artwork. Let’s get started!

Create a Minion Character From the Despicable Me Movie

In this tutorial we will use Photoshop and Illustrator to create a cute minion character. Let’s get started!

How to Create a Delicious Green Apple Illustration

In this tutorial you will learn how to draw a shiny green apple. We’ll have a look at various painting techniques throughout this tutorial. It will be fun and you’ll learn something new – let’s started!

Create a Scenic Castle Hallway in Photoshop

In this tutorial we will combine stock photography and some basic digital painting techniques to create a scenic castle hallway in Photoshop. Let’s get started!

Create a Vibrant and Eye-Catching Drink Composition using Photoshop

In this Photoshop tutorial you will learn how to create a Sobe fruit drink advertisement using some simple water stock images and a lot of easy to use techniques that will yield high quality results.

Create a Cardboard Box Icon in Photoshop

In this tutorial we will show you how to make a cardboard box that can be used for a number of purposes, such as for icons or for other design purposes.

Undress a Giraffe in Photoshop

In this tutorial we will demonstrate how to undress a giraffe by removing its spots. We will then show how to turn its spots into an outfit that will be draped over an ironing board. Pretty cool! Let’s get started!

Turn an Ordinary Photo Into an Avatar Style Portrait in Photoshop

In this tutorial we will demonstrate how to use basic digital painting techniques to turn an ordinary photo into an Avatar style portrait. Let’s get started!

Create a Golden Heart-Shaped Box

In this tutorial we will demonstrate how to create an elegant heart-shaped box in Photoshop. Let’s get started!

Create a Powerful Mental Wave Explosion Effect

In this tutorial we will demonstrate how to create a powerful mental wave effect using Photoshop. Let’s get started!

Design a 3D Digital Clock Icon with Illustrator

In this tutorial will explain how to create a glossy and stylized digital clock from scratch in Adobe Illustrator composed of basic shapes and nifty gradients.

Create an Awesome Number-Based Illustration

In this tutorial how to create a photo-realistic rendering of a car, in this case an Audi A1. This tutorial relies heavily on paths and should take about two hours to complete depending on skill level.

Create a Shampoo Advertisement in Photoshop

In this tutorial we will use the pen tool, some basic shape transformations, and color blending to create a fresh-looking shampoo bottle within the context of an advertisement. Let’s get started!

Draw a Spilled Paint Bucket in Illustrator

In this tutorial We will take advantage of many excellent features in Illustrator, such as the 3D Extrude & Bevel command, Blend command, drawing shapes with the Pen Tool and Pencil Tool, using Pathfinder commands to combine and create shapes, and more. The resulting product is a scalable vector drawing.

Make a 3D Recycling Bin Icon with Photoshop

In this tutorial we will show you how to make an appealing drawing of a recycling bin with crumpled and creased white paper inside and around it all from scratch.

Create a Cartoon-Like Fish Illustration in Photoshop

In this tutorial we will demonstrate how to create a cartoon-like fish illustration in Photoshop. Let’s get started!

Draw a 3D Mailbox With Photoshop

In this tutorial we will create a 3D mailbox using several of Photoshop’s tools and techniques. Let’s get started!

Draw a Sound Dock System With Photoshop

In this tutorial we will demonstrate how to draw a Sound Dock System with Photoshop. Let’s get started!

How to Make a Sleek Aluminium Hard Drive in Photoshop

In this Adobe Photoshop tutorial, we will create from scratch an external hard drive that has a smooth, metallic finish.

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Designing an icon set may sound like an easy thing to do but in actuality it is much easier said than done. Many designers end up with a disaster, while some more matured and experienced designers successfully meet the expectations and deliver.

Generally speaking, a designer needs to learn the basic principles of icon design first, and must be aware of the significance of and function that icons perform on web sites and in user interfaces. In order to create useful and effective icons, one must know the difference between icon and logo designs; and most importantly, how to use your creativity to incorporate the characteristics we need in the icon successfully.

In the end of 2009, we had compiled a post on Illustrator Icon Tutorials, and since we have noticed that there are lots more outstanding tutorials on designing beautiful and attractive icon sets that have been shared by experienced designers all over the world. So, we have decided to bring you all another collection of Adobe Illustrator Icon tutorials.

Illustrator Icon Design Tutorials

How to make a realistic vintage typewriter in Illustrator
In this tutorial you will learn to craft your very own vintage typewriter with a realistic finish in Illustrator.

Create a Super Glue and a Paint Tube Icon
In the following tutorial you will learn how to create a super glue and a paint tube icon. These shiny icons are simple to create, we’ll cover a complete workflow, and show you techniques that will speed up your work process.

How to Create a Suitcase Icon in Adobe Illustrator
In the following tutorial you will learn to create a suitcase icon, suitable for a travel oriented site, or vacation brochure. Grab hold of your vector tools and let’s get to building.

Create simple but effective Weather Icons in adobe illustrator
In this tutorial you will learn how to create some attractive little weather icons in Adobe Illustrator.

How to Make a Detailed Printer Icon Using Illustrator
In this icon design tutorial, we will construct a desktop printer icon that is rich in detail. Ready? Perhaps you should serve yourself a cup of coffee and grab a bag of chips to pass the hunger while we draw our icon (it could take a while to finish)!

Create a Jeans Pocket Icon Using Adobe Illustrator
In this tutorial you will learn many useful and necessary techniques, such as the creation of vector texture, working with the Scatter Brush, using the Graphic Style palette, creating scuffs and creases on the fabric, using the Gradient Mesh, and more. Believe me, it’s worth your attention.

Create a Nice Award Medal Icon
In the following tutorial you will learn to create an icon of an award medal. You will use various shapes and pathfinder techniques to make this great looking icon. This illustration can be made without the use of the Pen Tool, so it’s a great tutorial for beginners. You will be proud of the results!

Syringe Icon Tutorial
In this tutorial you will learn how to create a medical syringe icon with illustrator CS5.

Create a Simple Paint Brush Icon
Here you can learn to create a quite simple paintbrush icon. For this fast tutorial you’ll use some basic tools like the Rectangle Tool, the Ellipse Tool or the Pen Tool. Then, for some neat effects you’ll need the Wrinkle Tool or the Warp for rougher effects.

Create a Tasty Burger Icon in Illustrator
In this delicious tutorial the artist will show you how to create a three-dimensional, scrumptious burger using Adobe Illustrator.

Quick Tip: Create a Shiny Shield with Illustrator
In this Quick Tip, you’ll learn how to harness the Appearance panel to make the basic structure of a shiny, beveled shield. Once the structure is in place, a few well-placed gradients are all it takes to achieve a sharp, polished look.

How to Create a Simple Cardboard Box Icon
In this tutorial you will learn how to create a simple cardboard icon using 3D Extrude & Bevel and basic gradient fills.

How to Create a Shiny Bucket Icon
In this tutorial you will learn how to make a realistic vector bucket icon. You will learn to use the 3D Revolve function, how to add realistic light effects and how to draw different objects to form a composition.

How to Create a Hyper-realistic Flashlight
In this tutorial you will learn how to create a very realistic illustration of a flashlight. This style of illustration is particularly popular for icons and technical illustrations. Although this tutorial is more advanced than others, don’t let that dissuade you from giving it a go, you will find it’s written in an easy to understand format and the results will be worth the perseverance.

Create a Shimmering Cityscape in Perspective, Using Illustrator CS5
The Perspective tools in Illustrator CS5 make it a lot easier to draw in perfect one, two or three-point perspective. Using symbols in conjunction with the Perspective tools will make quick work of this stylized cityscape.

Create a Safe Icon in Adobe Illustrator
In the following tutorial you will learn to create a safe icon. We’ll use a variety of Adobe Illustrator tools and techniques to create this icon. Learn how to make a place to stash your vector gold. It’s all about the details you put into this design to give it a bit of shine.

Quick Tip: How to Create a Simple 3D Lollipop Icon
In the following tutorial you will learn to create a lollipop icon. By using some simple shapes and the Distort & Transform function, you will see just how easy it is to make a great looking icon.

Make a Headphones Icon Using Adobe Illustrator
In this tutorial you will learn how to create a realistic image of headphones using simple and understandable techniques. It turns out that to get a good result there is no need to do it in a complex way. This tutorial is easy for any beginner to complete.

Make a Mailbox Icon Using Adobe Illustrator
Attention! This icon was not created solely for educational purposes. You can see the working process of real designing! We are going to use various professional techniques to create this icon, and artist will give you many useful tips along the way.

How to Use the Perspective Grid to Create a Modern TV
In this tutorial you will learn how to create your own modern TV on a stand. Using the Perspective Grid in Illustrator CS5 as the basis of your work you will learn how to quickly create a product illustration with perfect perspective.

Create a Modern Style Icon with a Professional Finish
If you want to learn how how to create a professional level Hard Drive icon with shading and lighting the techniques, then we have an awesome tutorial for you.

How to Use the Opacity Mask to Make High Gloss Icons and Reflections
The Opacity Mask is a somewhat hidden feature in Adobe Illustrator. Mask work like Photoshop’s alpha channels to obscure parts of your artwork. In this Quick Tip, you’ll learn how to use Opacity Masks to make reflections and highlights on a vector icon.

How to Create a Stylish Wireless Phone
In this tutorial you will learn how to make a great looking Wireless Phone. You will be using Offset Path and various gradients to create a three dimensional phone with realistic highlights and reflections.

The Perfect Diamond
In this tutorial you will learn how to cut a perfect diamond.

Vector Retro Television
In this tutorial, you will be shown how to make a stylish retro looking television in Adobe Illustrator. You will learn how to draw basic shapes, modify them and apply gradient and gradient mesh for more realism. Hope you enjoy this illustrator tutorial.

How To Create a Colorful Logo Style Icon in Illustrator
Follow this step by step to create a vibrant and colourful logo style icon graphic. This style of abstract three dimensional shape has become a popular trend in the world of logo design. Today we’ll look at how to build the graphic in Illustrator using a range of tools and techniques.

Create a Simple Trunk Icon
In the following tutorial created by Andrei Marius, you can learn to create a simple trunk icon. This detailed Illustrator tutorial uses some Extrude & Bevel 3d effects, gradients, offsets, and other techniques that can be easily applied to other icons ans illustrations.

Create a Dirty Water Drop Character Icon
Did you know that 3.575 million people die each year from water-related disease? Moreover, 884 million people lack access to safe water supplies; approximately one in eight people. That’s pretty crazy! To spread the awareness about The Water Crisis, you can create the following Illustrator icon and learn more about the crisis at Change.org.

Quick Tutorial: Create A Sleek Bevel Styled Icon With Just a Few Illustrator Tools
I love simple and sleek looking icons. I love them even more when they’re easy to make, and completely versatile as a foundation for a ton of other icons. With a little practice, you can probably whip out some really beautiful icons in under a few minutes!

Create A Briefcase Icon
In this tutorial, you will be shown how to create a briefcase icon with rectangles, ellipses, and gradients. This briefcase icon is great for web designs and user interfaces. Moreover, you can easily apply these techniques to other icons, logos, and illustrations.

How to make a Calendar icon
This tutorial is for any and all of those users out there interested in icon development. In this tutorial you are going to learn how the folks at DryIcons made the Calendar Icon from their most popular icon set “Coquette”.

Create a Windows Vista Icon
In this video we will go from the very start of the process to the very end of the process of duplicating the “my computer” icon for Windows Vista and making it all vector.

Vector coffee cup tutorial Illustrator
In this tutorial you will learn how to make a realistic looking vector cup of coffee.

Simple Skull Vector Icon
In this tutorial you will learn how to create an easy, light skull vector icon.

Create a vector stop watch icon
In this tutorial you will learn how to create a vector stop watch icon in Adobe Illustrator. The tutorial is covering all the steps needed to create a great looking, realistic stop watch. Only the basic tools in Illustrator such as Ellipse, Rectangle, Gradient and transformations are used to achieve the result you see here.

How to Design a Realistic Gamepad
In this tutorial, you will learn how to create an illustration of a gamepad using the Pen Tool, Gradients and Filters. You can use this illustration as the basis of an icon or for a decorative element on a larger design.

How to Draw a Glossy Yo-Yo Icon using Adobe Illustrator
Entertain yourself with this tutorial on creating a glossy yo-yo icon. You will learn how to combine different gradient and object effects to make a hyper realistic and shiny plastic surface. The result is a perfectly rendered and appealing icon that can be made in just one hour!

