Design Process of Phoenix Illustration
March 23rd, 2007 Filed in: Design, Tricks & Tips Jump to comments
Numbers of people have asked me how to do the phoenix illustration on my site. Was it vector? Did I use Illustrator or Photoshop? Well, here I will tell you my design process from concept sketch to final illustration. Hope you will find this useful.
1. Concept Sketch
Like most other designers, I like to brainstorm and sketch out my ideas.
2. Research
Then I will go to Google image search to get design inspiration. Notice the color theme used on my site is very similar to the images that I found?
3. Tracing
Normally I will do a fine sketch and import it in Illustrator for tracing purpose. Check out my Illustrator vector tracing tutorial. Here I experimented with different color variation.
4. Illustrator Files
Here are the Illustrator files that I traced from sketches. These vector illustrations then imported into Photoshop for composition.
5. Effects
I used Photoshop to add FX effects like: rainbow, glow, particles, and gradient. One of the frequently asked questions is how to do the particles effect on the tails and flowers. To make the particles, just set the layer’s blending mode to "dissolve".
6. Final
Here is the final illustration. Download the full size wallpaper.
May 26th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Just wanted to say that your designs are amazing and your site is a great help to young designers. thanks v much =)
May 22nd, 2007 at 1:00 am
Beautiful stuff and I’m doing your tutorial in Web Designer magazine on the e-Store. But my question to you is how did you prevent the image from tiling across the page. I’m trying to use a gradient jpg but I can’t get around the tiling of the background image in Dreamweaver 8
May 19th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Outstanding work! Sincere congratulations! :)
May 18th, 2007 at 2:00 am
This’s a Chinese phoenix
May 15th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Akheyyyyyyyyyyyy Vaveilaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
(-_-)
May 11th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Hi!
You have a amazing website..! Can you put the template you use in your website online??
Thanx!!
May 10th, 2007 at 10:31 am
That’s wonderful, I really appreciate this tutorial.
Thank you for explaining your design process, it’ll be really useful.
May 9th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
i ‘m very like design , but i don’t have basic of Illu . I don’t know what website tht i can learn it . You are a best designer i know
May 8th, 2007 at 12:13 am
your designs are amazing! its been a source of inspiration for me for sometime. keep it up!
May 7th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
May I just say that it’s incredibly cool of you to go through a process like this and break it down! I’m not sure many designers would do this, so thank you. It’s true, this particular illustration has been boggling my mind for some time now. This post is very helpful!