Create 3D Icon in Adobe Illustrator

LEARN TO DESIGN THIS DOVE ICON IN ILLUSTRATOR! | Learn to use shapes to help construct complex guides to make drawing shapes with the Pen tool very easy.

Check out Yoga’s AWESOME work!

In this Adobe Illustrator tutorial, we will create this complex 3d icon graphic which will be straight up copied from the incredible designer and illustrator “Yoga Predana” (check out their Dribbble link here in the bio!) and in the process of making it we will use the Pathfinder to create complex shapes with ease, we will create and position shapes on a grid to later convert to guides and then use these to make using the Pen tool a complete piece of cake. Of course, we’ll also look at building out the colors with gradients, shadows, and much, much more. You’re going to love this video!

Tags: illustrator tutorial, illustrator tutorials, Adobe Illustrator, how to, vector graphics, how to design a logo, design 3D logo, how to make an icon, icon design, icon Illustrator, design icon illustrator, design logo illustrator, AI

Site Exclusive Tutorial Recording Notes:

Disclaimer: these are the actual notes I used to record this video and are written in a language you may or may not understand. Hopefully, you find them useful or cool.

Create new doc 2560×1440

Create a series of guides using shapes and we will then construct a perfectly aligned “3D” object from those guides and colorize with gradients and mask highlighted edges to the faces of the objects that need them.

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1. Create new ellipse 400×400 and fill with any color
2. Shut off all snapping, but leave smart guides on
3. Duplicate that ellipse and nudge Shift 9x to the right and Shift 8x up
4. Duplicate and nudge Shift 10x to left and Shift 1x up
5. Select both of those shapes and Intersect in Pathfinder panel
6. Duplicate original ellipse again and Shift 2x up
7. Duplicate original ellipse again and Shift 31x to left and 6x up
8. Select both of those new shapes and Intersect them
9. Duplicate original and nudge Shift 26x right and 10x up
10. Duplicate original and nudge Shift 1x right and 2x down
11. Select all four shape together and Divide them in the Pathfinder.
12. Ungroup and delete bits you don’t need and Merge remaining shapes using Pathfinder
13. With Smart Guides turned on, use the Pen tool and draw the shapes that will be highlights
14. Fill the shapes with black to white gradient and set blend mode to Screen
15. Use the Gradient tool to draw the gradient at the exact position, etc… that you need
16. Reduce opacity, etc… to blend this in perfectly
17. Select all three shapes and group them and copy the main original shape and use that as a mask for this group of three highlights to clip them to the underlying shape.
18. NOTE: Use Direct selection tool to tweak exact edges of highlights to make sure everything matches up.
19. Turn on snap to grid and turn the grid on.
20. Open preferences and set the spacing between grid lines to 50px with 5 subdivisions (cells will be 10x10px)
21. Create a 150px ellipse and drag to center left of original shape
22. Create 100px ellipse and drag to center right of original shape
23. Create 80px ellipse and drag to about the middle of the center “peak” in original shape
24. Create a 40px ellipse and drag so center-top point of the ellipse is aligned with left-center edge of the 80px ellipse
25. Select those shape and convert them to guides
26. Use the Pen tool and trace a bird shaped shape
27. Shut off the Snap to Grid and use Direct Selection tool to tweak the shape to make it perfectly as you want it
28. Create a small ellipse for the bird’s eye and punch to hole with Pathfinder
29. Mask this whole shape to the original, underlying shape
30. Add a gradient #ff00ba to #00ffff and add it to the underlying layer
31. Fill the bird shape with solid white
32. Duplicate bird shape and paste in front and fill with radial gradient that runs from the darken color of our above gradient to white.
33. Reverse the gradient if needed so shadowing is on the “outside” of the shape
34. Next, draw a hooked shape to create the shadow on the cheek of the bird
35. Fill this shape with a dark color to white gradient and use the gradient tool to get the exact angle needed and mask this to the bird shape. TIP: unlink this from the mask so we can move it exactly into a position we want.
36. Look over the graphic and tweak colors and paths as needed to clean up everything perfectly.