Here’s your chance to explore a lot of different shape-creation techniques. You will modify a series of basic vector primitives to create increasingly complex shapes with ease in this purely technical exercise.

For this project, you also get to hone those skills and combine them with new techniques such as blends and gradient meshes to push your creativity and develop your aesthetic.

Is there a newly discovered life form found in outer space? Is there a new species of reptile found in South America? What about a new animal found in the Rocky Mountains?

Have fun and let your imagination and creativity lead your design.

Step 1: Inspo Photo ​​​​​​​

My Experience: This was my first project using the pen tool. At first, I struggled with the pen tool but found myself in a flow by the end of this assignment. I created a sea space monster using a slight inspiration from the underwater creature from the inspiration photo. Illustrator is one of the harder platforms to use, but it was easy to add texture and other special effects to my design, like the scaled look to its green body. 

This design could have used more detail, particularly with the sky. The "moon" looks unworldly in concept but is still basic in execution.