Create a Super Happy Octopus Character
Jun 24th in In Illustrator it's really easy to create fun characters with some simple shapes and the Pathfinder Panel. In the following tutorial I will explain how to create a Happy Octopus Character. You can use these techniques and elements to create whatever character you want!
Final Image Preview
Before we get started, let's take a look at the image we'll be creating. Below is the completed illustration to see what you're working toward.
Step 1
Create a new document 11 inches wide by 8.5 inches tall. With the Ellipse Tool, create an ellipse that is 2.5 inches by 2.5 inches. Fill the ellipse with a green color and take off the Stroke. Next, use the Direct Selection Tool and select the bottom anchor on the ellipse and drag it down about half an inch.
Step 2
Select the oblong ellipse and Copy and Paste In Front. Select the newly copied object with the Selection Tool and grab the bottom anchor. Then squish the ellipse about a quarter of an inch up. Fill the slightly squished ellipse with a light green color.
Step 3
With the Ellipse Tool, draw five to six elongated ellipses of varying size for the spots on the head (keep the ellipses the same proportion, just change the size). Make these spots a light green, lighter than the second head shape. Select both head shapes, the spots, and Group them by going to Object > Group, or by pressing Command+G.
Step 4
To start with the mouth, draw another ellipse around 1.5 inches by 1.5 inches. Then fill it with black and apply no Stroke. Next, draw a rectangle with the Rectangle Tool about half way down the black circle. Select both shapes, press the Subtract From Shape Area button in the Pathfinder Panel. Then press the Expand button.
Step 5
For the teeth, draw an ellipse that is about .375 inches by .375 inches. Select the ellipse with the Selection Tool. Then hold down Alt+Shift, and drag to the right. Note that holding Alt copies the shape and holding down Shift constrains the movement. Select both shapes and Group them. Next, place the shape over the black mouth towards the top. Select both shapes and press the Horizontal Align Center button in the Align Panel.
Step 6
Select the black mouth and Copy and Paste In Front. Select one of the mouth copies and the teeth and press the Intersect Shape Areas from the Pathfinder Panel. Change the shape to white and now you have teeth!
Step 7
For the tongue, draw a .5 inch by .5 inch ellipse over the mouth where the tongue should go. Select the mouth, teeth, and tongue and and press the Horizontal Align Center button in the Align Panel. Just like with the teeth, Copy the mouth and Intersect the tongue and mouth shapes.
Step 8
Select the tongue and create a Linear Gradient from the Gradient Panel (select Linear from the Type drop-down menu in the Gradient Panel). Make the left Swatch a pink color and the right Swatch a light pink color. To change these colors, select the particular Swatch on the Gradient Slider in the Gradient Panel. Then mix the color in the Color Panel. With the tongue selected, adjust the Gradient with the Gradient Tool by clicking and dragging from the bottom of the tongue to the top.
Step 9
Group the mouth, teeth, and tongue. Then place them over the head shape. Select all the shapes and Horizontal Align Center them.
Step 10
Draw a ellipse that is .375 inches by .375 inches. Fill it with black. Draw another ellipse close to the top of the black ellipse, but smaller, and fill it with white. Next, draw another ellipse smaller than the white one, and place it closer to the bottom right of the black ellipse. Then fill it with white.
Step 11
Select the black ellipse, and the smaller white ones, and Group them. Place the eye on the head, flush with the left edge of the mouth. Next, hold down Alt+Shift. Then drag to copy the eye flush with the right side of the head.
Step 12
Start with Pen Tool and draw a bézier curve a third of the way down the head. It doesn't have tons of curves, it just needs to get the idea across of a simple tentacle. Try to get the path to end right before the darker color of the head.
In the Stroke Panel, change the Stroke Weight to 15pt and press the Round Cap button. Next, Expand the Stroke by going Object > Expand. Also, make sure the Stroke Check-box is checked. Change the color of the tentacle to the light green you use on the head.
Step 13
Next, select the tentacle with the Selection Tool. Then hold down Alt+Shift, and drag to Copy the tentacle. Place it half way down the original tentacle. Change the color to your dark green.
Select the original tentacle and Copy and Paste In Front. Select one of the original tentacles, and the darker one, and press the Intersect Shape Areas button in the Pathfinder Panel. Now you have one complete tentacle.
Step 14
Repeat these step until you have eight legs. Keep in mind the light source for the tentacle shadows. For the tentacles on the right, I dragged and copied the tentacle down and to the left to create the shadow. Select your octopus and place him in the center of the document.
