Twitter birds became one of the most recognizable characters on the web. Everyone has a twitter and we all love twitting. In this tutorial I'll explain you step by step how to draw an unique twitter bird holding your website logo, or a photo of yours if you want.

Final Image Preview

Step 1: Body

Open Illustrator and create a new document. We'll start from drawing bird's head so select the Ellipse Tool (L), draw an ellipse and slightly rotate it counter-clockwise.

Now select the Pen Tool (P) and start tracing a body-like shape.

Then draw some feathers.

Select the feathers shape and the body shape an click on the Unite button in the pathfinder panel.

Step 2: Beak

Draw the beak now.Using Scissors Tool (C) divide this path into  two parts by clicking on the edges of the beak like you see below.

Give both paths an orange to yellow gradient.

Step 3 : Eye

For the eye draw an ellipse, fill it with black, no stroke and rotate it a bit just like we did with the head path. Don't forget about highlight.

Step 4: Wings

Using Pen Tool (P) Draw a wing path as you can see below and apply a gradient to it with the colors you like.

Right-click on it, go to Transform -> Reflect and check Vertical. Rotate it сlockwise a bit.

Why we reflected it? To create the right effect, we'll reflect it again after applying the effect we need. So, go to Effect -> Distort & Transform ->Transform and use these settings:

You should end with a path like this:

Nice! Go to Object -> Expand Appearance, right-click on the wing, go to Transform -> Reflect, check the Horizontal and click OK. Here is our wing.

Now draw another path for the second wing.

Now apply the same transform effect but this time enter these values:

With our new wing created go to Object -> Expand Appearance.

Isolate this group by double clicking on it or right-click and select Isolate Selected Group. With the wing isolated pres Shift+E to Select the Eraser and erase the part we don't need.

Press Esc button on your keyboard to exist isolation mode and adjust both wings position.

Step 5: Body Details

Select the body path, make it no stroke and give it the same gradient you used for the wings.

With your body path still selected press Ctrl+C and Ctrl+F to make a copy. Select the Pen Tool (P) and draw a random path intersecting bird's body.

By Shift clicking select this path and the top copy of the body path and in the pathfinder panel click on the Intersect button.

Give the resulting shape a gradient with a little brighter colors than gradient of the body.

Step 6: Head

Select the head path, make it no stroke and give it a radial gradient from a bright blue to that dark blue from the body gradient. Adjust the gradient in that way so head edges will blend with the top of the body.

Step 7: Tail

For the tail I've drawn an open path with the pen tool and Using Eyedropper Tool (I) applied the same gradient as bird's abdomen path.

Step 8: Legs

Select the Pen Tool (P) and try to draw a leg.

Make a copy of this path and place it under the body path.

With your Pen Tool draw a path for bird's paws and apply the same gradient as we used for beak. Move it under the leg copy that we've just made.

Copy this path and move the copy under the second leg.

Step 9: Your Logo

Import your website logo or any other image that you want and place it under bird's paws.

Enjoy your new twitter icon!

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