Create a 6-egg box (not necessarily for Easter)
In this tutorial you will learn how to create a carton containing half a dozen eggs. We will use 3D Rotate and Revolve Effects. We will also play a lot with masks. You may download the source file (created in Illustrator CS4, back-saved to CS2+).

Create a yummy vector cupcake
In this tutorial you will learn how to create a tasty looking vector cupcake treat.

Design a 3D Digital Clock Icon with Illustrator
This tutorial will explain how to create a glossy and stylized digital clock from scratch in Adobe Illustrator composed of basic shapes and nifty gradients. We will make a vector icon that will be scalable to any size by taking advantage of designing icons and graphics using a vector-based application like Illustrator.

Create a 3D Shipping Package Box Icon in Illustrator
This icon design tutorial will discuss how to create a shipping box/parcel box icon from scratch using Adobe Illustrator. We will use the 3D Extrude & Bevel effect, the Pen Tool for drawing simple shapes, several panels like the Transparency Panel and the Gradient Panel, and other fundamental Illustrator features.

Vector printer tutorial Illustrator
In this tutorial you will learn how to make a realistic vector printer in Adobe Illustrator.

Create a Gift Box Illustration
In this next tutorial you will learn how to create an illustration of a gift box. You will be shown how to use the rectangle tool and the star tool to create a pattern and a symbol. For the box and the bow shapes you will use the 3D Extrude&Bevel effect, the Map Art option plus some Warp effects and Pathfinder options.

Create a Laptop Icon
In the following tutorial you can learn to create the icon of a laptop. Once you’ve created the basic shapes, it’s easy to continue with the other components. Give it a try and you might learn some interesting stuff about the role of Smart Guides and Rectangular Grid Tool.

Create a Neat Price Tag
In the following tutorial you will learn how to create a nifty little price tag. First, for the basic shape, the grid and the Snap to Grid will significantly ease your work. Then, for the rest of the illustration you’ll use the Pathfinder options, multiple gradients and strokes plus some basic effects and brushes.

Create a Cute and Simple Hippo Face
In the following tutorial you’ll learn to create a simple hippo face. It’s made with simple tool like the Ellipse Tool, the Rectangle Tool and the Rounded Rectangle Tool. Also, for some discrete details I added some basic effects like the Inner Glow or the Gaussian Blur.

How to Make an Opulent Chair Icon
In this tutorial, you will learn how to make a chair icon using gradient mesh, the pathfinder tool and the appearance panel. Don’t let this tut deceive you, with a bit of imagination you can create an entire collection of soft furnishing icons in minutes with a few easy tricks.

How to Illustrate a Marvelous Violin Icon
If you want to learn how to create a marvelous violin icon, then we have an awesome tutorial for you. This tutorial covers how basic shapes and a solid understanding of perspective and volume work together to quickly build a successful icon.

How to Create a Distinguished Personal Diary Icon
In this tutorial we are going to create a stylish personal diary icon using Illustrator CS4. Gradient is at the core of this tutorial and we will be taking look at it in close detail. You will also learn how to use the opacity mask to create drop reflections and shadows.

Create a Stylized First Aid Icon in Illustrator
In this tutorial we’ll use a combination of craft and Illustrator’s 3D tools to create a first aid icon. You can use the techniques you learn in this tutorial to create realistic rounded box icons of your choice. This works well for complex icons at large sizes and scales down nicely.

Design a Stylish Wallet Icon in Illustrator
In this simple tutorial you will be shown how to create the wallet icon from the Cute Little Factory’s Women’s Icons using Adobe Illustrator CS4.

Reflections Done Right – Creating a Money Roll Icon
Cash-in when you follow this tutorial for creating accurate and logical reflections. Learn how to use shading and masking to create an illustration that’s worth the look.

Create a Classic Calendar Icon
Here you’ll learn to create a classic calendar icon. It’s a pretty simple and fast tutorial. You only need to know how to use the basic tools and some effects like the Inner Glow, the Drop Shadow, the Transform effect, the Rounded Corners effect or the Warp effect.

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Advertise here with BSA

Logo trends have been ever-advancing with the changing web. As digital artists are becoming more creative and mainstream we can see the crescendo of new ideas. Logos are some of the most important graphical pieces in any website, as they display your company and purpose to each visitor.

As designers are able to collaborate with quicker ideas it’s not uncommon to see the rehashing of old ideas in new logos. This process gives web designers a nostalgic perspective with their artwork. Below I’ve gone into a few great examples for amazing logo designs in 2011. We have seen some great releases and updates over the past few months which are sure to inspire any digital artist.

Vector Arts & Animals

Animals and creatures are some of the most common additions into newer logos. This trend isn’t exactly new and has been in use for decades. Animals allow for your customers to recognize and co-relate the two images and your business together. The Trix Rabbit and Cocoa Puffs bird are two prime examples.

However, what we’re seeing with newer logos is a sense of vector illustrations coupled with brilliant imagery. From robots to chirping Twitter birds and even Chimps dressed as mailmen, we can see how popular the trend has become.

For example, the Dodo below is the perfect alignment for a retro-style feeling. The logo could fit well into any heading and supplies a very strong branding along with the extinct dodo. Fancy lettering below applies a vintage feel to the overall design which a Dodo does compliment quite nicely.

As an added benefit, many of these artists create such animals in Adobe Illustrator. When saving artwork as .ai files it’s much easier to manipulate and scale your figures as trends change. This gives your branding freedom to move from posters, billboards, newsletters, e-mail messages, and any other form of media without pixelation.

Fancy Lettering

Typography is possibly some of the most important aspects to any of your logo designs. Visitors will be glancing towards the top of your page for any sign of bold, stand-out lettering. Having your logo type jump off the page gives your visitors a simple way to recognize the current website.

Every typeface has a feeling attached to it and changes from digital to print work. As in the example below we can see the letters reflect a juicy fluidity. This could relate to food or beverages, similarly a design company such as printing business cards.

There are much fancier styles of writing for professional corporations. As in the next example we can see a small letter icon outlined in dark greys. The logo type is set along the same horizontal axis and follows a path brilliantly. Notice how each letter is also lowercase, generally indicating a modern form of professionalism.

You can use these effects in any logo which would stand firm in a similar niche. With so many different types of businesses it’s difficult to choose just a single noteworthy font family. In our set of serif fonts you can find tons of freebies which could match up well with your logo designs. Similarly we’ve got tons of other free fonts for clean website designs.

Lost in Abstraction

The abstract arts have taken a very strong hold on web designers. Modern layouts include some of the strangest effects we’ve ever seen in the history of webpages. Rounded corners and simplistic user profiles offer some of the best user experiences from a digital platform.

The logo above demonstrates a very powerful abstract concept. The fake name of the company CinEmpire could be understood as a move streaming company or video rental. We see an empire or city depicted behind a roll of film. The details are uncanny and fit a strong resemblance to vintage style movie theaters.

This isn’t to mention how the logo itself is displayed on a plaque. The formatting shows authority and is used to impose a sense of power and immortality. By using only tan and grey the color palette is shortened to that of a 1920s era cartoon.

As a contrast example the logo above uses similar iconic imagery. The film rolls here are colored quite beautifully and stand out as the logos focal point. The typography beneath is colored with two distinct shades of black and blue. The contrast helps break apart the logo where visitors may wish to understand what the company does. This effect can be seen in other brilliant typography-focused logos stemming back just one year ago.

Increased Novelty

Using other logos as a means for creativity is a fantastic boost to the imagination. Many designers such as Walt Disney played off fairy tales and historical mythology. Now in 2011 we can see the novelty effect has increased one-hundred fold.

The charming example above plays on the infamous iTunes designs. Apple has changed their logo over the course of many releases, but a musical note tends to stand out among the rest. On the logos’ type we can see all lowercase letters to symbolize modern-era technology. This labtunes could be a new music sharing or social networking website.

On another level the example below demonstrates a playful pun with words and imagery. Creating a thread thimble icon under retro-style art effects plays well into the role. This logo type would stand out in the top corner of your web page as the descriptor towards your brand.

A banner of text is wrapped around the threading to represent royalty and proper introduction. Lettering is brilliant white contrasting on a deep blue. Proper shadows and outlines have also been applied to keep the text standing out from all the background noise. However when viewed from afar the logo seems to come together in one fell swoop – only a handful of great logos can pull this off.

Conclusion

Hopefully this article has demonstrated some fantastic examples of new logo trends. We’re only into May and so far 2011 has shown us some brilliant artistic works. Web designers are growing in numbers and thus we’re seeing incredibly talented high school and college students like never before.

If you’d like more inspiration I recommend our set of minimalist logos for the wandering creative. These impose a sense of white space and apply amazing trends in logo creation. Similarly if you know of other greats trends and designs share your responses in the comments field below.

Go to Source

Advertise here with BSA

Logo trends have been ever-advancing with the changing web. As digital artists are becoming more creative and mainstream we can see the crescendo of new ideas. Logos are some of the most important graphical pieces in any website, as they display your company and purpose to each visitor.

As designers are able to collaborate with quicker ideas it’s not uncommon to see the rehashing of old ideas in new logos. This process gives web designers a nostalgic perspective with their artwork. Below I’ve gone into a few great examples for amazing logo designs in 2011. We have seen some great releases and updates over the past few months which are sure to inspire any digital artist.

Vector Arts & Animals

Animals and creatures are some of the most common additions into newer logos. This trend isn’t exactly new and has been in use for decades. Animals allow for your customers to recognize and co-relate the two images and your business together. The Trix Rabbit and Cocoa Puffs bird are two prime examples.

However, what we’re seeing with newer logos is a sense of vector illustrations coupled with brilliant imagery. From robots to chirping Twitter birds and even Chimps dressed as mailmen, we can see how popular the trend has become.

For example, the Dodo below is the perfect alignment for a retro-style feeling. The logo could fit well into any heading and supplies a very strong branding along with the extinct dodo. Fancy lettering below applies a vintage feel to the overall design which a Dodo does compliment quite nicely.

As an added benefit, many of these artists create such animals in Adobe Illustrator. When saving artwork as .ai files it’s much easier to manipulate and scale your figures as trends change. This gives your branding freedom to move from posters, billboards, newsletters, e-mail messages, and any other form of media without pixelation.

Fancy Lettering

Typography is possibly some of the most important aspects to any of your logo designs. Visitors will be glancing towards the top of your page for any sign of bold, stand-out lettering. Having your logo type jump off the page gives your visitors a simple way to recognize the current website.

Every typeface has a feeling attached to it and changes from digital to print work. As in the example below we can see the letters reflect a juicy fluidity. This could relate to food or beverages, similarly a design company such as printing business cards.

There are much fancier styles of writing for professional corporations. As in the next example we can see a small letter icon outlined in dark greys. The logo type is set along the same horizontal axis and follows a path brilliantly. Notice how each letter is also lowercase, generally indicating a modern form of professionalism.

You can use these effects in any logo which would stand firm in a similar niche. With so many different types of businesses it’s difficult to choose just a single noteworthy font family. In our set of serif fonts you can find tons of freebies which could match up well with your logo designs. Similarly we’ve got tons of other free fonts for clean website designs.

Lost in Abstraction

The abstract arts have taken a very strong hold on web designers. Modern layouts include some of the strangest effects we’ve ever seen in the history of webpages. Rounded corners and simplistic user profiles offer some of the best user experiences from a digital platform.

The logo above demonstrates a very powerful abstract concept. The fake name of the company CinEmpire could be understood as a move streaming company or video rental. We see an empire or city depicted behind a roll of film. The details are uncanny and fit a strong resemblance to vintage style movie theaters.

This isn’t to mention how the logo itself is displayed on a plaque. The formatting shows authority and is used to impose a sense of power and immortality. By using only tan and grey the color palette is shortened to that of a 1920s era cartoon.

As a contrast example the logo above uses similar iconic imagery. The film rolls here are colored quite beautifully and stand out as the logos focal point. The typography beneath is colored with two distinct shades of black and blue. The contrast helps break apart the logo where visitors may wish to understand what the company does. This effect can be seen in other brilliant typography-focused logos stemming back just one year ago.

Increased Novelty

Using other logos as a means for creativity is a fantastic boost to the imagination. Many designers such as Walt Disney played off fairy tales and historical mythology. Now in 2011 we can see the novelty effect has increased one-hundred fold.

The charming example above plays on the infamous iTunes designs. Apple has changed their logo over the course of many releases, but a musical note tends to stand out among the rest. On the logos’ type we can see all lowercase letters to symbolize modern-era technology. This labtunes could be a new music sharing or social networking website.