Step 15
Start by creating a new layer in the Layer Panel. Drag it below the "octopus" layer. Then hide the "octopus" layer by pressing the Visibility Icon to the left of the layer in the Layer Panel.
Step 16
Make a rectangle the size of your document with the Rectangle Tool. Then create a Radial Gradient in the Gradient Panel. Next, click just below the middle of the Gradient Slider to create a third Swatch. Make the left Swatch a light blue, the middle Swatch blue, and the right Swatch a dark blue.
Step 17
Create rectangle the is .75 inches wide by 11 inches tall. Place it in the center of your document. Next, go Effect > Distort & Transform > Free Transform to bring up the Free Transform Dialog. This is where you will see your rectangle with some anchor points.
Hold down Shift and click on the top left anchor point. Then drag it to the right anchor point's position. Next, hold down Shift and click on the top right anchor point. Then drag it to the left anchor points original position. You might have to drag one point a little farther at first to select the one below it. Click Ok, and Expand the shape. Then fill it with white with no Stroke. It should look like two touching elongated triangles.
Step 18
With the transformed triangles selected, go to Object > Transform > Rotate to bring up the Rotate dialog. Change the Angle to 20. Then press the Copy button to copy the shape along with rotating it. Now you can transform again by going to Object > Transform > Transform Again (Command+D). Keep transforming until you are one step away from your original shape. Select all the transformed rectangles and Group them. Then change the Opacity to 50% in the Transparency Panel.
Step 19
Next, create an ellipse that is 7 inches by 7 inches and center it on you document. With the ellipse still selected, create a Radial Gradient from the Gradient Panel. Make sure the left Swatch is white and the right Swatch is black.
Step 20
Select the transformed rectangles and the ellipse. Then choose Make Opacity Mask from the Transparency Panel. Now you have a burst!
Step 21
Draw an ellipse that is .5 inches by .5 inches. Fill it with white and no Stroke. With the ellipse selected, go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Pucker and Bloat to bring up the Pucker and Bloat dialog. Then change the option to -70. Next, Expand the Appearance and change the Opacity to 50%. Now you can Copy and Paste the star wherever you like!
Final Image
Now all you have to do is press the Visibility Icon on the "octopus" layer in the Layers Panel to bring back the octopus, and you're done!
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User Comments
( ADD YOURS )edward marriner June 24th
Perfect!
This is just the kind of thing I wanted to learn.
Thanks,
-ed
( )D. Carreira June 24th
Nice
The effect of the background gives the image more “funny”
Thanks
David Carreira
( )giackop June 24th
Cool.. That’s what i need for my new project.. thanx
( )Arun June 24th
Wow, looks great! Especially love the stars in the background!
( )Jack June 24th
Woah! He really is happy! Nicely laid out tut – easy to read and skim.
( )Good to see quality Illustrator tutorials and congrats on the success!
pica June 24th
lol… this looks wonderful!
( )such a happy smile
and a nice tutorial
D.A.T. June 24th
good job cool tut
( )Rijalul Fikri June 24th
Wow nice, it’s so cute
( )Churpy June 24th
I just sketched a set of sea creatures and drew an octopus that looked really similiar. Great work as usual.
( )biwerw June 24th
Nice work, I look forward to many awesome vector tutorials in the future. Keep up the great work.
( )Andrei Constantin June 24th
not bad at all and i’ll expect even more advanced tuts from Rype
( )Nate June 24th
This looks pretty fun, I might have to whip out Illustrator to do this one.
( )sinem June 24th
i love the stars!
( )RubineBoy June 24th
I am super happy!
( )K3v June 24th
Nice, especially the background
( )Gilberto Saraiva June 24th
very creative!
( )Pat June 24th
I’m glad you included the tips for the background design
( )MONSTER June 24th
Hey! My kind of tutorial.
Great one.
( )Callum Martin June 24th
Very Unique and imaginative!
( ):]
Raikus June 24th
Great step by step guide. I picked up a few new tricks that (evidently) I was doing the hard way. Look forward to your next tut.
( )Danny June 24th
What a cool octopus!
( )Chris June 24th
Great Tut!!!!
This particular tut has made vectortut’s feed a must read for me.
( )Thanks!!
IsaacS June 24th
DAMN!!! I’ve seen loads of tutorials with those radial shiny things (steps 17-20), and they’ve always told me to rotate it by hand, or just not explained how to get the acurate rotate.
However, the octopus itself looks vaguely like something I saw on blog.SpoonGraphics.co.uk:
http://www.blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/tutorials/monster-character-series-part-4
Still, nice effect, and some different methods are used to create a similar effect as in Chris Spooner’s series of Monster vectors…
Isaac
( )rad_thundercat June 24th
nice! Very Kid Robot-ish. Did you do any sketching before hand to get the proportions right?
