Tutorial: How to Draw an Amazing Vector Twitter Bird

July 24, 2009 · 13 comments

Hey Guys! Welcome to our first Exclusive Illustrator Tutorial!

Today we are delivering a FREE high quality tutorial on how to draw a Vectorial Twitter Bird using Adobe Illustrator simple techniques. Actually we are just going to use 3 tools:
ellipse tool, direct selection and pen tool.

The Final Result

First let’s take a look at the final result for this tutorial:

In the end of the post you will find the download button for the AI file wich you can freely download and use for learning purposes or as a resource for personal or commercial projects.
Also check out the full set of birds we published before here:

The Tutorial

On into the simple steps illustrated with pictures to get you to that final result!

Open a new Illustrator file, and let’s start with the Ellipse Tool (L). Draw a nice ellipse like in the example! This is the color code for the blue I have selected #49C8F0.
Now, lets draw a smaller ellipse again with the ellipse tool (L) and give it a bit darker blue as color. The color code I selected was: #028FC1 but you can opt for a different one.
We need one more ellipse and this time we are going to distort the shape. Choose Direct Selection tool (A) and select your new ellipse, click the left point of the ellipse and drag it to the right till it has a similar shape like in the picture. This ellipse is gonna be our cute twitter bird’s wing. Place it according to the picture and then copy it and reflect it vertically using: right click> transform> reflect> vertical.

Ok, now lets draw a cute little hair to our bird, choose the pen tool (P) and draw a nice shape like the one in the image.
Lets place the hair on the top of our birds head.
Then copy the same shape, resizing it to a bit smaller size and place it on the small circle’s top, like in the picture.
Now we need eyes.. So lets go for Ellipse Tool again (L) and draw a circle with blue stroke and white filling color.
Choose Direct Selection tool (A) and select your new circle, click & drag the points of the circle till it has the shape we went for in the image or the one that suits your taste best.
Again Ellipse Tool (L) and lets draw a small circle to create the center of the eye. You can make your circle bigger, smaller or you can even make it square, so feel free to be creative!
Lets copy our eye center, and paste it to the other eye. Follow the same process as before “reflect vertical with right click> transform> reflect> vertical..”
Now we need legs, so we will choose the Pen Tool (P) and draw something like in the picture, don’t be afraid as it doesn’t have to be same and you can edit it with the Direct selection tool (A)
Like in the eyes, copy one leg, paste and reflect!
We are almost there! Now we just need a talking bubble! Use the Ellipse Tool (L) and draw it like in the image.
To finish it, draw something like an arrow with the Pen Tool (P).
Thats all guys! Now you can write what you want inside the bubble, i used the font ‘Tondo’ that you can download for free here aswell. If you create a nice bird following our TuT, share it with us dropping a link on the comments area or email us :]