On another level the example below demonstrates a playful pun with words and imagery. Creating a thread thimble icon under retro-style art effects plays well into the role. This logo type would stand out in the top corner of your web page as the descriptor towards your brand.

A banner of text is wrapped around the threading to represent royalty and proper introduction. Lettering is brilliant white contrasting on a deep blue. Proper shadows and outlines have also been applied to keep the text standing out from all the background noise. However when viewed from afar the logo seems to come together in one fell swoop – only a handful of great logos can pull this off.

Conclusion

Hopefully this article has demonstrated some fantastic examples of new logo trends. We’re only into May and so far 2011 has shown us some brilliant artistic works. Web designers are growing in numbers and thus we’re seeing incredibly talented high school and college students like never before.

If you’d like more inspiration I recommend our set of minimalist logos for the wandering creative. These impose a sense of white space and apply amazing trends in logo creation. Similarly if you know of other greats trends and designs share your responses in the comments field below.

Go to Source

Vectorize a Landscape Photo Into a Watercolor Painting

I live in Turin (Italy) and the Mole is the symbol of this city. Rome has Colosseo, London the Big Ben whereas Turin has the Mole. It is a very good subject to use, vectorized, to decorate this city’s merchandising items. A city skyscraper is a must to do as merchandising subject for mug and t-shirt. The image may need several sizes and needs to retain it’s detail so a vector is the most suitable kind of file to use.

Follow this walkthrough on how to turn a landscape photo in an elegant watercolor painting like vector. The procedure, as usual, is just one of the thousand applications that you may found for the same technique. Weíll start by adjusting in a suitable way the photo in Photoshop and we will go ahead to get a sketchy figure skyline, fully detailed vector. For this purpose we will be using Adobe Illustrator.

Lets begin!

Tutorial Details

Program: Adobe Photoshop CS4, Adobe Illustrator CS4
Difficulty: Intermediate
Estimated Completion Time: 3-4 hours

Final Image

Here is a preview of the image that we are going to be creating:

Introduction: the easiest way

There are several interesting and creative ways to create vector illustrations. The technique obviously depend on the final work you want to get, the kind of image you have (if you have one), and your experience to do the job.

The most common way are three, you can start from a blank canvas, from a sketch, or use a photo.

Starting from a blank canvas is the most difficult way. You have no lines to follow and you are alone with your creativity. The bad side of the technique is that you need to be really able and having strong hand-drawing skill.

The second option is hand-drawing a sketch of what you want first. Even to do this step you need to be able with hand-drawing but, once scanned the image, youíll have a template to work to.

The last way is the easiest one and that is the one we are going to use with this tutorial. You start from a photo of the thing you want to vectorize and use it as template building it up level by level.

Choosing the Right Photo

Once chosen the procedure the next extremely important step is choosing the right photo. Not anyone is good to start with. The right photo has to be well contrasted and not too dark but with definite distinction between light and shadow areas. This will help you in identifying the contours.

If you are not comfortable with taking picture than you can purchase images, from a stock photo service, which are suitable for your upcoming creation. Anyway the best thing to do is using shots from your own so that you are not occurring in copyright problems.

Preparing the Image in Photoshop

Step 1

Once identified the technique and chosen the image there are still few steps to accomplish. Before we get started are a few basics need to be covered. To make the vectorization working better once within Illustrator platform we need to prepare it by adjusting lights and levels, turning the image in w/b and deleting some areas of the picture.

As suggested, I prefer taking the picture which I use by myself. Last weekend, having a walk around Iive taken several pictures of the Turinís Mole Antonelliana. Among the various shots Iíve selected this nice and clear pic of the historical monument:

It contains several typical city elements: the Mole, the characteristic dormer windows, a beautiful streetlamp and an old-style tram recently restored. I think it well represent Turin and its beautiful elegance.

Open up the image in Photoshop. Adjust contrast and lights as you like and turn the image w/b by going to Image > Mode > Grayscale.

This is what you get:

Duplicate the level as backup and go ahead.

Step 2

Click CTRL + L (or CMD + L) to open the Level panel.

Adjust levels so that the gray in the sky disappears and leaves all around the main subject clean. Move the handles so that you clean the borders from exceeding gray or black shadows. Move the white handle toward the right side and the black handle toward left has shown below.

Step 3

Go then to Filter > Stylize > Trace Contour

This feature traces the areas in the picture that have the most contrast in value to each other.

Set Upper Edge and a tracing level high to better outline the image. Experiment with the options. These are the value and setting which Iíve used.

Step 4

Once that the photo has been stylized we need to make the lines darker. Duplicate the level, and apply a Multiply blending.

This is what we get.

Step 5

Select the white color by using the magic wand tool and refine the selection by going to Select > Similar.

Delete the white color and leave the image in a transparent level.

Step 6

Select the Rubber Tool. From the Rubber option panel select a dry brush, increase the size and delete part of the artwork. Consider that too many details will make the Illustrator file heavy to manage once vectorized. The cleaning up of the image will avoid a useless proliferation of anchor points.

In the example Iíve removed branches from the trees. In addition Iíve removed the border making the image suitable to fit different shapes without the need of constraining it in a frame.

Have you reminded yourself to save? If not (bad boy/girl!) than do it now.

Polished and with its undefined silhouette the image is now ready to be managed in Illustrator and turned in a vector.

Vectorizing the Image

Step 7

Create a new document by going to File > New.

The document size depending on what your artwork you are going to use for. Iíve selected a 15 x 25 cm size to be sure I can use it as design for a merchandising t-shirt.

In the advanced options choose CMYK as color mode because it has printing use, and High Resolution Raster Effect.

Step 8

Take your photo already managed with Photoshop and import it into Illustrator. To do that go to File > Place and choose the .psd file which you have previously saved.

Place it inside your artwork area.

Step 9

Keep the object selected and go to Object > Live Trace > Tracing Options

Step 10

This step is extremely important. The Tracing Option Panel contains a lot of parameters which are going to affect the vectorizing result. Let’s have a close reading to them.

Preset Specifies a tracing preset.

This change between different presets that Illustrator offers.

Mode

Specifies a color mode for the tracing result.

It allows to switch from black and white, grayscale, or color mode.

Threshold

Specifies a value for generating a black and white tracing result from the original image. All pixels lighter than the Threshold value are converted to white; all pixels darker than the Threshold value are converted to black. (This option is available only when Mode is set to Black and White.).

Palette

To let Illustrator determine the colors in the tracing, select Automatic. To use a custom palette for the tracing, select a swatch library name. (The swatch library must be open in order for it to appear in the Palette menu.).

This allows you to specify your own color.

Max Colors

Specifies a maximum number of colors to use in a color or grayscale tracing result. (This option is available only when Mode is set to Color or Grayscale and when panel is set to Automatic.).

Obviously the more are the color the heavier is the file.

Output To Swatches

Creates a new swatch in the Swatches panel for each color in the tracing result.
This will give you a control on the colors automatically picked up from the image so that you may change them later.

Blur

Blurs the original image before generating the tracing result. Select this option to reduce small artifacts and smooth jagged edges in the tracing result.

Resample

Resamples the original image to the specified resolution before generating the tracing result. This option is useful for speeding up the tracing process for large images but can yield degraded results.

Fills

Creates filled regions in the tracing result.

Strokes

Creates stroked paths in the tracing result.

Max Stroke Weight

Specifies the maximum width of features in the original image that can be stroked. Features larger than the maximum width become outlined areas in the tracing result.

Min Stroke Length

Specifies the minimum length of features in the original image that can be stroked. Features smaller than the minimum length are omitted from the tracing result.

Path Fitting

Controls the distance between the traced shape and the original pixel shape. Lower values create a tighter path fitting; higher values create a looser path fitting.

Minimum Area

Specifies the smallest feature in the original image that will be traced. For example, a value of 4 specifies that features smaller than 2 pixels wide by 2 pixels high will be omitted from the tracing result.

Corner Angle

Specifies the sharpness of a turn in the original image that is considered a corner anchor point in the tracing result.

Raster

Specifies how to display the bitmap component of the tracing object.

Vector

Specifies how to display the tracing result.

[Italic text from Adobe Illustrator CS4 Help http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Illustrator/14.0/WS714a382cdf7d304e7e07d0100196cbc5f-6226a.html]

Not cited from the Adobe Help we still have:

Ignore White

It omits white from the vectorization. This means that all white areas will be empty and left transparent.

Preview

Le t you see what you have to expect from your settings. Pay attention that depending on the inserted values the preview may slow your computer in the image calculation process.

Info

The shown details hereby listed are the result in terms of anchor points, colors, etc, which coming from your chosen options.

Step 11

Go to Object > Live Trace > Expand the image shows the paths and you can edit whatever you like. This will give you a great flexibility if you need to modify shapes or anchor points.
Once finished lock the level and save.

Step 12

Once you have accomplished this step the main part of the work is completed. At this point the only thing to do is making it better by adding some creative elements. In the example, Iíve decided that my Mole Antonelliana artwork have to look like a watercolor painting. Thatís why I need now is the right tool for the job: a watercolor brush for Illustrator.

You can produce by yourself watercolor brushes or, otherwise, you can use free resources from the web to provide you with the elements you need to finish your artwork. Please, always pay attention to copyright and license of use for any resource you get. Respect your fellows work!

In the example Iíve downloaded the nice Vectips Watercolor Brushes from Vectips.com http://vtfreebi.es/65MP).

Download the resource and load the brush by going in the brush palette. Select the drop down menu and choose Open Brush Library > Other Library. Load the brush from the folder where you have saved it

Step 13

Letís start to paint our artwork to make it more attractive.

Create a new level. Choose brush number 5 and draw a line onto the tram. Change the color with a bright green one.

Step 14

Select brush number 1, pick a bright yellow color and draw few lines around the city lamp.

Step 15

Select brush number 6 and a dark green color. Make irregular circle in the branches area.

Step 16

Select brush number 5 again and with a gray color paint the city lamp pole.

Step 17

Choose cyan color and select brush number one. Make a circle in a new layer and move this layer behind that one which contains the Mole outline.

Step 18

We still can add a touch of color to the Mole by selecting brush n. 4 and red and drawing a single vertical line.

Step 19

Do not forget you sign! Otherwise how can people recognize your work? Sign in a new layer by using your tablet or, otherwise, scan your sign and follow a similar workflow as that one just accomplished to vectorize it well. To stick with the general style of the artwork Iíve handwritten it with my tablet.

And We’re Done!

Here below you can see the final image we get. The subtle and elegant watercolor effect matches perfectly with the general elegance of Turin as city. The outline is clear but detailed, really different form a cartoon style or a simple black silhouette skyline.

As said I think it is a perfect artwork to be printed on city merchandise. Here below Iíve mounted it on a t-shirt to let you see what I mean.
What do you think about?

I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial and would love to hear your feedback on the techniques and outcome.

Download Source File for this Tutorial

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Thousands of people can’t imagine their mornings without a cup of coffee. Espresso machines are the best friends of hardly working creative’s around the world. In this Illustrator tutorial I will guide you through the process of creating an espresso maker icon using simple illustration techniques.

Step 1

Open Adobe Illustrator and create a new document about 600 by 600px

Next, create a smaller copy of thi s path and paste in the back of the original one.

Select the Pen Tool and connect these two paths to create an illusion of unity.

Select the newly created path and the smaller base path and press the Unite button in the Pathfinder. Press Ctrl + [ to move this path under the original base rectangle. You should end with something like this.

Fill the second path with horizontal (linear) gradient from #642500 to #D35E29 to #642500 again.

Step 2

Select the main base path, create a copy and then paste in place, then create another copy and move it down with about 5px (depending on size of your path). Select both copies and press the Minus Front button in the Pathfinder panel. You should obtain a very tiny path which we’re going to transform into a highlight. Fill it with white, select Overlay as blending mode and reduce its opacity to 40%.

Create a reflected copy of this path, paste it at the bottom of the base, fill it with black and change the blending mode to Multiply. This is now a shadow.

Apply Drop Shadow effect to the base with these setting (again, they may vary).

Use Ellipse Tool to create two small, black, legs under the base.

Step 3

Since the base is ready we are moving on to the middle and the top part of the body. Use Pen Tool to trace a path as you see in the image below. Fill it with radial gradient from #D35E29 to # 642500.

Use Ellipse Tool to create the top part of the machine, and then fill it with the same gradient as the main base path.

Create the highlight and the shadow for this path, just like you’ve done with the base path.