( )Ben Griffiths June 24th
This is really great, thanks!
( )Snorri3D June 24th
cool tutorial i would like to see more of this
( )Shane June 24th
A fantastic tutorial and end result – lots of charm in there!
Thanks for posting.
( )Tim June 24th
nicely done!
( )w1sh June 24th
Rype art and vectips ftw
( )Jeff June 24th
I am having a problem with Step 19. After distroting it, I go to Object > transform > rotate and and then press copy/preview and press ok. Then the white bar outline shows on the axis, but the ACTUAL white bar gets shifted to the side. What am i doing wrong?
( )Jeff June 24th
See, this is my problem, can anyone help please? Thanks
( )http://www.drummerjeff.net/distortproblem.jpg
Stanley Parrish June 24th
Very creative man
( )K3v June 24th
@Jeff: I think you forgot to expand the rectangle after distorting it. Go to Object > Expand Appearance and then try to rotate the object.
If for some reason it still won’t work, use FILTER > Distort > Free Distort in Step 17. Because if you use filters you don’t have to expand your objects.
Hope that helped!
( )Pat June 24th
@Jeff
( )You have to put the rotation point in the center, just pick the rotation tool on the pallet and click the center!
Leventhan June 24th
Slick and cute!
( )Very nice tutorial. =D
bintek June 24th
awesome tutorial! Kudos to Rype! (^_^)
( )Daniel June 24th
Very nice result!
( )Thanks!
Jeff June 24th
thanks K3v and Pat for your help. K3v your right, I did forget to expand it, it works perfectly!
( )Braden Keith June 24th
“A SUPER happy octopus” Lol. That’s good.
I’m gonna enjoy this-un!
( )Daniel June 24th
really nice result and very cool tutorial. just what i need for my future projects. thanks a lot!
( )chris June 25th
really cool! more of this.
( )Yuki June 25th
How cute!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
( )It amuse me!! I’ll try to drow a squid version
Billy June 25th
Great tutorial!
( )And great site! Finally. I’ve followed PSDtuts for a while now and I wanted a real vectortuts site! Great that it’s finally here. And I hope you all great vector tutorial-guys and girls will contribute with great tutorials
Nine10 June 25th
Very simple and nicely explained! Thank you!
Greg
( )Mark June 25th
nicely done. very simple but effective
( )Pris June 25th
Love it……..just need this to really learn the benefits of illustrator….show me more…teach me more
( )Sajid Khan June 25th
Great tutorial, thanks. Managed to follow most of it using VectorDesigner (for the Mac). I’ll post the finished result soon – would like to see other members’ efforts!
( )Joefrey Mahusay June 25th
Wow I should try this one. Thanks for sharing
( )Jonathan Solichin June 25th
Cute! And I say that with all the manliness in the world. I have to say, that’s an interesting way to create the background (step 17) I’ve never seen it done that way before. But it shows there are more than one way to create things. Thanks for the tut!
( )Affordable Web Design June 25th
Just what I’ve been looking for! Thanks for posting and the knowledge will be put to good use.
( )Asmaa June 25th
cool tutorial!
and such a cute little moster!
( )capobecchino June 26th
Very great tutorial and good blog
)
( )emme lópez June 26th
thank you so much !
awesome tuts !.. awesome site (:
( )rdog June 26th
AWESOME Design! more tutorials like this plz!
( )Stephanie June 26th
That’s just adorable… would be great for kids invitations or other such stuff…
( )MD June 26th
Nice result!
( )Swaran Singh June 27th
It’s really a nice work and i liked the background a lot with the shining stars. good work keep it up. Looking forward for some more cool stuff.
( )Laura June 27th
Really great tutorial – very easy to follow!
( )Jonas June 28th
Thanks for this! well done.
By the way: I am much happier than before
( )faiqa June 29th
i like it
( )Ali July 1st
Nice tutorial, I really like character vectors.
( )Kuddow July 1st
This is an awesome tutorial, too bad that im stuck in the beginning
Problem for me though is the fact that it was almost 1 year ago since i used photshop and im stuck on the second step;
“Select the oblong ellipse and Copy and Paste In Front. Select the newly copied object with the Selection Tool and grab the bottom anchor. Then squish the ellipse about a quarter of an inch up. Fill the slightly squished ellipse with a light green color.”
whenever i copy the oblong ellipse and paste it right away, it just copies paths. It says “Paste path” in the history tab after that Ive pasted my copy.
