Designing and Creating a Digital Manifestation of Yourself

Investigate
The first thing I did for this project was look at some other examples of people drawn in Illustrator. After considering what I had seen, I realized that simply making a humanoid avatar to represent myself was boring, and overdone. I decided to instead represent myself through an interest of mine. One thing I am interested in is football. A football also quite clearly resembles a persons head. I made the decision to portray myself with a football for a head, and give the football humanoid facial features.

Plan
I made a quick sketch on paper of what my avatar would look like. After tweaking the design a bit, I was satisfied. I reviewed my old tutorials and work I had already done on Illustrator to refresh some of the tools that I might end up using for the actual project. I looked at myself and took note of some of the defining features that added character and made myself unique. I could also include that on the football to make it look more like me.

Create
I finally got onto Adobe Illustrator and began creating the avatar. The head (football) was made using the ellipse tool, as were the eyes and hands. Almost everything else was made with basic rectangle shapes, then altered to the required shape using the direct selection tool. The actual football was the first thing I did. I put most of my effort one the football, and also made it the focal point of the avatar. The point of this was to symbolize the magnitude of my interest. The body was made later, with rectangle shape. I added the Nike logo to the shoes and shirt as an afterthought, just to make it a bit more interesting. I finally added a radial gradient to the football to give it a bit of depth.

Evaluate
Looking back, I think my digital manifestation turned out quite well. It is easy to discern a human face in the football, and the large eyebrows, nose, and braces make it look more like me instead of just any other person. The tutorials I made at the beginning of the Illustrator unit ended up being quite useful to me. They taught me the basics of the software, along with a few more advanced tricks I employed in the final project. By following through the different steps of the design cycle, I was able to approach the project in a logical and intelligent manner.

Bibliography
-Akhter, Aquil. "40 Cartoon Character Illustration Tutorials - Smashing Magazine." Smashing Magazine - For Professional Web Designers and Developers. Team 23 Webdesign, 16 Apr. 2009. Web. 27 Oct. 2011. <http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/16/40-cartoon-character-illustration-tutorials/>.

 -"Vector Illustration: 60+ Illustrator Tutorials, Tips and Best Practices - Noupe." Noupe - The Curious Side of Smashing Magazine. Team 23 Webdesign, 14 July 2008. Web. 27 Oct. 2011. <http://www.noupe.com/tutorial/vector-illustration-60-illustrator-tutorials-tips-and-best-practices.html>.

- "Vector Sports,free Downloads Vector,Basketball,Football Download Free Vector,PSD,FLASH,JPG--www.fordesigner.com." Download Free Vector,PSD,FLASH,JPG--www.fordesigner.com. Web. 27 Oct. 2011. <http://www.fordesigner.com/maps_list/list15-1.htm>.