An illustration is artwork that is produced instead of a photo which is taken by a camera. For this illustration we used Adobe Illustrator to produce artwork because it uses vectors which are paths instead of dots. This allows the artwork to be resized without losing quality. The goal of our illustration was to create a symbolic representation of ourselves using the symbols we created in English for our personal essay. We used the pen tool in illustrator to trace the object and to create different parts of the object to create highlights to make it more believable. We were also required to have a gradient mesh to make an object appear 3D. Also a regular gradient, and a drop shadow.

In my essay I wrote about how I liked to surprise people. I believe that ninjas also surprise people. They are very sneaky and often use surprise attacks. They also surprise people with the amazing skills they have. This is why I chose to illustrate a ninja. He is balancing on a rock in the water. showing his awesome balancing skills.

Although I had used illustrator a couple time before, this project was the first time I had used the pen tool. It was hard to use because there were so many highlights to trace, and they had many different shapes that were very complicated. Also there were times when the color would not look right. I had to experiment with different colors to find the best one. But after struggling I was very happy with my final product.