Please note: This post is from 2008, and the information contained may now be outdated.
Following the recent launch of SoulTweet, Graham Smith made a call out for any illustrators to help out with the site.
In a few minutes that I had spare, I doodled a couple of birds to offer up for use, and sent across the best of the two for consideration. It didn’t get taken up, so rather than let a sketch go to waste, I decided I’d illustrate it for a tutorial of how I like to use Illustrator.
Step 1:
Firstly, I took a photo of the sketch and loaded it into Photoshop (I’ve not installed my scanner yet since I reformatted my PC, hence taking a photo and not a scan). This first image is the sketch that I submitted.
Step 2:
I wasn’t quite happy with a few bits in the first draft — the tail was too short, and the eyes made the bird look stoned! So, adding a couple of new layers in Photoshop, I used white and black brushes to paint over the parts I wanted to edit. At this stage, I also decided to group the sketch layers and set that to Multiply, so that I could throw down some colour underneath, to get a feel for the final look.
Step 3:
Happy with the last stage, I loaded up Illustrator and placed the sketch into the bottom layer. I locked it and set it to 50% opacity, so that I could work over the top of it.
I then began to use the Pen tool to loosely draw the bird. I say ‘loosely’ here — it’s best to be as accurate as possible from the start, but at this stage there’s still lots of time for refinement. Just getting it drawn is the first priority.
As you can see, I made quite a few changes to the sketch here. I didn’t like the feet clutching onto a branch — I thought it would make a stronger and more versatile image to have the bird standing on the ground, reaching out to pass the heart, so I reworked his feet. The eyes were an accidental discovery — I created the circles for the basis of the eyes, and then decided that I preferred the look of them being wide open, so it stayed like that. The mouth got tweaked a little as well, to look less awkward.
Step 4:
Here’s the lengthy part. This is where I take my basic lines, tidy up the curves, so that everything flows nicely, and then where I make the nice, varied line-widths.
So, using the white arrow Direct Selection Tool (press A) and the Convert Anchor Point Tool (Shift-C), modify any lines that look like they’ve got any unintentional angles and points within them, so that they curve smoothly.
Next, to create the variable width line, lock all objects and layers except the specific line you want to work on. Select it (Ctrl-A / Cmd-A), copy it (Ctrl-C / Cmd-C), and paste behind (Ctrl-B / Cmd-B). You now have two copies of that line, one on top of the other. Using the Direct Selection Tool, select one end of both lines (so you have two anchors in your selection. Join them with Ctrl-J (or Cmd-J) and select ‘Corner’.
Now you’ve turned the two lines into an outlined shape. Invert the fill and stroke with Shift-X to set black as the fill. Now if you move any other anchor points on the object, you’ll see the shape of the line begin to emerge. This takes a fair bit of work, playing with the curves, to get the line to look smooth throughout, but that’s the simplest and easiest technique that I’ve found for varied widths. If you don’t want the line to come to a point, simply seperate the end anchors before joining.
Step 5:
At this point, just before adding colour, I then take a look at all of the lines and, using the Knife tool, slice off any segments that are overlapping — i.e. if a line should be receding behind another, then that is the one that’ll get chopped up (TIP: Hold Alt/Option when you start to use the Knife tool, and you’ll get a straight line).
Then just delete (or hide, if you like) the sections of line that you won’t need to show in the final image.
Step 6:
Not much work to go now! I now create a new ‘Colour’ layer beneath the ‘Lines’ layer and roughly block out the main sections of colour as set out in my Photoshop sketch (it doesn’t need to be neat, as the edges of these block are hidden behind the black lines).
Step 7:
Time to add the finishing touches… Create a new ‘Shadows’ layer above ‘Colours’, and select shades of your main colour blocks. Draw out the shapes of the shadows as sketched in Step 2. You can also add a ‘Highlights’ layer, as I did for the heart. Depending on the number of shadow/highlight depths you want, this can either be a very short step or an incredibly long one.
To add the final touches, I drew the stripes on the bird’s legs in a dark brown, and set the edge of the tongue in a dark pink, to take some focus away from it.
Final image:
This is the first tutorial I’ve written, so I’d love to hear your thoughts on it! Things like, what have I missed out that would be helpful, and what could be omitted? Cheers for reading!
Comment by Rob Barrett at 9:47 pm, 16th November, 2008
Great tutorial! And I love your twitter bird!
Comment by Angie Bowen at 9:55 pm, 16th November, 2008
Nice little tut!
You have have used the pathfinder to cut the paths but it can be tricky sometimes.