Make another copy of this path and paste it in the back. Then, make it a little wider and fill with linear gradient from #642500 to #D35E29 to #642500 again.

Create another bigger highlight just like you made the first one, but reduce opacity to 15% this time.

Step 4

Good, now that we’re done with the body itself, we can start adding details. Type the word “espresso” on the base of the machine and then expand it. The font I used is Brush Script.

After this, using Pen Tool try to draw a kind of tail at the end of “o” and Unite the text with it from the Pathfinder panel.

You may now fill the text path with a vertical gradient from 20% gray to 40% and apply a drop Shadow effect with these settings:

Step 5

Try to obtain a power button using Pen Tool or Ellipse Tool + Line Segment Tool. Fill it with #FFA476 and apply the same shadow effect on it.

Now we’ll be creating a small lattice on the base of the machine. Use rounded rectangle tool to draw a wide rectangle and then Free Transform Tool to make it narrower at the top.

Fill this path with the same 20 to 40% gray and the create small shadow inside it to add depth.

Create a couple of horizontal lines on it with 70% gray set as stroke color.

Step 6

Draw a very thick rounded rectangle as you see in the image and then rotate it 90 degrees. Place it under the top part of the body and fill with horizontal gradient from black to #C2B59B to black and C2B59B again and then 80% gray. You will end up with something like this :

Draw a shadow for it (opacity set to about 80%).

Make three smaller copies of these paths and stack them.

Step 7

Somewhere on your artboard create two overlapping rounded rectangles and fill them with linear gradients : black to #C2B59B for the smaller one and black to #C2B59B to black for the bigger one.

Put an ellipse at the bottom filled with 20 to 40% gray gradient as you see in the image. This is going to be our handle.

Resize and place the handle on the machine.

Step 8

Now we are going to create a heat indicator on the top part of our machine. We’ll start by creating a tiny black circle.

Then use Offset Path command to create a bigger circle behind this one and fill it with vertical gradient from 20 to 40% gray.

Repeat this command two more times to obtain an indicator like you can see below.

Use pen tool to draw a small arrow on the indicator and apply a shadow effect to the biggest path of the indicator..

Now type in a random temperature value with 60% gray text.

Step 9

Using the same technique create additional 2 indicators on each side of the big one.

Our Espresso Machine is ready!

About The Authour

This tutorial was written by Ilie Ciorba a great illustrator who runs a great bloghttp://www.vectelligence.com/.

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Today we’re going to show you a detailed step-by-step guide on how to create a glamorous portrait using a stock reference. The final result will be 100% vector; therefore will retain its scalable properties. This walk through is ideal for those an intermediate to advanced knowledge of Illustrator. Illustrator CS5 was used for the tutorial although you can do the majority of the elements in the majority of vector programs. A Wacom Bamboo A5 tablet was also used, however you can achieve the same results with a mouse.

The final image will look like this:

Step 1

When I create my portraits I use a modified stock image as a reference.

The stock I’m going to be using in this tutorial is from Jessica Truscott. The specific image can be found here.

The original stock image.

Using the Lasso Tool (L) and the Move Tool (V), I’ve resized the majority of the image to give a more exaggerated image. Ideally I want the eyes to be the focal point of the illustration, so I make sure that the eyes and the irises are the most prominent.

Using the Brush Tool (B) I sketch and draw on the afro and hair band to give me an idea of what the overall composition may look like. I then bring this over to Illustrator to work on.

Step 1: The manipulated stock image.

Step 2

Open up Illustrator and a New Document (Ctrl + N) in with a Print document profile and Color Mode CMKY.

Go to File > Place and locate the modified stock image. Using the Free Transform Tool (E), resize the stock image to the canvas. Double click on the layer folder containing the stock image and rename it “Reference” and click on OK.

Create New Layer and rename it “BG”. Within this layer folder, use the Rectangle Tool (M) to draw a white filled rectangle to cover the canvas and reduce the opacity to 30%. This is a similar method to say using tracing paper on top of a drawing.

Finally Create New Layer and rename it “Bases” and then lock the Reference and BG layer folders.

Step 2: The canvas is prepped to start vectoring!

Step 3

Within the Bases layer folder I’m going to begin adding “base layers”. These are shapes of 100% opacity which I will use later on for shapes for clipping masks for the shading.

In total, there are four base layers: the back of the afro (C=60, M=65, Y=70, K=70), the skin (C=15, M=30, Y=35, K=0), the hair band (C=20, M=100, Y=90, K=0) and the afro overlapping the hair band (C=60, M=65, Y=70, K=70).

Step 3: The outline against the reference image and the base layer preview.

Step 4

Create New Layer and rename it “Skin”.

Copy (Ctrl + C) the skin base layer and Paste in Front (Ctrl + F) the shape into the Skin folder. Hide the Base layer folder and set the Skin folder to preview by Ctrl + Clicking on the hide Toggle of the layer palette. This is so you can see the reference image underneath while you draw the shapes for the shading.

Step 4: Skins folder on preview to show the reference image underneath.

Step 5

I’m going to be adding shading to the portrait. Using the Pen Tool (P) I will create a variety of shapes in the areas where there are shadows cast or there are darker areas in the skin. The fill color will be just a bit darker than the skin color (C=35, M=60, Y=70, K=15) and the Opacity of 5%.

Using the reference image as a guide, I begin adding the shading shapes. Adding larger shading shapes first.

Step 5a: The first two shading shapes.

Once the initial shapes have been added, I add further shapes within them to give darker shading. If you overlap areas of low opacity over each other, it will appear darker. With this process of skin shading I can gradually overlap the shapes to build up the contrast in the portrait.

Step 5b: Adding further shapes to increase the shading contrast.

I keep on adding further shapes to give a smoother look to the skin. Typically when viewing a portrait you’re drawn into the eyes, the lips, the hair… if the skin is flawless. If the skin and the shading hasn’t been rendered well, then this will always show.

Step 5c: To give an idea of the amount of shapes used in the nose to give the contrast required.

I keep building up the shading shapes until I’m satisfied with the level of detail. If I can see parts of the portrait clearly, for example detail in the ears, eyelids and nostrils; then I’m happy with the detailing.

Step 5d: Initial shading is complete, but this is only one shade!

Step 6

As you may have noticed in the image Step 15d, the shading is overlapping the skin base layer. I’m going to trim this off using a clipping mask.

Select all the shading shapes, excluding the copy of the skin base layer and Group them (Ctrl + G). Drag the group below the skin base duplicate and then recolor the duplicate to black.

Select the group and the duplicate and go to Object > Clipping Mask > Make (Ctrl + 7).

Step 6: The skin shading clipping mask is applied.

Step 7

Repeating the same process as Step 15, I’m going to add further depth to the shading by using a darker skin tone (C=45, M=65=, Y=70, K=40) with the Opacity set to 5%.

The key with using the darker color is to create smaller shapes for the darker areas rather. If you feel you’ve missed a section of shading which is a larger area, I would suggest using the color/process in Step 5.

I focus on adding shading to the edges of the skin base layer, around the eyes, nose, centre of the lips and ear details. These almost always have deeper shadows than the rest of the portrait.

Step 7a: Adding darker shadows to the portrait.

Once I’m happy with the shapes added, I group up the shapes and then drag and drop them into the clipping mask group with the other skin shading.

Step 7b: The darker shadow shapes are added to the clipping mask group.

Step 8

As I’ve now added the main shadows in the portrait, I will need to add highlights to the skin. I do this using the same color as the skin base layer (C=15, M=30, Y=35, K=0), but setting the Blending Mode to Screen and the Opacity to 7%.

I no longer use the reference image as a guide as I have the structure of the face. The parts of the illustration which have no shading present are the areas I’ll be looking at building up highlights on. If you don’t feel comfortable with this, then continue using the reference image to guide you – it’s what it’s there for!

Step 8a: The placement of the highlighting shapes.

As with before, now I’m happy with the highlight shapes I’m going to Group them (Ctrl + G) and add them to the clipping mask group.

Step 8b: The skin base with the shadow and highlight shapes.

Step 9

I create a transparent radial gradient using the skin base layer color (C=15, M=30, Y=35, K=0) with the centre at 100% opacity and the outside at 0%. I’m going to use this to add further highlights to the skin with the Blending Mode of Screen and the Opacity of 30%. The benefits of using gradients in skin shading is that it helps smooth the skin and make it look iridescent.

Step 9a: Adding further highlight shapes with a transparent radial gradient.

Then when all the shapes are placed, Group them (Ctrl + G) and add them to the clipping mask group.

Step 9b: The skin looks smooth with the use of gradients.

Step 10

The skin isn’t all one color and this is especially true for a glamorous woman who loves her make up. I’m going to add blush to her cheeks to give a rosier appearance.

Firstly I create a magenta to magenta transparent radial gradient. Then using the Ellipse Tool (L), I draw a circle on one cheek. Then Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste (Ctrl + V) the shape and move it to the opposite cheek.

Then reduce the Opacity to 45% and the Blending Mode to Soft Light. Drag and drop the shapes into the clipping mask group when done.

Step 10: Adding pink blush to the cheeks using a transparent radial gradient.

Step 11

In the corner of a person’s eyes, the skin is often a slight shade of grey. So to incorporate this into the portrait I’m going to use a similar method as above, but using a black to black transparent radial gradient. The Blending Mode will be set to Hue and the Opacity at 30%.

Drag and drop the shapes into the clipping mask group once completed.

Step 11: Black transparent radial gradients are added to the corners of the eye.

Step 12

Using the darker skin shade (C=45, M=65=, Y=70, K=40), I’m going to create a transparent radial gradient and add a change in tone to the sides of the arms/shoulders, under the nose and under the chin/neck.

Then setting the Blending Mode to Color Burn and the Opacity to 20%.

Step 12a: Brown transparent radial gradients are added.

Then I’ll Group the shapes (Ctrl + G) and drag and drop them into the clipping mask group.

Step 12b: Due to the gradients the face looks almost porcelain.

Step 13

I’m going to create a new art brush using the Ellipse Tool (L), draw a slim black filled ellipse. Using the Convert Anchor Point Tool (Shift + C) to just click once on the end tips of the ellipse to taper the ends.

Drag and drop the shape into the Brush palette and select “Art Brush” then copy the below settings.

Step 13: Creating a curved tapered art brush.

Step 14

Create New Layer and rename it “Hair”.

Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste in Front (Ctrl + F) the skin base layer and the two hair base layers. Using the Pathfinder options, I Minus Front the skin base layer from the larger hair shape.

Then selecting both of the hair base layers and back in Pathfinder again, select the Divide option. This will divide the afro into three shapes. Delete the shape which is overlapping the skin and wont be showing.

Finally, selecting both the remaining shapes, Unite them.

Step 14: Creating a complete afro base layer.

Step 15

I’m going to build up the hair gradually by using the Paintbrush Tool (B) and the new art brush with the stroke color of a dulled brown (C=55, M=60, Y=65, K=40).

First I go around the edges of the base layers for the hair to add C shaped strokes and spiral strokes. It’s ok to go over the edges as it will be resolved later on.

Step 15a: Starting with creating spirals around the edges of the base layer.

Then I work inwards from the edges to fill in the rest of the afro.

Step 15b: Drawing the curls inwards.

Be patient while drawing the swirls as if they are rushed they may look too messy.

Step 15c: The completed swirls.

Step 16

Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste in Front the afro base layer (Ctrl + F).

I’m going to Select All of the strokes (Ctrl + A) and reduce the Opacity to 50%. Then I’ll Group them (Ctrl + G).

Recolor one of the afro base layer and recolor it black then drag and drop it in front of the swirl group.

Then select the swirl group and afro base layer and create a Clipping Mask (Ctrl + 7).

Step 16: The swirls in a clipping mask.

Step 17

With the duplicated afro base layer, fill it with a black transparent radial gradient with the outside set to Opacity 100%.

Then I’ll duplicate this shape and invert the gradient and use the Gradient Tool (G) to reposition and shape the gradient.

Selecting them both, I change the Blending Mode to Color Burn and the Opacity to 80%.

Step 17: Using gradients to add depth to the afro.

Step 18

I’m going to start adding further detailing to the afro now, first I want to add some texture to it. Using the Paintbrush Tool (B) and a larger stroke weight (I used 8pt), set the Blending Mode to Color Burn and the Opacity to 10%. I used a brown color (C=35, M=60, Y=80, K=25) to draw dashes around the hair area.

Overlap the dashes in areas to create darker areas in some parts to add more texture to the hair.

