Hello everyone this is Chris from Spoon Graphics
back with another video tutorial.
Today I'm going to take you through the process of creating a bold eSports style logo with
a mascot graphic, from the initial sketch right through to the final vector logo art.
eSports logos are a continuation of the style of American football, baseball and hockey
team branding that incorporate mascot illustration with strong type and vibrant colours.
The artwork I'll be creating in this guide is for a fictional team named Rhinos, featuring
a stylised illustration of a mean looking rhino character.
I'll show you how to produce the initial sketch in Photoshop, then we'll transfer the concept
over to Illustrator to develop the logo into vector graphics.
But first
Photoshop is much better suited to sketching than Illustrator, especially if you're using
a graphics tablet.
Alternatively you could use prehistoric tools known as pens, pencils and paper to draw your
initial sketch, then scan in the result to digitise it in Illustrator.
Create a document of a decent size, I'm going with 1000x800px.
Create a new layer, then set up the Brush tool with a small tip.
Activate the Opacity pressure icon so the harder input of your pen on the tablet creates
a darker line, much like how a pencil works.
Begin loosely drawing your mascot concept.
Browsing for some inspiration beforehand can really help you develop suitable design ideas
in the style of eSports logos.
I find it helps to draw basic shapes, or use straight lines to draw the initial sketch,
then go back over the same area and add more and more definition with darker lines.
Once your initial sketch is complete, add a new layer, then reduce the opacity of the
original sketch layer.
Alter the brush settings to Enable Smoothing and Shape Dynamics.
In the top toolbar, increase the smoothing value to around 50-60%.
This will help you draw nice flowing strokes.
Don't forget to turn off the Opacity Pressure option to draw thick lines with no fading.
The Shape Dynamics setting should be set to Pen Pressure.
This will ensure the strokes taper like a real ink pen.
Trace the sketch with carefully drawn lines.
Pay attention to the pen pressure to produce thick and thin lines, particularly at the
ends of a stroke.
Once you've traced the lines, you can then go back and thicken the linework with a slightly
larger brush tip to emphasise the broad strokes.
Turn down the smoothing value to around 30%.
Follow the existing linework to create a thicker outline all around the illustration, then
increase the tapering of any open-ended strokes.
Just like in comic book illustrations, light and shadows can be introduced in this inking
stage by blocking in areas with black.
The linework doesn't have to be perfect, but aim to achieve a pretty close depiction of
what your final logo design should look like.
When your concept is complete, turn off the basic sketch layer, leaving just the inked
design, then draw a selection with the Marquee tool and use the CMD (or CTRL key on Windows)+C
shortcut to make a copy, or CMD+Alt+C for Copy Merged if your artwork is split over
multiple layers.
Paste the sketch into the artboard with CMD+V, then reduce the opacity to around 30% within
the Transparency panel.
To avoid accidentally moving the sketch out of place, go to Object > Lock > Selection.
Clear out the default white fill in the toolbar, leaving just a black stroke.
Select the Pen tool and begin tracing the outline of your sketch.
Click and drag bezier handles to form a curve that matches the concept, then whenever you
reach a corner give the point a click to remove the bezier handles.
Use the minimum number of points as possible to smooth out the irregularities of the sketch
with clean curves.
Complete the outlining path back at the start point, then begin tracing the negative space
within the sketch.
Producing the sketch by hand in Photoshop with the correct line thicknesses makes it
easy to simply trace the concept in Illustrator to reproduce the design but with clean vector
paths.
If you need to edit or tweak any paths, holding the CMD key while the Pen tool is active will
toggle the Direct Selection tool, which allows you to select and manipulate the bezier curves
of a specific point.
Once the concept has been traced into digital paths, go to Object > Unlock All and delete
the sketch.
With the Selection tool active, click the main outline path and swap its stroke for
a black fill.
Drag a selection around the whole design to capture all the paths, then activate the Shape
Builder tool.
Hold the ALT key to subtract an area, then click on all the black areas that need punching
out to form the illustration.
Make any necessary tweaks to the overall outline of the design to correct any awkward shapes
or lines.
To add colour to the design, open up the Layers panel and add a new layer.
Drag it below the linework layer, then lock the linework layer to avoid accidentally selecting
it.
I've always placed my Layers panel in the bottom left of the screen, but yours might
be elsewhere within the interface.
Make sure it's visible under the Window menu.
Activate the Blob brush from under the Brush tool's tool group.
Double click the fill swatch to edit the colour.
I'm using a grey-blue of #57627A.
Begin colouring in the design by painting within the lines.
Since the colour layer is below the linework layer, it doesn't matter if you stray over
the lines, as long as you don't extend far enough to splurge the colour on the other
side.
