How to create Vector Wings

After the succesful tutorial on the snowman, I’m here again for another Illustrator Tutorial and I hope this may help you discover new things and techniques.

In this tutorial I will explain you simple steps in creating those fine-looking wings as included in one of my freebies and those on other designs that you may stumble on all around the web. We will create something similar to the image below:

If you’re interested on how this is done then keep reading this simple tutorial.

•Software used: Adobe Illustrator CS3 – you may use other similar vector-based editing software but the instructions written are made to work well on Adobe Illustrator CS3

• Difficulty – Beginner

Let’s launch Illustrator, create a new document and start with our pen tool. Let’s create our firstand also our last feather that we will use through the whole tutorial, yes one single feather. Everything else will just be a matter of duplicating, rotating and resizing, and a little creativity to suit your flavor.

Not convince? Follow through.

With the pen tool, create a straight horizontal line, then click and drag before you close our feather, to form a curve.

That wasn’t so hard wasn’t it? Now here comes the fun part, this is one of Illustrator’s features that I love, the Transform Each. I’ll introduce to you how powerful this tool is. With our feather selectedCopy or Ctrl + C then Paste in Front or Ctrl + F.

Now we have 1 feather on top of our first, with it selected, Go to Object > Transform > Transform Each or simply press Ctrl + Alt + Shift + D.

A window will show up with some options for transforming, first let’s the preview check box, and we’re ready for some duplicating frenzy. For the scale let’s reduce both by 80%, the angle by -15and most importantly change the registration point to top left.

Now that we have our second feather, just press Ctrl + D or Duplicate Object. And we have our third feather.

From this point, let’s stop duplicating because if we continue to duplicate using the same method then our output would look unnatural, we now proceed to combining these 3 feathers usingPathFinder or Shift + F9. With the 3 feathers selected choose add shape simply click the iconwhile holding the Alt key to expand.

We now have our BASE set of feathers, let’s start some experimenting and begin duplicating our Base set of feathers to form our second set of feathers, Copy-Paste in Front our selected object, then open up Transform Each (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+D) then use this setting: both 110% forhorizontal and vertical scale then 65 for our angle.

We now have our second set of feathers, let’s continue, Using our BASE group of feathersagain, let’s Copy-Paste in Front our selected object, then open up Transform Each (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+D) then use this setting both 75% for horizontal and vertical scale then 20 for our angle.

Giving us this result.

That’s our third set, now for our fourth and final set, select our Base set of feathers again, thenCopy-Paste in Front our selected object, then open up Transform Each (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+D) then use this setting: both 100% for horizontal and vertical scale then -45 for our angle.

Our wing is finished, that was fast wasn’t it? Told ya!

All we have to do now is select our wing, do an Add Shape using our PathFinder. Rotate our object a little so that it goes something like a wing at rest, see image below.

Copy-Paste our Wing then go to Object > Transform > Reflect choose Vertical and pressenter.

Drag it to the left then hold the shift key before releasing the right mouse button.

You now have a gothic looking vector wings.

For a different version, Swap Fill and Stroke or Simply Press Shift + X. Stroke width to 2 , choose a round cap and round join, set align stroke to outside.

Designing isn’t really that hard, it only takes a little experimenting + time + imagination.

+ a little visit to chemist2dio labs of course . hehe

This tutorial was made possible in order to get that fender guitar and of course lots and lots of goodies and exposure from JustCreativeDesign’s Graphic Design Group Writing Project check it out, you might find something interesting, glad I made it before the deadline!

Download the Free Vector Wings from one of my Vector Freebies Pack. ^_^