Then group the strokes (Ctrl + G) and add them to the afro clipping mask group.

Step 18: Wide dark dashed strokes are added to give the afro texture.

Step 19

I’m going to repeat Step 18, but with the stroke color of a lighter brown (C=25, M=40, Y=65, K=0), Blending Mode Soft Light and Opacity 10%.

Step 19: Wide light dashed strokes are added to give the afro texture.

Step 20

Afro hair doesn’t have a smooth edge, so I’m going to recreate this effect by adding strokes around the edge/outside of the afro.

I’m going to use the Paintbrush Tool (B) with the tapered brush and a small stroke weight, I’ve used 0.5pt here. I’m going to use a dark brown color (C=60, M=65, Y=70, K=90) with a Blending Mode of Multiply and Opacity of 80%.

The strokes I’m going to make are mixture of spirals, C and S shapes. Cross the lines over, make them a bit irregular, as long as a portion of the strokes are within the area of the afro. In other words, the strokes must not appear to look as if they are floating outside of the edge of the afro.

Group the strokes up (Ctrl + G) and drag and drop them below the clipping mask, not within.

Step 20: Drawing strokes around the outside of the afro.

Step 21

I’m going to split up the base layers now so I can add elements more easily.

Firstly to Create New Layer below the Hair layer folder and rename it “Afro Front”. In the Bases layer folder, drag and drop the brown long shape into this new folder.

Create New Layer below the Afro Front layer folder and rename it “Hairband”. Drag and drop the red hair band shape into this folder.

Step 21: Reorganising the layer folders.

Step 22

Within the Hairband layer folder I’m going to add strands of hair which would be shown between the ear and the hair band.

I’m going to use the Paintbrush Tool (B) with the same settings as the spirals on the outside of the afro. So that is the tapered brush and a stroke weight of 0.5pt. I’m going to use a dark brown color (C=60, M=65, Y=70, K=90) with a Blending Mode of Multiply and Opacity of 80%.

Firstly draw a guide of the hairs between the hair band and the ear. Then fill in and layer on top further strokes to thicken the hair.

Step 22: Using a structure of strands as a guide then thickening the hair up.

Step 23

Create New Layer above the Skin layer and rename it “Lips”.

If you noticed while creating the skin shading, I drew elements of the lips. This is because the lips should be considered as part of the skin. If you treat them as unconnected elements in the illustration, it will look like the lips are floating on top of the skin.

I’ll be using a red transparent radial gradient for the initial shading of the lips (C=20, M=100, Y=90, K=0).

Firstly creating an overall shape of the lips and changing the Blending Mode to Multiply and the Opacity to 30%.

Then drawing two shapes for the top and the bottom lip at a 50% opacity. The bottom lip shape will overlap the top lip to give extra shadow for the top lip. When drawing the lips, draw them slightly within the shape of the initial lip shading shape you created first. This will give the lips a softer edge.

Step 23: Gradients are used to add depth to the lips.

Step 24

Using the same gradient, I’m going to add further shapes towards the center of the lips and underneath the bottom lip.

These shapes I’m changing the Blending Mode to Color Burn and the Opacity to 30%.

Step 24a: Adding depth to the center of the lips and underneath the bottom lip.

I’m going to add further shapes in these places and the corners of the mouth to give the lips further depth.

Step 24b: More gradient shapes are added to the lips.

Step 25

I’ve decided I’m not happy with the color of the lips and wish to change it to a shade of pink. A good way of doing is, is to create a shape on top of the area you wish to recolor. Then fill it with the desired color and change the Blending Mode to Color. Play around with the Opacity of the layer to get the intensity you want.

I’ve opted for a fill color of C=20, M=100, Y=0 and K=0 with the Opacity of 60%. If you notice in the image below, I’ve draw the shape just beyond the lips area. This is to help the lips look as if they are part of the face and not floating on top of it.

Step 25: The lips are recolored to pink.

Step 26

Now that I’m happy with the color of the lips, I’m going to increase the shadow on the underneath of the top and bottom lip.

Throughout this process, I often feel I want to balance the tones and shadow. The shadow is becoming bolder in the lips, therefore I want to balance this off in the nose area.

The below shadows are done with a dark brown (C=45, M=65, Y=70, K=40) with the Blending Mode as Multiply and the Opacity at 7%.

Step 26: Balancing the shadow in the lips and the nose area.

Step 27

The more plump the lips, the more creases there are in them. This is especially true of bottom lips. So to create this texture I’m going to add some spikey shapes around the parting of the lips.

I’m using a pink fill color (C=20, M=100, Y=0, K=0) with the Blending Mode of Color Burn and Opacity of 40%. Some areas will be darker than others, so I’ve overlapped the spikes to reflect this.

Step 27: Adding creases to the lips.

Step 28

To emphasis the creases further, I’m going to start adding highlights to the creases and the top of the lips.

Firstly, create a light pink transparent radial gradient (C=5, M=35, Y=0, K=0) and then use this to draw long shapes between the creases previously drawn. Then along the top of the top lip. Then set the Blending Mode for the shapes to Screen and Opacity 30%.

Step 28: Using gradients to highlight the lips and creases.

Step 29

Now to add the teeth. Using the light pink transparent radial gradient, draw out the teeth individually and then a smaller shape within. This will give the impression of a slight shadow from all sides. Set the Blending Mode to Screen and the Opacity to 20%.

Then using a black transparent radial gradient with the centre at 0% opacity, draw a shape which covers the entire opening of the mouth. Set the Blending Mode to Multiply and the Opacity to 25%.

Using a solid black color, add further shadows in the corner of the mouth opening and in between the teeth on Mulitply and 25% as before.

Step 29: Adding the teeth and inner mouth shadow.

Step 30

Finally, using the Ellipse Tool (L) with the light pink transparent radial gradient on the Blending Mode Color Dodge and Opacity 40%, add circles on the bottom lip and along the outside of the lips. This is to give the impression of shine and glitter.

Step 30: Creating a glitter effect with radial gradients.

Step 31

Create New Layer above the Hair layer folder and rename it “Eye shadow”.

I’m going to create to transparent radial gradients. A green one for the eyelid (C=85, M=10, Y=100, K=0) and a yellow (C=0, M=0, Y=100, K=0) gradient for above the eyelid. Set the gradients to Blending Mode Color Burn. This will give me a good base for the eyeshadow.

Step 31: Using simple gradients for disco eyeshadow.

Step 32

Create New Layer above the Eye shadow layer folder and rename it “Eyes”.

Using the Pen Tool (P) and a white fill color, draw around the whole eyeball including the corner. Then draw within the eye ball but excluding where there would be a slight shadow. Finally adding white shapes either side of the iris but within the other shapes.

Then reduce the Opacity of the shapes to 40%. This is because I want to give the eyeball some impression of shadow and eyeballs aren’t white!

Step 32: Adding white shapes for the eyeballs.

Step 33

I’m going to use the Ellipse Tool (L) to draw a circle for one the iris of one eye with a blue fill color (C=85, M=50, Y=0, K=0). Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste (Ctrl + V) the circle and move it into place for the other eye.

Using the Pen Tool, add anchor points (+) where the circle meets the upper and lower eyelids. Then remove the anchor points (-) which are beyond the eye ball.

Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste in Front (Ctrl + F) the shapes and using the Free Transform Tool (E) decrease the size of the shape slightly.

Then select all the blue shapes and reduce the Opacity to 75%. Due to duplicating and resizing the shape, it gives the iris a soft outline.

Step 33: Creating the shape for the iris.

Step 34

Using the Ellipse Tool (L) and a similar technique, I’m going to create a circle for the pupil filled with black and with the Blending Mode Multiply and Opacity 70%.

Duplicate the circle and decrease it’s size to soften the edge. Then Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste (Ctrl + V) the two circles and place for the other eye.

Step 34: Creating the pupil.

Step 35

I’m going to begin adding further shading and detail to the eye. The pupil shapes can be used as a guide to where the detailing is surrounding so I would advise these elements to be below the pupil shapes so it doesn’t distort it. Also worth noting, that whatever I do to one eye, I repeat the process for the other.

I’m going to build up the shading and contrast within the iris. Throughout creating this, you need to consider the main color of the iris, which in this case I want to be blue and the shadow and highlight in the eye. The top eyelid and eyelashes will cast shadow over the eye and the iris, so shading will need to be taken into consideration.

My first step is to add shading around the sides of the eye and towards the top by layering a darker blue (C=100, M=100, Y=25, K=25) at Blending Mode Multiply and Opacity 30%.

Step 35: Adding shading towards the top and sides of the iris.

Step 36

Create a new transparent radial gradient with a pink color (C=10, M=100, Y=50, K=0) on the outside set at 100% opacity and the centre with a blue (C=100, M=0, Y=0, K=0) at 0% opacity.

Using this gradient, Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste in Front (Ctrl + F) the smaller shape for the base of the iris twice. With the first gradient, use it to give a soft outline to the whole iris.

Step 36a: The gradient adds a soft outline to the iris.

Then using the second gradient to give a highlighting area towards the bottom of the iris, but will also give shade towards the top of the iris. Set both of the gradient shapes at a Blending Mode of Color Burn.

Step 36b: The gradient adds contrast to the iris.

Step 37

I’m going to add some detail into the iris. To do this draw a circle using the Ellipse Tool (L) with a yellow fill color (C=0, M=0, Y=100, K=0). Then apply a Zig Zag effect by going to Effects > Distort & Transform > Zig Zag and use the below settings.

Step 37a: Applying a zig zag effect to a circle.

Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste (Ctrl + V) the shape over to the other iris. Then set the Blending Mode to Overlap and the Opacity to 70%.

Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste in Front (Ctrl + F) the smaller iris base shapes and use them to create a clipping mask for the zig zagged shapes.

Step 37b: Using a clipping mask to trim the zig zag shape.

Step 38

Using the Ellipse Tool (L) create two circles and Minus Front the smaller circle from the larger. The smaller circle should be the same size as the pupil. Create a yellow transparent radial gradient (C=0, M=0, Y=100, K=0) and fill it circle with it.

Set the Blending Mode to Overlay and the Opacity to 50%.

Step 38: Using a gradient to add further contrast.

Step 39

I want to add more contrast around the outside of the iris. So I’m going to add some dark blue shapes (C=100, M=100, Y=25, K=25) set to Blending Mode Multiply around the sides and top.

Step 39: Adding darker shapes to increase contrast.

Step 40

The eyeball has some shading from around the top lip towards the corners. To reflect this I’m going to add two black transparent radial gradients with the center at 0% set to Blending Mode Multiply and Opacity 35%.

Then I’m going to add a black fill shape around the top of the eyeball and corner of the eyes. This is a more solid shadow cast by the eyelid. I’m going to set the Opacity to 25%.

These shapes and further from now on will be above the eye’s pupil.

Step 40: Using gradients to add a shadow to the eyeball.

Step 41

Using the red from the hair band to create a red transparent radial gradient, draw two shapes at the corners of the eyes. Bring the source of the gradients right into the corner.

Set the Blending Mode to Hard Light and Opacity to 25%.

Step 41: Adding the red to the corner of the eyes.

Step 42

Now to start building on the lashes and to do this I’m going to give our girl a nice thick eye line on her top lashes and a slimmer line along her bottom lid.

Using the Pen Tool (P) to draw several black shapes with the Blending Mode Multiply and Opacity of 25%. I layer them in lower opacities to give a soft line to the eyes as it appears more natural. I also add two shapes in the eye lid crease to define it.

Step 42: Layering black shapes to create a soft line.

Step 43

I’m going to build up the eye shadow further with a shine around the eyelids. Within the Eyes layer folder I’m going to add the same green transparent radial gradient used for the eye shadow on the top and bottom lids. The set the Blending Mode to Color Dodge.

Then adding the yellow transparent radial gradient to the corner of the eyes and set that to Blending Mode Color Dodge and Opacity to 75%.

Step 43: Adding color dodge gradients to the eye shadow to give a shine.

Step 44

With the fill color of the green transparent radial gradient with the Blending Mode Color Dodge and Opacity of 75%, use the Ellipse Tool (L) to draw circles around the eye shadow areas to give the impression of glitter.

Select the all and then Group them (Ctrl + G).

Step 44: Using radial gradients to create a glitter effect.

Step 45

Using the brush I used for the hair, I’m going to use the Paintbrush Tool (B) to create the eyelashes. I’m using 0.25pt stroke weight and stroke color of black. Then setting the top lashes to Blending Mode Multiply and the Opacity to 75%. The lashes are drawn in a slight J shape, so they curve over the lash line and over into the eyeball. Then I Group up the top lashes (Ctrl + G).

