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.



February 18th, 2008 at 8:02 am
great indeed, wonderful graphic :), keep up
January 13th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
goood man
January 11th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
You are my new inspiration. I’ve been promising myself to focus on the things that I want to do and this is my year. You are truly AWESOME and generous for doing such great tuts!!
December 29th, 2007 at 10:25 am
wow nice work i like it
December 21st, 2007 at 1:48 pm
great indeed, wonderful graphic :), keep up ;)
December 17th, 2007 at 7:38 am
AAAAmmmmAAAAAzzing!!
December 8th, 2007 at 5:32 am
dude u rock..
December 7th, 2007 at 1:02 am
I enjoy your site very much! THANK YOUt
November 20th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Thanks really cool, keep up the good work.
November 13th, 2007 at 7:40 am
Heey very nice.
I have a question. I work as a designer after school and I always have a problem in the switch between Illustrator and Photoshop. To wich kind of file do you save the illustrator file so you can open it and adjust it in Photoshop?
Thanks
Niels