TUTORIALS ILLUSTRATOR
Fish/Frog— Step-by-step instructions to create a fish using only the ellipse tool and pathfinder panel. Do the frog on your own using the same techniques.
Robot— Only slightly more difficult than the fish.
RAYS—Lighting Effects and Opacity Masks— Cool rays for the light of the sun or the detail of an iris. Uses the tranform and the transparency panel.
Starburst-Rays— Step-by-step instructions to create a starburst/rays effect similar to above, but using only strokes and the 'dashed line' option in the Strokes panel.
Bell Pepper— A gradient mesh tutorial. Master how light falls on simple objects before you move on.
Tracing Portrait— A technique of vector portraiture featuring David Bowie.
Radial Symmetry— Anything can be copied and rotated at the same time to create instant radial patterns that stand alone or look great as part of a larger composition. Works for flower petals or even text. After you draw your radial, make a copy and try using Effects to alter and distort to get lots of mileage out of a single object.
Snowman— Follow the step-by-step instructions to create (draw) a simple custom graphic. Since you are drawing this one from scratch, you have COMPLETE creative license to make your snowman look any way you like!
Puppy— Download and open in Illustrator, not Acrobat. Then you can assemble the pieces into a dog by duplicating and arranging the requisite parts as necessary! Customize your dog with different colors, effects, and add-ons, but don't change the shape (stretch, bend) of any of the pieces!
Zen Houses— 12 different ways to draw a symmetrical house. Learning multiple construction techniques for a simple object help you apply the same skills to more challenging tasks.
Olympic 3-D Rings— Not just an interlocking compound shape, but one that lifts off the page.
Grouped Object Outline—Easily create a perfect outline for grouped objects.
Vector Portrait— William Beachy tutorial is an excellent resource for breaking down the vector face and body illustration process worked up from a placed photograph.
Vector Portrait2— Zach Wentz tutorial for making a Sheppard Fairey-esque political poster in the now iconic Time magazine Man-Of-The-Year Barrack Obama cover style. Note: You will need to download this tutorial before you open it!
Megan Fox Walk Through—vector portrait
How To Digitize Hand Lettering
Transparent Gradient Reflection—Like for a vase on table.
Clipping Mask Colorization—a novel technique to fill objects in Illustrator