Step 45a: Adding the eyelashes using the Paintbrush Tool (B).

The lower lashes aren’t as prominent, so I’m just going to lower the Opacity to 50% for those and then Group them as before (Ctrl + G).

Step 45b: Adding the eyelashes using the Paintbrush Tool (B).

Step 46

To finish off the eyes I’m going to add some white transparent radial gradients to the eyeball to add a shine and light source. These will be set to a 75% Opacity.

I’m going to Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste (Ctrl + V) the light source so they match, the other elements are drawn individually so they don’t look cloned. In the shines, make the top line of them slightly jagged to give the impression that the eyelashes are casting a shadow.

Step 46: Adding a shine and light source using a white gradient.

Step 47

Create New Layer above the Eyes layer folder and rename it “Eyebrows”.

I’m going to use the Paintbrush Tool (B) with a 0.5pt stroke weight. Using the brush used for the hair, I’m going to draw the eyebrows using a medium brown stroke color (C=45, M=65, Y=70, K=40) set on Blending Mode Multiply and Opacity 45%.

Layer the strokes to give the impression of denser eyebrow hairs in parts.

Step 47: Adding the eyebrows.

Step 48

Going into the Hairband layer folder, I’m going to change the base layer of the hair band to a dark blue (C=100, M=100, Y=25, K=25) to compliment the eyes.

Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste in Front (Ctrl + F) the base layer and fill it with a black transparent radial gradient with the center at 0% Opacity. Using the Gradient Tool (G) shift the source and change the shape of the gradient to give the impression of shadow at the sides of the hair band and underneath the afro.

Set the Blending Mode to Multiply.

Step 48: Using a gradient to add shadow into the hair band.

Step 49

Create a cyan transparent radial gradient with the source being more concerned towards the centre. Then using the Ellipse Tool (L), draw many circles over the hair band, overlapping some and set them to a Blending Mode of Screen and the Opacity of 35%.

Step 49: Creating a glitter effect on the hair band.

Step 50

With a black fill color, using the Pen Tool (P) draw a shape to represent the shadow which would be cast by the afro bangs/fringe onto the hair band. Set this to Blending Mode Multiply and Opacity 65%.

Step 50a: Adding a drop shadow effect on the hair band.

Then changing the Opacity to % to add a slight drop shadow around the bottom of the hair band onto the forehead. The shape should slightly cover the bottom of the hair band also to give it some depth.

Step 50b: Adding a drop shadow effect on the hair band and forehead.

Step 51

After you’ve put this level of detail and color into a portrait, you may notice that the skin is lacking the same amount of contrast. It’s usually at this point I add further skin shading.

I’m going to add some extra shadow around the ears, nostrils, under the chin and at the sides of the shoulders using a brown shade (C=45, M=65, Y=70, K=40) set to Blending Mode Multiply and Opacity 10%.

Step 51a: Compared to the rest of the portrait, the skin requires more shading.

Repeating this process again but for the highlights and the light brown (C=15, M=30, Y=35, K=0) transparent radial gradient I used previously set to Blending Mode Screen and Opacity 25%.

Step 51b: Adding gradients to create further highlights.

Then once they are drawn, I’ll Group them (Ctrl + G) and drag and drop them to the Skin shading clipping mask group.

Step 52

Create New Layer above all the other layer folders and rename it “Earrings”.

Using the Ellipse Tool (L) with a yellow stroke color and 4pt weight, draw a long ellipse. Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste (Ctrl + V) it and using the Free Transform Tool (E) make it slightly fatter. Then go to Object > Expand.

Step 52a: Creating long ellipses for the hooped earrings.

Using the Pen Tool (P) and then using Pathfinder Minus Front, remove the section of the hoop which is hidden by the ear lobe.

Step 52b: Using Pathfinder to take away the hidden part of the hoop.

Step 53

Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste in Front (Ctrl + F) the hoop bases. Using the green transparent radial gradient I used for the eye shadow to fill the duplicates. I’m going to invert it and then using the Gradient Tool (G), reposition and shape the gradient to appear to be the back of the hoop so it’s yellow in front.

Then set the Opacity to 75%.

Step 53: Using a gradient to give the impression of shadow.

Step 54

I’m going to add further shading to the hoops. Firstly by adding two shapes to each of the hoops to give the impression of the inside of them being hollow. This is with a dark green (C=90, M=30, Y=95, K=30) set to Blending Mode Multiply and the Opacity of 60%.

Then Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste in Front (Ctrl + F) the base of the hoop and use it to create a Clipping Mask (Ctrl + 7).

Duplicate the base hoop again and position a white transparent radial gradient over the yellow portion of the hoop to give the impression of a shine. Set this to Screen, 70%.

Step 54: Adding shading and shine to the hoop earring.

Step 55

Using a similar technique as previous, I’m going to use white transparent radial gradients on Blending Mode Color Dodge and Opacity 75% to create a sparkling effect on the hoops.

I’m only going to place these to the yellow portion of the hoop as it can be assumed that a decorative finish would be applied to the outside of the earring.

Step 55: Sparkles are added to the hoop using a radial gradient.

Step 56

Go into the BG layer folder and using the Free Transform Tool (E), alter the shape of the white rectangle and then change the fill color to a pink shade which was used for the lips (C=20, M=100, Y=0, K=0) and change the Opacity to 100%.

I’m then going to create a vignette effect in the background by duplicating the pink rectangle and then applying a black transparent radial gradient set to Blending Mode Multiply.

Step 56: Adding a vignette effect with a black radial gradient.

Step 57

Create New Layer above the Skin layer folder and rename it “Mole”. I always like to add atleast one mole to the skin, as I feel the flaws in a person give them beauty.

To create a simple mole, offset two brown transparent radial gradients upon each other using the Ellipse Tool (L). Then set the Blending Mode to Multiply and the Opacity to 50%.

I then Group them together (Ctrl + G) and I can duplicate them and place them all over the body where I feel is appropriate. In this piece, I’m going to add a mole above the top lip to bring more focus to the lips and then add a couple to her shoulder.

Step 57: Using gradients to create a mole.

Step 58

Finally, using the Artboard Tool (Shift + O), set the boundaries of the art board so it gives a large boarder around the image.

Step 58: Giving the overall piece a frame using the Artboard Tool.

Conclusion

The portrait itself took about 6 hours to complete with the majority of the time spent doing the skin shading and the hair curls. If you’re attempting a portrait this complex in vector for the first time, try not to rush it. It’s the finer details which help build an overall beautiful illustration and not to mention 100% scalable.

The final vector of our Disco Diva.

(rb)

Go to Source

  

Today we’re going to show you a detailed step-by-step guide on how to create a glamorous portrait using a stock reference. The final result will be 100% vector; therefore will retain its scalable properties.

This walk through is ideal for those an intermediate to advanced knowledge of Illustrator. Illustrator CS5 was used for the tutorial although you can do the majority of the elements in the majority of vector programs. A Wacom Bamboo A5 tablet was also used, however you can achieve the same results with a mouse.

Step 1

When I create my portraits I use a modified stock image as a reference.

The stock I’m going to be using in this tutorial is from Jessica Truscott. The specific image can be found here.

The original stock image.

Using the Lasso Tool (L) and the Move Tool (V), I’ve resized the majority of the image to give a more exaggerated image. Ideally I want the eyes to be the focal point of the illustration, so I make sure that the eyes and the irises are the most prominent.

Using the Brush Tool (B) I sketch and draw on the afro and hair band to give me an idea of what the overall composition may look like. I then bring this over to Illustrator to work on.

Step 1: The manipulated stock image.

Step 2

Open up Illustrator and a New Document (Ctrl + N) in with a Print document profile and Color Mode CMKY.

Go to File > Place and locate the modified stock image. Using the Free Transform Tool (E), resize the stock image to the canvas. Double click on the layer folder containing the stock image and rename it “Reference” and click on OK.

Create New Layer and rename it “BG”. Within this layer folder, use the Rectangle Tool (M) to draw a white filled rectangle to cover the canvas and reduce the opacity to 30%. This is a similar method to say using tracing paper on top of a drawing.

Finally Create New Layer and rename it “Bases” and then lock the Reference and BG layer folders.

Step 2: The canvas is prepped to start vectoring!

Step 3

Within the Bases layer folder I’m going to begin adding “base layers”. These are shapes of 100% opacity which I will use later on for shapes for clipping masks for the shading.

In total, there are four base layers: the back of the afro (C=60, M=65, Y=70, K=70), the skin (C=15, M=30, Y=35, K=0), the hair band (C=20, M=100, Y=90, K=0) and the afro overlapping the hair band (C=60, M=65, Y=70, K=70).

Step 3: The outline against the reference image and the base layer preview.

Step 4

Create New Layer and rename it “Skin”.

Copy (Ctrl + C) the skin base layer and Paste in Front (Ctrl + F) the shape into the Skin folder. Hide the Base layer folder and set the Skin folder to preview by Ctrl + Clicking on the hide Toggle of the layer palette. This is so you can see the reference image underneath while you draw the shapes for the shading.

Step 4: Skins folder on preview to show the reference image underneath.

Step 5

I’m going to be adding shading to the portrait. Using the Pen Tool (P) I will create a variety of shapes in the areas where there are shadows cast or there are darker areas in the skin. The fill color will be just a bit darker than the skin color (C=35, M=60, Y=70, K=15) and the Opacity of 5%.

Using the reference image as a guide, I begin adding the shading shapes. Adding larger shading shapes first.

Step 5a: The first two shading shapes.

Once the initial shapes have been added, I add further shapes within them to give darker shading. If you overlap areas of low opacity over each other, it will appear darker. With this process of skin shading I can gradually overlap the shapes to build up the contrast in the portrait.

Step 5b: Adding further shapes to increase the shading contrast.

I keep on adding further shapes to give a smoother look to the skin. Typically when viewing a portrait you’re drawn into the eyes, the lips, the hair… if the skin is flawless. If the skin and the shading hasn’t been rendered well, then this will always show.

Step 5c: To give an idea of the amount of shapes used in the nose to give the contrast required.

I keep building up the shading shapes until I’m satisfied with the level of detail. If I can see parts of the portrait clearly, for example detail in the ears, eyelids and nostrils; then I’m happy with the detailing.

Step 5d: Initial shading is complete, but this is only one shade!

Step 6

As you may have noticed in the image Step 15d, the shading is overlapping the skin base layer. I’m going to trim this off using a clipping mask.

Select all the shading shapes, excluding the copy of the skin base layer and Group them (Ctrl + G). Drag the group below the skin base duplicate and then recolor the duplicate to black.

Select the group and the duplicate and go to Object > Clipping Mask > Make (Ctrl + 7).

Step 6: The skin shading clipping mask is applied.

Step 7

Repeating the same process as Step 15, I’m going to add further depth to the shading by using a darker skin tone (C=45, M=65=, Y=70, K=40) with the Opacity set to 5%.

The key with using the darker color is to create smaller shapes for the darker areas rather. If you feel you’ve missed a section of shading which is a larger area, I would suggest using the color/process in Step 5.

I focus on adding shading to the edges of the skin base layer, around the eyes, nose, centre of the lips and ear details. These almost always have deeper shadows than the rest of the portrait.

Step 7a: Adding darker shadows to the portrait.

Once I’m happy with the shapes added, I group up the shapes and then drag and drop them into the clipping mask group with the other skin shading.

Step 7b: The darker shadow shapes are added to the clipping mask group.

Step 8

As I’ve now added the main shadows in the portrait, I will need to add highlights to the skin. I do this using the same color as the skin base layer (C=15, M=30, Y=35, K=0), but setting the Blending Mode to Screen and the Opacity to 7%.

I no longer use the reference image as a guide as I have the structure of the face. The parts of the illustration which have no shading present are the areas I’ll be looking at building up highlights on. If you don’t feel comfortable with this, then continue using the reference image to guide you – it’s what it’s there for!

Step 8a: The placement of the highlighting shapes.

As with before, now I’m happy with the highlight shapes I’m going to Group them (Ctrl + G) and add them to the clipping mask group.

Step 8b: The skin base with the shadow and highlight shapes.

Step 9

I create a transparent radial gradient using the skin base layer color (C=15, M=30, Y=35, K=0) with the centre at 100% opacity and the outside at 0%. I’m going to use this to add further highlights to the skin with the Blending Mode of Screen and the Opacity of 30%. The benefits of using gradients in skin shading is that it helps smooth the skin and make it look iridescent.

