Hello everyone, another week, another post! Follow these simple step by step tutorial to create a confused Bee character in Adobe Illustrator. We’re going to be using basic shapes and filters throughout the tutorial, so don’t worry about what kind of expertise you may need to follow the tuorial. I made it as simple as I could. Enjoy.

Open up adobe illustrator and draw an oval using the Ellipse tool (O) on the artboard. Give it a linear gradient fill with a dark-ish yellow to brighter yellow colour combo plus 1px black stroke.

Make a copy of the oval you just created and place it on the side.

For the next step, draw a rectangle using the Rectangle Tool (M) and fill it up with a three point linear black and dark grey gradient as shown in the image above.

Use the Filter>Warp>Bulge filter as shown above the give the rectangle you just created a little bulgy look. Use 3% Horizontal Bend to keep it nice and subtle. Keep the rectangle selected, choose Object>Expand from the menu to make it ready for the next step.

Make a copy of the rectangle as shown in the image above, go to Filter>Warp>Arc Lower filter and give it a 2% horizontal bend.

Make a copy of the first rectangle and put it above, now you have 3 rectangles with the 2nd rectangle at the bottom. Select all three of them and press CMD+G (CTRL+G on Windows) to put them in a group. Now, select the group and move them to on top of the oval you created earlier, as shown in the image.

Now, select the group of rectangles and press CMD+SHIFT+[ (CTRL+SHIFT+[ on Windows) to send them behind the yellow oval. This is very important so make sure you don’t miss it. Once you’ve done that, select the oval and the group of rectangles both and click on the CROP icon in the Pathfinder pane. If you don’t see the Pathfinder pane, don’t worry, go to Windows and click on Pathfinder to bring it up. Now we have the Bee stripes sized up to fit inside the yellow oval we’ve been keeping on the side, which is going to be the body for the bee.

For the next step, make a copy of the oval, remove the stroke, fill it up with a yellow to brighter yellow gradient (must be brighter than first oval) and then put it on top of the first oval. Make some changes to the size of the oval using just the Selection Tool (V) to resemble the proportion shown in the image above. Now put the bee stripes on top of the ovals and move on to the next step.

Draw an oval using the Ellipse Tool (O), fill it up with black. Now draw two more ovals, a bit smaller than the black oval, fill them up with the same gradient fills you used on the ovals for the body for the bee, brighter one on top.

Put the ovals on top of each other, resize the brighter one on top using the Selection Tool (V) to make it look like the image above. Now we have the body and the head. Let’s move on to the eyes.

Create five ovals using the Ellipse tool (O), two with black fill and the rest with white. Now, arrange them the same way I have in the image above. Press SHIFT+OPTION while drawing the ovals to keep them in a perfect circular proportion. Select all of them and press CMD+G to group them.

Select the group, press O+Enter on the keyboard, or go to Objects>Transform>Reflect to bring up the Reflect pane, check the Vertical radio button and then click on the Copy button. Now we have two sets of ovals mirroring each other. These are going to be the eyes.

Now select both sets of the ovals and place them on top of the head, as shown in the image. Next up is the mouth.

Now move on to a unused part of the artboard, draw a rectangle using the Rectangle Tool (O) on the toolbar, a small one, then go to Filter>Warp>Arc and put in the same setting parameters I have used in the image above. 13% Bend, 21% Horizontal Distortion. Hit OK and then choose Expand Appearance from the Object Menu. Once you’ve done that, rotate it slightly counter-clock wise using the Rotate Tool (R) and place it under the eyes. Now we have a face for our bee.

Note: you can also rotate it by going to Object>Transform>Rotate and put a value in the Angle field, make sure the Preview checkbox is checked so you can see how the parameters are affecting the result.

It’s time to create the antennas. Draw a rectangle, select the top right hand corner anchor using the Direct Selection Tool (A) and pull it halfway down, it should snap to place exactly halfway down (if not, go to View and click on Snap to Point). Use the same method on the lower right hand corner anchor but this time pull it upward to make it a triangle.

Note: While using the Direct Selection Tool, if pulling (Dragging) the anchor down pulls the whole thing down, click on the anchor again. Anchors are the dot like boxes around an object. Another simple way of creating a triangle from a rectangle is to simply create a rectangle and then going to Filter>Warp>Wave and giving it -100% horizontal distortion.

Now select the triangle using the Selection Tool (V), go to Filter/Wrap/Arc and give it a 20% Horizontal bend. Press OK, then Expand it by selecting Expand from the Object Menu.

Note: If it’s still selected with the Direct Selection Tool, deselect it by clicking anywhere in the surrounding area and then select again using the Selection Tool)

Draw a small circle using the Ellipse Tool (O) and place it at the tip of the bent triangle. Now we have the antenna.

Rotate the antenna counter-clock wise using they Rotate tool, make a mirrored copy of it by going to Obejct>Transform>Reflect. Same way you created the eyes. Now select both of them, press CMD+G (CTRL+G on Windows) to group them and then CMD+SHIFT+[ (CTRL+SHIFT+[ on Windows) to send them behind the head.

