Step 1.

Write a capital “E” , i chose a Trebuchet Bold font for my “E”. You can use any font, the bird shape will slightly change .

Step 2.

Select the “E” then go to “Type” and click on “Create outlines” or press (shift+ctrl+O).

Step 3.

Select the outlined “E”, go to “Effect”  then “path” and click on “Offset Path”.

make the settings looks the same as the screen shot below.

Offset: 10 px
Joins: round
Miter limit: 4

and click “OK”.

Our Letter should look like this “E”

Step 4.

Select the “E” go to “Object” and click on “expand Appearance”

Step 5.

Keep the “E” selected,  go to “Effect” then “distort and transfrom”  and click on “Twist” ,

i made the angle = 150 .

Now the “E” should transform to following shape

Step 6.

While still selecting the “E”, go to “Object” and click on “Expand appearance”.

Step 7.

Now rotate your newely created object by selecting “Object” and “Rotate” rotate it about 50 degrees, or keep rotating till it looks like the next screenshot.

Step 8.

Then goto “object” again and click on “transform” then “reflect”  , chose “vertical” and click “OK”.

Step 9.

Now that we have our main Bird shape , let’s create the eyes, legs and nose.

Create a white oval , place it same as the screen shot then create a small black circle and put it on top of the white oval.

Then create the legs and attach them to the bird .

Now the final touch is to add a drop shadow, select the bird, the black circle (eye) , go to “Effect”  then “Stylize” and click on “Drop shadow”.

Play a bit with the settings till you get the feel you like.

And Voila !!!! here’s our Bird from the “E” Letter

download the source file from here

Hope you enjoyed our first tutorial, comments and feedbacks are welcome .

Tags: bird, create a bird, cs4, illustrator, illustrator CS4, tutorial