Step 9a: Adding further highlight shapes with a transparent radial gradient.

Then when all the shapes are placed, Group them (Ctrl + G) and add them to the clipping mask group.

Step 9b: The skin looks smooth with the use of gradients.

Step 10

The skin isn’t all one color and this is especially true for a glamorous woman who loves her make up. I’m going to add blush to her cheeks to give a rosier appearance.

Firstly I create a magenta to magenta transparent radial gradient. Then using the Ellipse Tool (L), I draw a circle on one cheek. Then Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste (Ctrl + V) the shape and move it to the opposite cheek.

Then reduce the Opacity to 45% and the Blending Mode to Soft Light. Drag and drop the shapes into the clipping mask group when done.

Step 10: Adding pink blush to the cheeks using a transparent radial gradient.

Step 11

In the corner of a person’s eyes, the skin is often a slight shade of grey. So to incorporate this into the portrait I’m going to use a similar method as above, but using a black to black transparent radial gradient. The Blending Mode will be set to Hue and the Opacity at 30%.

Drag and drop the shapes into the clipping mask group once completed.

Step 11: Black transparent radial gradients are added to the corners of the eye.

Step 12

Using the darker skin shade (C=45, M=65=, Y=70, K=40), I’m going to create a transparent radial gradient and add a change in tone to the sides of the arms/shoulders, under the nose and under the chin/neck.

Then setting the Blending Mode to Color Burn and the Opacity to 20%.

Step 12a: Brown transparent radial gradients are added.

Then I’ll Group the shapes (Ctrl + G) and drag and drop them into the clipping mask group.

Step 12b: Due to the gradients the face looks almost porcelain.

Step 13

I’m going to create a new art brush using the Ellipse Tool (L), draw a slim black filled ellipse. Using the Convert Anchor Point Tool (Shift + C) to just click once on the end tips of the ellipse to taper the ends.

Drag and drop the shape into the Brush palette and select “Art Brush” then copy the below settings.

Step 13: Creating a curved tapered art brush.

Step 14

Create New Layer and rename it “Hair”.

Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste in Front (Ctrl + F) the skin base layer and the two hair base layers. Using the Pathfinder options, I Minus Front the skin base layer from the larger hair shape.

Then selecting both of the hair base layers and back in Pathfinder again, select the Divide option. This will divide the afro into three shapes. Delete the shape which is overlapping the skin and wont be showing.

Finally, selecting both the remaining shapes, Unite them.

Step 14: Creating a complete afro base layer.

Step 15

I’m going to build up the hair gradually by using the Paintbrush Tool (B) and the new art brush with the stroke color of a dulled brown (C=55, M=60, Y=65, K=40).

First I go around the edges of the base layers for the hair to add C shaped strokes and spiral strokes. It’s ok to go over the edges as it will be resolved later on.

Step 15a: Starting with creating spirals around the edges of the base layer.

Then I work inwards from the edges to fill in the rest of the afro.

Step 15b: Drawing the curls inwards.

Be patient while drawing the swirls as if they are rushed they may look too messy.

Step 15c: The completed swirls.

Step 16

Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste in Front the afro base layer (Ctrl + F).

I’m going to Select All of the strokes (Ctrl + A) and reduce the Opacity to 50%. Then I’ll Group them (Ctrl + G).

Recolor one of the afro base layer and recolor it black then drag and drop it in front of the swirl group.

Then select the swirl group and afro base layer and create a Clipping Mask (Ctrl + 7).

Step 16: The swirls in a clipping mask.

Step 17

With the duplicated afro base layer, fill it with a black transparent radial gradient with the outside set to Opacity 100%.

Then I’ll duplicate this shape and invert the gradient and use the Gradient Tool (G) to reposition and shape the gradient.

Selecting them both, I change the Blending Mode to Color Burn and the Opacity to 80%.

Step 17: Using gradients to add depth to the afro.

Step 18

I’m going to start adding further detailing to the afro now, first I want to add some texture to it. Using the Paintbrush Tool (B) and a larger stroke weight (I used 8pt), set the Blending Mode to Color Burn and the Opacity to 10%. I used a brown color (C=35, M=60, Y=80, K=25) to draw dashes around the hair area.

Overlap the dashes in areas to create darker areas in some parts to add more texture to the hair.

Then group the strokes (Ctrl + G) and add them to the afro clipping mask group.

Step 18: Wide dark dashed strokes are added to give the afro texture.

Step 19

I’m going to repeat Step 18, but with the stroke color of a lighter brown (C=25, M=40, Y=65, K=0), Blending Mode Soft Light and Opacity 10%.

Step 19: Wide light dashed strokes are added to give the afro texture.

Step 20

Afro hair doesn’t have a smooth edge, so I’m going to recreate this effect by adding strokes around the edge/outside of the afro.

I’m going to use the Paintbrush Tool (B) with the tapered brush and a small stroke weight, I’ve used 0.5pt here. I’m going to use a dark brown color (C=60, M=65, Y=70, K=90) with a Blending Mode of Multiply and Opacity of 80%.

The strokes I’m going to make are mixture of spirals, C and S shapes. Cross the lines over, make them a bit irregular, as long as a portion of the strokes are within the area of the afro. In other words, the strokes must not appear to look as if they are floating outside of the edge of the afro.

Group the strokes up (Ctrl + G) and drag and drop them below the clipping mask, not within.

Step 20: Drawing strokes around the outside of the afro.

Step 21

I’m going to split up the base layers now so I can add elements more easily.

Firstly to Create New Layer below the Hair layer folder and rename it “Afro Front”. In the Bases layer folder, drag and drop the brown long shape into this new folder.

Create New Layer below the Afro Front layer folder and rename it “Hairband”. Drag and drop the red hair band shape into this folder.

Step 21: Reorganising the layer folders.

Step 22

Within the Hairband layer folder I’m going to add strands of hair which would be shown between the ear and the hair band.

I’m going to use the Paintbrush Tool (B) with the same settings as the spirals on the outside of the afro. So that is the tapered brush and a stroke weight of 0.5pt. I’m going to use a dark brown color (C=60, M=65, Y=70, K=90) with a Blending Mode of Multiply and Opacity of 80%.

Firstly draw a guide of the hairs between the hair band and the ear. Then fill in and layer on top further strokes to thicken the hair.

Step 22: Using a structure of strands as a guide then thickening the hair up.

Step 23

Create New Layer above the Skin layer and rename it “Lips”.

If you noticed while creating the skin shading, I drew elements of the lips. This is because the lips should be considered as part of the skin. If you treat them as unconnected elements in the illustration, it will look like the lips are floating on top of the skin.

I’ll be using a red transparent radial gradient for the initial shading of the lips (C=20, M=100, Y=90, K=0).

Firstly creating an overall shape of the lips and changing the Blending Mode to Multiply and the Opacity to 30%.

Then drawing two shapes for the top and the bottom lip at a 50% opacity. The bottom lip shape will overlap the top lip to give extra shadow for the top lip. When drawing the lips, draw them slightly within the shape of the initial lip shading shape you created first. This will give the lips a softer edge.

Step 23: Gradients are used to add depth to the lips.

Step 24

Using the same gradient, I’m going to add further shapes towards the center of the lips and underneath the bottom lip.

These shapes I’m changing the Blending Mode to Color Burn and the Opacity to 30%.

Step 24a: Adding depth to the center of the lips and underneath the bottom lip.

I’m going to add further shapes in these places and the corners of the mouth to give the lips further depth.

Step 24b: More gradient shapes are added to the lips.

Step 25

I’ve decided I’m not happy with the color of the lips and wish to change it to a shade of pink. A good way of doing is, is to create a shape on top of the area you wish to recolor. Then fill it with the desired color and change the Blending Mode to Color. Play around with the Opacity of the layer to get the intensity you want.

I’ve opted for a fill color of C=20, M=100, Y=0 and K=0 with the Opacity of 60%. If you notice in the image below, I’ve draw the shape just beyond the lips area. This is to help the lips look as if they are part of the face and not floating on top of it.

Step 25: The lips are recolored to pink.

Step 26

Now that I’m happy with the color of the lips, I’m going to increase the shadow on the underneath of the top and bottom lip.

Throughout this process, I often feel I want to balance the tones and shadow. The shadow is becoming bolder in the lips, therefore I want to balance this off in the nose area.

The below shadows are done with a dark brown (C=45, M=65, Y=70, K=40) with the Blending Mode as Multiply and the Opacity at 7%.

Step 26: Balancing the shadow in the lips and the nose area.

Step 27

The more plump the lips, the more creases there are in them. This is especially true of bottom lips. So to create this texture I’m going to add some spikey shapes around the parting of the lips.

I’m using a pink fill color (C=20, M=100, Y=0, K=0) with the Blending Mode of Color Burn and Opacity of 40%. Some areas will be darker than others, so I’ve overlapped the spikes to reflect this.

Step 27: Adding creases to the lips.

Step 28

To emphasis the creases further, I’m going to start adding highlights to the creases and the top of the lips.

Firstly, create a light pink transparent radial gradient (C=5, M=35, Y=0, K=0) and then use this to draw long shapes between the creases previously drawn. Then along the top of the top lip. Then set the Blending Mode for the shapes to Screen and Opacity 30%.

Step 28: Using gradients to highlight the lips and creases.

Step 29

Now to add the teeth. Using the light pink transparent radial gradient, draw out the teeth individually and then a smaller shape within. This will give the impression of a slight shadow from all sides. Set the Blending Mode to Screen and the Opacity to 20%.

Then using a black transparent radial gradient with the centre at 0% opacity, draw a shape which covers the entire opening of the mouth. Set the Blending Mode to Multiply and the Opacity to 25%.

Using a solid black color, add further shadows in the corner of the mouth opening and in between the teeth on Mulitply and 25% as before.

Step 29: Adding the teeth and inner mouth shadow.

Step 30

Finally, using the Ellipse Tool (L) with the light pink transparent radial gradient on the Blending Mode Color Dodge and Opacity 40%, add circles on the bottom lip and along the outside of the lips. This is to give the impression of shine and glitter.

Step 30: Creating a glitter effect with radial gradients.

Step 31

Create New Layer above the Hair layer folder and rename it “Eye shadow”.

I’m going to create to transparent radial gradients. A green one for the eyelid (C=85, M=10, Y=100, K=0) and a yellow (C=0, M=0, Y=100, K=0) gradient for above the eyelid. Set the gradients to Blending Mode Color Burn. This will give me a good base for the eyeshadow.

Step 31: Using simple gradients for disco eyeshadow.

Step 32

Create New Layer above the Eye shadow layer folder and rename it “Eyes”.

Using the Pen Tool (P) and a white fill color, draw around the whole eyeball including the corner. Then draw within the eye ball but excluding where there would be a slight shadow. Finally adding white shapes either side of the iris but within the other shapes.

Then reduce the Opacity of the shapes to 40%. This is because I want to give the eyeball some impression of shadow and eyeballs aren’t white!

Step 32: Adding white shapes for the eyeballs.

Step 33

I’m going to use the Ellipse Tool (L) to draw a circle for one the iris of one eye with a blue fill color (C=85, M=50, Y=0, K=0). Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste (Ctrl + V) the circle and move it into place for the other eye.

Using the Pen Tool, add anchor points (+) where the circle meets the upper and lower eyelids. Then remove the anchor points (-) which are beyond the eye ball.

Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste in Front (Ctrl + F) the shapes and using the Free Transform Tool (E) decrease the size of the shape slightly.

Then select all the blue shapes and reduce the Opacity to 75%. Due to duplicating and resizing the shape, it gives the iris a soft outline.

Step 33: Creating the shape for the iris.

Step 34

Using the Ellipse Tool (L) and a similar technique, I’m going to create a circle for the pupil filled with black and with the Blending Mode Multiply and Opacity 70%.

Duplicate the circle and decrease it’s size to soften the edge. Then Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste (Ctrl + V) the two circles and place for the other eye.

Step 34: Creating the pupil.

Step 35

I’m going to begin adding further shading and detail to the eye. The pupil shapes can be used as a guide to where the detailing is surrounding so I would advise these elements to be below the pupil shapes so it doesn’t distort it. Also worth noting, that whatever I do to one eye, I repeat the process for the other.

I’m going to build up the shading and contrast within the iris. Throughout creating this, you need to consider the main color of the iris, which in this case I want to be blue and the shadow and highlight in the eye. The top eyelid and eyelashes will cast shadow over the eye and the iris, so shading will need to be taken into consideration.