What am i doing wrong? Any help/link to a good tutorial that helps me with these problems would be greatly appriciated.
( )Dan July 2nd
I wanted to say this earlier…. “this simply awesome”
( )Nilson Saavedra July 2nd
nice tutorial, i learn to use others tools i didnt knew they were there, thanks again.
PD: by the way, how can i put my photo as an avatar when i post a comment?, i really want to know!!!
( )Sugarnines July 3rd
Nicely Tutorial!
( )Ida July 4th
I’m having trouble with the teeth. When I select the mouth + teeth and click intersect, nothing happens.
( )John July 6th
had trouble getting the outline of the tongue and not the teeth. Had trouble getting the gradient mask to look like the example: a blank square on the left and the radial gradient mask on the right. There was not option worded – Make Opacity Mask from the Transparency Panel.
Learned some though
Thanks
( )Bee & Flower July 6th
Thanks!!!
( )lightupbox July 8th
Cool tut! A fun way to learn Illustrator. I’ve hit a minor snag: when I ‘expand’ the 15pt tentacle w/round caps, the expanded curve has lost the round caps effect. Thoughts?
( )tiffany September 5th
i am having trouble with step 12. after i expand it the ends of the curve turn square and not round. i don’t know how to make it go back round.
mine is doing the same thing. did you ever find the answer to this????????
( )Oompa July 9th
Im trying to make that mouth, but when i press intersect.. the whole mouth disappears.. or black turns white and white turns black..
Do you create an layer for every item?
( )virginia July 9th
Fantastic! Very simple, very well explained.
( )Ali July 10th
hmm I’m having trouble with the mouth and teeth intersect, i’ll mess around with it more
( )Mystery July 10th
thank you for this tutorial..it’s simple but very useful and nice..
( )NatalieMac July 10th
This was a great tutorial. Easy to follow, great final output, and some really great tips for quick and easy ways to do things in Illustrator!
Great job!
( )Ali July 10th
I’m struggling, it wasn’t well written, I’m using Adobe Illustrator CS3 and when I intersect it doesn’t work like the author of the tutorial has shown, I really like the tutorial so i’m going to give it another go.
( )varioke July 11th
wow thnx, really basic explained… that’s just what i need
( )emily July 11th
Great tutorial – I love the detailed, step-by-step process. Really helpful
!
( )Oompa July 14th
Ali, i am using cs3 to, and it works, just follow the instructions word for word..
I am now busy creating the tentacles…
( )oempa July 15th
Yeah got an avatar now
( )nunn July 23rd
very good !
( )Atner July 26th
U r master of tutors
( )Danny July 29th
Sponge-Bob Is On Luke!
( )Nikon August 11th
wicked tute! He is one freakin’ happy little octy aint he? I want some of what he’s having! especially liked the rotate technique on the background have spent hours trying to do that manually before and it still ended up wrong.
( )Brianna August 15th
You know, this would work a lot better if you explained HOW to do things. Jeez. Half of this doesn’t work because you’re not saying HOW to do things! For instance, how the hell am I supposed to select the elipse??? It’s a fill layer. Every method I try fails. I keep having to look to other sites to do things. What’s a tutorial without INSTRUCTIONS?!
( )Black Bloke August 25th
Step 17 should be corrected to read “Free Distort” rather “Free Transform”.
( )AtiRage August 27th
Great tutorial!
The end result is very cute and the tutorial is very well written.
I’m a total begginer in Illustrator and I’ve made it almost exactly the same:
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/6178/octopusoi1.jpg
I made it today, and since the style of the octopus illustration reminded me to Mr. Sparcle, I made him too
http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/2692/mrsparklenp6.jpg
Thanks a lot, keep up the good work!!
( )dr.emi August 31st
The octopus is funny !! great !!
( )Adam September 18th
Awesome tutorial!
Anyone know what font is used for the text ‘Vectips’?
( )r4ge October 6th
very cute i love it! BEST TUTORIAL HERE!! LOVE IT!!
<3 <3 <3 
<3 <3 <3
( )Luke October 7th
Well using illegal illustrator is lame so I decided to try follow the same steps using inkscape, very nice tutorial and still easy to follow through inkscape except for a few specific functions. It came out something like: http://lszanto.hosttds.com/uploader/upload/octopus1.png with very little time put into it.
( )Shelly Rodriguez October 22nd
THANK YOU! I had taken a course in college that included a brief Illustrator assignment, but it’s been almost two years since then… other tutorials I’ve found on the web weren’t nearly as ‘visual,’ easy to understand nor as nicely laid out as yours!