Draw a rectangle using the Rectangle Tool (M) and turn it into a triangle by following the same method you use to create the bee antennas. Make a copy of the triangle, make it a wee bit smaller, rotate it clock-wise a little and then make a mirrored copy of it by going to Object>Transform>Reflect and then clicking the Copy button. Arrange them the same way I have in the image above, select all of them and press CMD+G (CTRL+G on Windows). Let’s call this the crown.

Now let’s move on to a clean area on the artboard and create the stinger. Draw a rectangle as shown in the image, pull down/up the corner anchors on the right hand side to the middle to create a rectangle. Go to Filter>Warp and choose the Wave filter from list. Give it a 62% horizontal bend and-9% horizontal distortion. Choose Object>Expand Appearance from the menu. Once you’ve done that, use the Rotate Tool (R) to rotate it 90 degrees clock-wise, you can also do it by going to Object>Transform>Rotate and put 90 degrees in the Angle field, make sure the Preview checkbox is checked so you can see how the parameters are affecting the result.

Now that we have the crown and the stinger, place them accordingly and then press CMD+SHIFT+[  (CTRL+SHIFT+[ on Windows) to send them to back so that the body and head stays on top of them.

We’ve got almost everything so far, now we just need to give our bee a pair of wings. Draw 3 ovals using the Ellipse Tool (O), one black, one grey, one with a very bright shade of grey. Now place them on top of each other as shown in the image, move them around to achieve something similar to mine.

Make copies of the black and grey ovals (exclude the bright grey one), make them smaller, rotate clock-wise a bit and press CMD+SHIFT+[ (CTRL+SHIFT+[ on Windows) to send them back. Now place them the same way I have in the image and select all of them and press CMD+G to group them.

Select the group of ovals, go to Object>Transform>Reflect, choose Vertical Axis and press the copy button. Now we have two sets of wings. Place them behind the bee body by selecting both groups and pressing CMD+SHIFT+[ (CTRL+SHIFT+[ on Windows). Move them around until you’re satisfied with the result and Voila! We have a confused looking Bee, and it didn’t take anything more than some basic shapes and default filters.

I hope you enjoyed this. If you have any question regarding the tutorial, leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to reply. Please subscribe to my RSS Feeds to get notified of the latest post every week.

As you may have noticed, I love subtle grunge/texture everywhere. It’s kind of my thing and no matter what I’m working on, it almost always ends up with some texture or grunge effect here and there. However, it’s quite time consuming when it comes to giving photos grungy look unless you have some Photoshop actions handy. Here are some of the best grunge Photoshop actions I’ve come across in the last few months. All of them were tested personally on a photo of my friend. These Photoshop actions and free to download, so feel free download and try them out.

01. 3 Colourful Grunge Actions by Cosbo123

Download This Action

02. Grungy rainy night effect by Noema-13

Last two parts don’t work for some reason, so you’ll have to go onto the history pane and delete the last couple of steps from the history, bottom up.

Download This Action

03. Vintage/Grunge Photoshop Action by VindaugaGallery.com

Download This Action

04. Old Photo Effect Action By Numflow

Download This Action

05. Grungy Vintage Action by Kiana Mari

Download This Action

06. Grunge Photoshop Actions by David Nachin

Download This Action

07. Effet Grunge by Fayssal Art

Download This Action

08. Action 7 by Forbidden Paradise

Download This Action

09. Evil Portrait Action by SD-Stock

Download This Action

10. Vintage Grunge Action

Download This Action

I hope you enjoy them.

A cool set of free vector ribbons and badges. Commercial use is allowed. Feel free to Download them HERE. Please subscribe to my RSS feed if you’re interested in more free graphics, free iconsets or wordpress themes every week!

Hi there, time for another freebie! This time I’m giving away a small collection of vector ribbons and badges. Feel free to download and use it anyway you want. Commercial use is allowed as well. I’ve included the .ai file so that they can be scaled up or down to any size you may want. Subscribe to my RSS feed if you want to be notified of future free graphics, or free iconsets, they’re going to be coming out on a weekly basis.

Download Free Vector Ribbons and Badges

Hello and welcome to my new website and blog! It’s been a long time since I updated my blog, but I’m back in full swing and happy to release my first iconset, it’s free and you can use them even on your commercial projects. I’ve included the .AI files just incase you need anything bigger than 128px in size. Hope you enjoy it, please DO NOT hotlink the download file, I’ll really appreciate if you link to this page instead.

Thank you and have a wonderful day.

Download The Iconset

A free minimal social iconset with subtle grunge effect. The whole set is free to download and can be freely used even commercially, no strings attached. Hope you enjoy it, please DO NOT hotlink the download file, I’ll really appreciate if you link to this page instead. Download the iconset here.

Proposed Logo for a Real Estate Firm.

Prjoect: Full site redesign for BrainBlogger.com, a well known medical/neurosurgery niche blog based in USA. Assignment included designing a logo, designing and coding up a clean and elegant layout that focuses on the core topics of the site.

Platform: WordPress.

Tools Used: Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, XHTML, CSS, jQuery.

Live Demo: BrainBlogger.com.

Just another logo

Proposed Logo.