My first step is to add shading around the sides of the eye and towards the top by layering a darker blue (C=100, M=100, Y=25, K=25) at Blending Mode Multiply and Opacity 30%.

Step 35: Adding shading towards the top and sides of the iris.

Step 36

Create a new transparent radial gradient with a pink color (C=10, M=100, Y=50, K=0) on the outside set at 100% opacity and the centre with a blue (C=100, M=0, Y=0, K=0) at 0% opacity.

Using this gradient, Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste in Front (Ctrl + F) the smaller shape for the base of the iris twice. With the first gradient, use it to give a soft outline to the whole iris.

Step 36a: The gradient adds a soft outline to the iris.

Then using the second gradient to give a highlighting area towards the bottom of the iris, but will also give shade towards the top of the iris. Set both of the gradient shapes at a Blending Mode of Color Burn.

Step 36b: The gradient adds contrast to the iris.

Step 37

I’m going to add some detail into the iris. To do this draw a circle using the Ellipse Tool (L) with a yellow fill color (C=0, M=0, Y=100, K=0). Then apply a Zig Zag effect by going to Effects > Distort & Transform > Zig Zag and use the below settings.

Step 37a: Applying a zig zag effect to a circle.

Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste (Ctrl + V) the shape over to the other iris. Then set the Blending Mode to Overlap and the Opacity to 70%.

Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste in Front (Ctrl + F) the smaller iris base shapes and use them to create a clipping mask for the zig zagged shapes.

Step 37b: Using a clipping mask to trim the zig zag shape.

Step 38

Using the Ellipse Tool (L) create two circles and Minus Front the smaller circle from the larger. The smaller circle should be the same size as the pupil. Create a yellow transparent radial gradient (C=0, M=0, Y=100, K=0) and fill it circle with it.

Set the Blending Mode to Overlay and the Opacity to 50%.

Step 38: Using a gradient to add further contrast.

Step 39

I want to add more contrast around the outside of the iris. So I’m going to add some dark blue shapes (C=100, M=100, Y=25, K=25) set to Blending Mode Multiply around the sides and top.

Step 39: Adding darker shapes to increase contrast.

Step 40

The eyeball has some shading from around the top lip towards the corners. To reflect this I’m going to add two black transparent radial gradients with the center at 0% set to Blending Mode Multiply and Opacity 35%.

Then I’m going to add a black fill shape around the top of the eyeball and corner of the eyes. This is a more solid shadow cast by the eyelid. I’m going to set the Opacity to 25%.

These shapes and further from now on will be above the eye’s pupil.

Step 40: Using gradients to add a shadow to the eyeball.

Step 41

Using the red from the hair band to create a red transparent radial gradient, draw two shapes at the corners of the eyes. Bring the source of the gradients right into the corner.

Set the Blending Mode to Hard Light and Opacity to 25%.

Step 41: Adding the red to the corner of the eyes.

Step 42

Now to start building on the lashes and to do this I’m going to give our girl a nice thick eye line on her top lashes and a slimmer line along her bottom lid.

Using the Pen Tool (P) to draw several black shapes with the Blending Mode Multiply and Opacity of 25%. I layer them in lower opacities to give a soft line to the eyes as it appears more natural. I also add two shapes in the eye lid crease to define it.

Step 42: Layering black shapes to create a soft line.

Step 43

I’m going to build up the eye shadow further with a shine around the eyelids. Within the Eyes layer folder I’m going to add the same green transparent radial gradient used for the eye shadow on the top and bottom lids. The set the Blending Mode to Color Dodge.

Then adding the yellow transparent radial gradient to the corner of the eyes and set that to Blending Mode Color Dodge and Opacity to 75%.

Step 43: Adding color dodge gradients to the eye shadow to give a shine.

Step 44

With the fill color of the green transparent radial gradient with the Blending Mode Color Dodge and Opacity of 75%, use the Ellipse Tool (L) to draw circles around the eye shadow areas to give the impression of glitter.

Select the all and then Group them (Ctrl + G).

Step 44: Using radial gradients to create a glitter effect.

Step 45

Using the brush I used for the hair, I’m going to use the Paintbrush Tool (B) to create the eyelashes. I’m using 0.25pt stroke weight and stroke color of black. Then setting the top lashes to Blending Mode Multiply and the Opacity to 75%. The lashes are drawn in a slight J shape, so they curve over the lash line and over into the eyeball. Then I Group up the top lashes (Ctrl + G).

Step 45a: Adding the eyelashes using the Paintbrush Tool (B).

The lower lashes aren’t as prominent, so I’m just going to lower the Opacity to 50% for those and then Group them as before (Ctrl + G).

Step 45b: Adding the eyelashes using the Paintbrush Tool (B).

Step 46

To finish off the eyes I’m going to add some white transparent radial gradients to the eyeball to add a shine and light source. These will be set to a 75% Opacity.

I’m going to Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste (Ctrl + V) the light source so they match, the other elements are drawn individually so they don’t look cloned. In the shines, make the top line of them slightly jagged to give the impression that the eyelashes are casting a shadow.

Step 46: Adding a shine and light source using a white gradient.

Step 47

Create New Layer above the Eyes layer folder and rename it “Eyebrows”.

I’m going to use the Paintbrush Tool (B) with a 0.5pt stroke weight. Using the brush used for the hair, I’m going to draw the eyebrows using a medium brown stroke color (C=45, M=65, Y=70, K=40) set on Blending Mode Multiply and Opacity 45%.

Layer the strokes to give the impression of denser eyebrow hairs in parts.

Step 47: Adding the eyebrows.

Step 48

Going into the Hairband layer folder, I’m going to change the base layer of the hair band to a dark blue (C=100, M=100, Y=25, K=25) to compliment the eyes.

Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste in Front (Ctrl + F) the base layer and fill it with a black transparent radial gradient with the center at 0% Opacity. Using the Gradient Tool (G) shift the source and change the shape of the gradient to give the impression of shadow at the sides of the hair band and underneath the afro.

Set the Blending Mode to Multiply.

Step 48: Using a gradient to add shadow into the hair band.

Step 49

Create a cyan transparent radial gradient with the source being more concerned towards the centre. Then using the Ellipse Tool (L), draw many circles over the hair band, overlapping some and set them to a Blending Mode of Screen and the Opacity of 35%.

Step 49: Creating a glitter effect on the hair band.

Step 50

With a black fill color, using the Pen Tool (P) draw a shape to represent the shadow which would be cast by the afro bangs/fringe onto the hair band. Set this to Blending Mode Multiply and Opacity 65%.

Step 50a: Adding a drop shadow effect on the hair band.

Then changing the Opacity to % to add a slight drop shadow around the bottom of the hair band onto the forehead. The shape should slightly cover the bottom of the hair band also to give it some depth.

Step 50b: Adding a drop shadow effect on the hair band and forehead.

Step 51

After you’ve put this level of detail and color into a portrait, you may notice that the skin is lacking the same amount of contrast. It’s usually at this point I add further skin shading.

I’m going to add some extra shadow around the ears, nostrils, under the chin and at the sides of the shoulders using a brown shade (C=45, M=65, Y=70, K=40) set to Blending Mode Multiply and Opacity 10%.

Step 51a: Compared to the rest of the portrait, the skin requires more shading.

Repeating this process again but for the highlights and the light brown (C=15, M=30, Y=35, K=0) transparent radial gradient I used previously set to Blending Mode Screen and Opacity 25%.

Step 51b: Adding gradients to create further highlights.

Then once they are drawn, I’ll Group them (Ctrl + G) and drag and drop them to the Skin shading clipping mask group.

Step 52

Create New Layer above all the other layer folders and rename it “Earrings”.

Using the Ellipse Tool (L) with a yellow stroke color and 4pt weight, draw a long ellipse. Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste (Ctrl + V) it and using the Free Transform Tool (E) make it slightly fatter. Then go to Object > Expand.

Step 52a: Creating long ellipses for the hooped earrings.

Using the Pen Tool (P) and then using Pathfinder Minus Front, remove the section of the hoop which is hidden by the ear lobe.

Step 52b: Using Pathfinder to take away the hidden part of the hoop.

Step 53

Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste in Front (Ctrl + F) the hoop bases. Using the green transparent radial gradient I used for the eye shadow to fill the duplicates. I’m going to invert it and then using the Gradient Tool (G), reposition and shape the gradient to appear to be the back of the hoop so it’s yellow in front.

Then set the Opacity to 75%.

Step 53: Using a gradient to give the impression of shadow.

Step 54

I’m going to add further shading to the hoops. Firstly by adding two shapes to each of the hoops to give the impression of the inside of them being hollow. This is with a dark green (C=90, M=30, Y=95, K=30) set to Blending Mode Multiply and the Opacity of 60%.

Then Copy (Ctrl + C) and Paste in Front (Ctrl + F) the base of the hoop and use it to create a Clipping Mask (Ctrl + 7).

Duplicate the base hoop again and position a white transparent radial gradient over the yellow portion of the hoop to give the impression of a shine. Set this to Screen, 70%.

Step 54: Adding shading and shine to the hoop earring.

Step 55

Using a similar technique as previous, I’m going to use white transparent radial gradients on Blending Mode Color Dodge and Opacity 75% to create a sparkling effect on the hoops.

I’m only going to place these to the yellow portion of the hoop as it can be assumed that a decorative finish would be applied to the outside of the earring.

Step 55: Sparkles are added to the hoop using a radial gradient.

Step 56

Go into the BG layer folder and using the Free Transform Tool (E), alter the shape of the white rectangle and then change the fill color to a pink shade which was used for the lips (C=20, M=100, Y=0, K=0) and change the Opacity to 100%.

I’m then going to create a vignette effect in the background by duplicating the pink rectangle and then applying a black transparent radial gradient set to Blending Mode Multiply.

Step 56: Adding a vignette effect with a black radial gradient.

Step 57

Create New Layer above the Skin layer folder and rename it “Mole”. I always like to add atleast one mole to the skin, as I feel the flaws in a person give them beauty.

To create a simple mole, offset two brown transparent radial gradients upon each other using the Ellipse Tool (L). Then set the Blending Mode to Multiply and the Opacity to 50%.

I then Group them together (Ctrl + G) and I can duplicate them and place them all over the body where I feel is appropriate. In this piece, I’m going to add a mole above the top lip to bring more focus to the lips and then add a couple to her shoulder.

Step 57: Using gradients to create a mole.

Step 58

Finally, using the Artboard Tool (Shift + O), set the boundaries of the art board so it gives a large boarder around the image.

Step 58: Giving the overall piece a frame using the Artboard Tool.

Conclusion

The portrait itself took about 6 hours to complete with the majority of the time spent doing the skin shading and the hair curls. If you’re attempting a portrait this complex in vector for the first time, try not to rush it. It’s the finer details which help build an overall beautiful illustration and not to mention 100% scalable.

The final vector of our Disco Diva.

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Go to Source

Sometimes, following a tutorial can be better for limiting your play time but also for seeing the tools in action.

The following list includes tutorials for CS5 as well as for earlier CS versions of Adobe Illustrator. Try some of your favorites and see the incredible uses available with the Warp Tools.

Tutorial Series from Lynda.com

Part 1: Introducing the Warp Tool

Part 2: The Twirl, Pucker, and Bloat Tools

Part 3: The Scallop, Crystallize, and Wrinkle Tools

In this tutorial available with the purchase of a membership, learn all of the Warp Tools (Warp, Twirl, Pucker, Bloat, Scallop, Crystallize, and Wrinkle) while creating this winged horse image. The entire tutorial is broken into three separate parts with each video focusing on a specific set of the Warp Tools.

How to Wrinkle Flowers in Illustrator

Learn how to wrinkle flowers in Illustrator quickly and easily.

Create a Sketchy Hand Drawn Camera Illustration

Draw a camera that looks hand-sketched using the Wrinkle Tool.

Create a Simple Paint Brush Icon

Design a paint brush icon using tools such as the Wrinkle and Ellipse Tool with this easy to follow tutorial.

Illustrator Abstract Vector Art

Use the Warp Tools to create abstract vector art in Illustrator.

Vector Super Bouncy Balls

This tutorial shows an easy and fun way of drawing bouncy balls using the Warp Tool, Smoothing Tool, and more.

Draw Realistic Liquids in Vector Art

Create this beautiful vector artwork using the Warp Tool, Mesh Tool, and layer blending.

Warp Tool in Illustrator CS5