( )Adriana November 10th
Great looking tutorial. One little correction (at least for CS3) in Step 17, Free Transform should be Free Distort. Once I figured that out it was smooth sailing. Thanks so much for this tutorial. I learned a lot!!
( )Jeffster83 November 12th
There must be something about people named Jeff, because I had the very same problem that the other Jeff did: I forgot to Expand the distorted rectangle before rotating it. This is the first tutorial I’ve worked all the way through. Thanks!
( )Imran November 18th
nice creation .. lovely work …
( )Mena December 7th
I used the GIMP for this, with mixed results. I had to do a couple things differently. I couldn’t get the rectangles to become distorted properly so I just drew some lines in a separate frame, filled them in, duplicated it, and then rotated the duplication. I made a brush for the stars and changed the size. Oh, I also am not a big fan of green so this guy is brown:
( )http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30251403&l=fb9af&id=1222149933
Thanks for the fun tutorial! He’s cute!
David January 15th
I thought this was a great tutorial, till step 7…I can’t get it to work right….:(
( )David January 15th
I try to copy the mouth, but it copies the whole thing….then i do the intersect and it turns black….if I don’t do the copy or even the intersect, it appears to look like it was cut out….
( )MikeM January 16th
Thanks for the tutorial but Step 13 should read, “end super happy sperm tutorial, go to Step 14 to continue with the octopus.”
-chicago website design
( )April February 4th
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
( )Lol. Here’s my attempt: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/photo.php?pid=30074134&id=1115976298
canciller February 4th
gooooody…
( )Jimmy Shelter March 2nd
I followed the tutorial using Inkscape, but it was still very useful. A few effects did take some time to find, because of the different program, but all in all pretty easy to follow.
The result:
( )http://www.jimmyshelter.nl/images/octopus.png
Spencer April 5th
Thanks a lot for the tutorial. I do seem to be having one problem, though, and I’m wondering if anyone knows where I’m going wrong.
For step 13, when I duplicate the tentacle, darken it, copy the original and try to make an intersection between the two, it doesn’t do what I’m expecting at all. Instead of creating the thin under-tentacle shape, it makes some distorted shape that only extends halfway along the tentacle. I’ve tried it a few different times, changing the spacing of the tentacles and the shape, but it just makes new, weird shapes that have nothing to do with the tentacle.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!
( )moih60 April 16th
amaaaaaaazing work man…….good tutorial
( )CgBaran Tuts April 19th
Great tutorial and cute character
( )Rachel April 21st
FYI:
( )STEP 6 – does not work. For those of you having problems, try making the teeth into a Compound Path by going to the Object menu, Compound Path, Make. Then do the Intersect command with the mouth
ADSMITH May 9th
Thank you so much for this! It has been a lot of fun and generated some much needed creativity for me! I love my lil’ happy octopus! (Step 6 didn’t work for me either, but I figured out another method to get the same results).
( )Gerrit May 11th
Thanks for the tutorial! Easy to follow and really nice result.. love the octopus
( )Scott Raine May 24th
To do the teeth you need to Alt + Click the interest tool.
( )vTTor May 30th
SPECIAL THANKS TO YOU, NICE TUT AND GREAT JOBS IN THIS PAGE….
( )MUCHAS GRACIAS TREMENDO APORTE DE ESTA PAGINA…..
LeMar June 11th
Hi, I’m a beginner with Illustrator, using CS4 and was doing nicely until I hit the Teeth Problem… Saw some more people with similar problem, tried all their solutions but NO luck!
Problem is: I do as shown in Tutorial, select teeth and 1 of the mouths and hit Intersect button. Teeth seem to shrink, nearly vanish!
Ideas anyone?
( )LeMar June 11th
Found it! Think I did Alt + Intersection tool and then (for some reason??) hit Expand… anyway, it worked!
( )nette September 17th
Yeah! It worked perfectly! Thank you so much!
( )yanangski June 23rd
thanks again for the tutorials! love the effect. i created another creature following this tutorial.
here’s mine:
http://yanangski.wordpress.com/2009/06/23/free-wallpaper-super-perky-squid/
( )mirooo August 11th
amazing soooo cute
( )Adam September 20th
cant get step 13…weird..help
( )j_marreros September 20th
Thanks for the tutorial, it was so funny, even some steps weren’t clear I could complete the final image because of my knowledge in illustrator.
( )Scrim September 22nd
isn’t that the octopus from Serenity (Firefly movie)? the one that sends Summer Glau a bit nuts in that bar??
sure looks like it
( )