Periodically release the pen or mouse to allow Illustrator to catch up.
Any additional strokes will automatically be merged with the existing coloured area.
Change the colour to fill in the horn.
I'm using a light beige of #E5E1B7.
Don't forget to fill in any white areas with a white fill.
They can be hard to miss when you're working against a white background, but they soon
show up when you place the logo against a different colour.
The final colour for my design is #AE368C for the eye.
Shading is what really brings an illustration to life.
Reset the fill colour to black, then find the Pencil tool.
Visualise a basic light source, then begin drawing shapes to act as shadows on your illustration.
Start and end the shapes within the black linework, but extend a smooth line across
the coloured area.
Give each shape a black fill, then change the blend mode to Soft Light, which is an
easy way to automatically add shading against any colour without having to manually find
a darker hue.
Continue drawing shapes across the artwork to act as shadings.
Give each one a black fill and change the blending mode to Soft Light.
The Soft Light trick doesn't work against the white, so instead use Normal but with
reduced opacity.
Clicking an existing shape with the Eyedropper tool is an easy way to copy the appearance.
Switching to the Pen tool to remove points from the pencil path, or to adjust the line
with the Direct Selection tool can help ensure the shapes are smooth without any irregularities
of a freehand line.
Once the shadows have been drawn, the same process can be used to draw highlights.
This time use white as the fill, the Soft Light mode automatically produces a lighter
hue.
Combine all the layers into one by choosing Flatten Artwork from the Layer panel's menu.
To create an additional outline around the logo graphic, select the main outlining shape,
then go to Object > Path > Offset path.
Enter 10px, or whatever figure suits the scaling of your design to match the thickness of the
linework.
Go to Edit > Cut, followed by Paste in Back to place the additional outline at the bottom
of the stack.
Change its fill colour by eyedropping an existing colour from the design.
I chose the pink from the eye.
Let's finish off the design with some text.
Use the Type tool to lay out your team name.
I'm using a font named Ironstrike from the Adobe Font library.
The Black Italic version in particular.
Right click the text and choose Create Outlines to convert the text to shapes.
Give it a white fill, then go to Object > Path > Offset Path.
Enter 10px again.
Fill this additional outline with black to create a stroked appearance, then merge all
the individual letter outlines into one shape by clicking the Unite button in the Pathfinder
panel.
Right click and choose Arrange > Send to Back to make sure there isn't any overlap.
Add another Offset Path using this black shape, then give it the same pink outline colour
as the main illustration.
Click elsewhere on the artboard to deselect, then select the text again.
Right click and choose Ungroup.
Deselect again, then hold the Shift key and click each of the white letters to make a
selection of them all.
Go to Object > Path > Offset Path and add a small negative figure to create an inner
outline.
Use the Preview to find the right figure for the scale of your artwork.
Choose a light grey fill for this inner shape, then select the Rectangle tool and draw an
overlapping shape that covers the top half of the text.
Shift and click all the grey letters to have the inner outline and the overlapping rectangle
selected, then activate the Shape Builder tool.
ALT+Click all the shapes in the top half of the text to produce a simple shiny text effect.
Drag a selection to capture all the shapes that make up the text, then reposition them
against the logo.
Right click and choose Arrange > Send to Back.
Select the pink outline of the illustration and send it to the back too.
To see how the logo looks against a darker background.
Draw a large rectangle to cover the artboard and give it a black fill.
Use the Arrange > Send to Back menu to place it underneath the logo.
Lock this rectangle to avoid accidentally selecting it.
To convert all those Soft Light shapes into actual colour fills for maximum compatibility,
go to Object > Flatten Transparency.
Drag the slider all the way to 100% vector.
Let me quickly show you how Logo Package Express can save you loads of time exporting your
logo files.
Pick it up with 20% off using the link in the description, then open it via the Window
> Extensions menu.
All you have to do it select your logo, then click the Set Logo button.
You can then specify individual graphics for the logo mark, text or tagline to have them
exported as individual files.
You can then click the Make Print Logos and Make Web Logos buttons to have Logo Package
Express automatically make CMYK, mono and reversed version of your logo ready for export.
Since this particular design is more of an illustration than a traditional logomark,
it's not versatile enough to be used in mono format so those variants are deleted.
Running the package separately with just the black linework would generate better results
for the mono, reverse and mono-reversed versions.
Logo Package Express will then automatically export all the file types you could ever need
to produce a comprehensive library of logo files for your client, including AI, EPS,
SVG, PDF, PNG and more, all neatly organised into named files and folders.
So if you enjoyed this tutorial or learnt any new tips or techniques, be sure to give
the video a Like to help recommend it to others.
Subscribe to the channel to stick around for more video tutorials, and head over to my
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As always thank you very much for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.