Comment by mayhemstudios at 10:40 pm, 16th November, 2008
this is really cool. thanks for sharing your skills.
Comment by kyle steed at 10:40 pm, 16th November, 2008
Angie, Kyle: Thanks for the kind words!
Mayhemstudios: Cheers, man
Yeah, Pathfinder’s a valid way of doing Step 5 as well. I prefer my way, in that the edge of the covered line is far away from the edge of the overlaying line. Sometimes with Pathfinder (especially when the lines are different colours) — although it should be perfect — I find that a tiny bit of the underlaying line will show through, just at the very edge.
Comment by Rob Barrett at 12:40 am, 17th November, 2008
Nice Tutorial
Comment by rejidesigner at 5:56 am, 17th November, 2008
Looks great!
Comment by Colorburned at 10:18 am, 17th November, 2008
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Very nice tutorial, well done.
Comment by Shanna Korby at 6:18 pm, 17th November, 2008
Nice job! Keep showing. I like to read how others are creating their art on the computer. Thanks!
Comment by Your Name at 6:21 pm, 17th November, 2008
This is one cool tutorial. Can see you spent some time doing it. Out of curiosity, did the tutorial take longer than the actual illustration?
Best
Graham
Comment by Graham Smith at 9:23 pm, 17th November, 2008
Good Illustrator tutorial. The Twitter Bird is cute!
Comment by Brad Strickland at 9:24 pm, 17th November, 2008
rejidesigner, Colorburned, Shanna, Your Name, Brad: Thanks guys, glad you enjoyed it! Any suggestions for future improvements?
Graham: Haha, cheers man! Yeah, the tutorial took considerably longer — I’ve been using this technique for a few years now, so I’ve got it down to a fine art now! The lengthy bit was afterwards, taking the screenshots, choosing what to highlight, getting the wording clear… Much trickier!
Comment by Rob Barrett at 10:11 pm, 17th November, 2008
Great tut, i need to use more illustrator so ill probably learn something here.
Comment by Max at 12:03 am, 18th November, 2008
Very cute tut!
Comment by Marnie B at 5:37 am, 18th November, 2008
Max: Thanks! I’ll hopefully get some more tuts done soon, given the positive response to this one!
Marnie: Haha, cheers! Thanks for taking the time to look! I like your site, by the way — it’s got some great articles on there
Comment by Rob Barrett at 11:20 pm, 18th November, 2008
Great tutorial. Wonderful love bird!
Comment by AJ Troxell at 5:26 pm, 19th November, 2008
Nice tutorial. I have Illustrator but barely ever open it. I need to get my old sketch book out and scan some stuff
Thanks for the tutorial.
Comment by Mike Smith at 1:03 am, 20th November, 2008
Nice tutorial Rob, the animated gifs work really well to show the key steps in action, nice touch
Comment by Greg Findley at 6:37 pm, 23rd November, 2008
AJ, Mike: Thanks for commenting, dudes! Yeah, get scanning!
Greg: Cheers man. Yeah, I figured that the animated gifs would be far more effective than me rambling on trying to describe the process more than I did!
Comment by Rob Barrett at 1:09 am, 24th November, 2008
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very good, thanks
Comment by sivas resimleri at 6:15 pm, 6th March, 2009
Thanks, Sivas!
Comment by Rob Barrett at 1:30 am, 15th March, 2009
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Delightful image and presentation of the development and creation of Twitterlove Bird. Tweet-tweet! Debby
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Comment by Debby Bruck at 2:06 am, 22nd March, 2009
The BLUEBIRD OF HAPPINESS
Comment by Flu-Bird at 4:49 am, 4th April, 2009
just curious…
any reason why, in step 4 do you go through that fairly lengthy copy/paste/move procedure on your lines to convert them to outlined shapes – instead of just using ‘object > path > outline stroke’ and taking it from there?
Comment by madra at 8:44 am, 8th April, 2009
Debby: Thanks again for including me in your Hub!
Flu-Bird: Cheers mate, glad you like it!
Madra: I guess, largely, it’s a case of preference. I don’t find that it takes me much time at all to do the Copy/Paste/Move sequence (keyboard shortcuts make the difference!).
I’d say for lines that come to a point, you’re better off using my method, but for lines with squared-off ends, the Outline Stroke method might well be more suited to the job.
Comment by Rob Barrett at 12:14 pm, 8th April, 2009
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This is really a great stuff for sharing.keep it up .Thanks for sharing,
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Comment by besttrendsshop at 9:20 am, 6th November, 2009
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Excellent tutorial! Thanks!
Comment by Abhisek at 1:14 pm, 6th December, 2009