Open a new image, 300 x 300, white bg and 24 million in colors. Now save the file. Choose file, save as and then name your image bee or whatever you like. Add a new VECTOR layer and name it body, choose the shape tool. Set your setting to match mine here,click the arrow to choose the shape and choose the dodecagon, set line width to 3, click the arrow beside the line style to choose the line matching mine here which is just simply number 2. Set both your foreground colors to a solid, black.

This is going to be his body so draw it out kind of long and narrow. Don't worry it doesn't have to be perfect. When finished, add another new VECTOR layer and name it head, draw another shape out using the same settings as you did for the body but make it more circular since it is his head.

Working on the head layer, set your foreground and background colors to RGB 248/191/36. Change your shape to ellipse and keep everything the same except for the line width, change that to one. Then draw out the ellipse on your head. Click your vector selection tool and hold down the control key and add 4 nodes where you see the red dots on the image on the right onto your ellipse shape.

After you have added all 4 nodes you can release the control key. Then click the original node that is now in between the two red ones that you created on each side (green) and push them in towards the center as you see mine here.(Top right) Round out the corners so that they don't appear sharp and "unnatural". When you are satisfied with it, right click and choose quite node editing from the option box that pops up. You should have something similar like mine with the gold color back in it now. (Bottom right).

Add another new VECTOR layer and name it antenna. Choose the line/draw tool and set it to 3 and just use the normal line from the drop down this time. Set to bezier and make sure that you foreground is set to black and background set to null. Draw a straight line for the starting and ending points of the bezier. Then click on the bezier again and give it a slight curve, repeat with other side and you should then have two antennas for your bee one on left and one on the right.

Back to the shapes tool now and choose the ellipse shape again except this time set the foreground and background color both to black, use the regular outline, set to 1, hold down the shift key to constrain the settings to be a circle instead of the ellipse shape that is selected, draw a little ball on the end of each antenna. You should now have something similar looking like antenna's on the right and 3 separate layers with the body, head, and antenna.

Add another new VECTOR layer and name it face. Set your foreground color to black and the background color to white. Choose the ellipse shape again if it is not already selected and set to line width of one, regular line and draw an oval, like an eye shape. Repeat this or copy and paste first one as a new vector selection and place appropriately on the head. Then choose a light eye color for the background color and black for the line color and make a small circle in the center of the eye for the iris. Position them appropriately and then use the line tool to add simple lines for the eyebrows and mouth. Choose an ellipse or circle shape for the nose and make it all black. I renamed my layers in the layers palette to give you a better idea of what I used in making which items for the face.

Now that we have the face let's go back to the body layer and make the stinger. Click the layer in the layers palette and choose the vector selection tool and select the body object. (The dodecagon, it will turn to bold print when selected) Then choose node edit from the tools control palette, you should see the color disappear and have just the outline of the body now. Add two nodes by holding down the control key and clicking once on the right side of the center bottom and once on the left side of the center bottom node that is already there. (Red shows where to click, green indicates original node.) Once nodes are added, release the control key and then click and hold down the center node (green, between two red ones) and drag it down a little to make a stinger end, pointed almost. Once satisfied with the shape and direction of it right click and choose quit node editing and then you should have the color back (solid black) and no longer able to see your nodes.

It's starting to look like a bee isn't it? LOL Well let's add some more to see if we can get it looking better. Choose the draw tool and set the line width to 1, set the foreground color to the same gold color used above ( RGB 248/191/36). Check the create as vector box and also the antialias box. Click the arrow for the style options and choose the same funky line we choose before. (Number 2). Choose the point to point line option. Click once on the left edge of the bee's body then release the mouse, then click once again about half way across the body and then once again at the other side of the body. The red indicates my click points. When you have clicked 3 times, then right click and choose the quit node edit option from the pop up.

Now there are a couple ways to go about this part, you could make all the lines individually or you could just copy and paste them. For the purpose of this tut I will just use the copy and paste method but if you are comfortable with vectors and stuff please feel free to mess around and play with making different lines or anything you like. You can always go in and edit them later by right clicking the object you want to edit and then choosing the properties option, from there you can change the colors etc. I made a couple of my lines a size 2 instead of one for my bee just to try and make it look different. If you need help in this area please feel free to visit my shapes tut or the vector vs. raster information page at your leisure.

I put four lines (stripes across) on this particular one, put whatever number you like then let's recap and make sure you are still with me here Ok? You should now have 4 layers- Head, Body, Face and Antenna. The head layer should contain the black face shape and the gold face shape. The body should contain the main body shape plus the 4 lines we made in step 9. Face layer should have the eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows etc. The Antenna should contain two lines (bezier) and then two shapes for the balls. See the screen shot on right here.
** I had to chop of the bottom part of the layers palette because if not this image would be way too long so that is the odd shaped section you see floating in the upper right side.

You can now add legs and stuff if you like and a drop shadow if you so desire after converting to a raster layer. If you would like to save the shape so that you can play with the colors and stuff and still have it show in your shapes options you can visit the creating your own shapes tutorial if you like to see how it's done. I added some bows, ties, and eyelashes to feminize some of mine (and masculinize if there is such a thing lol). Get creative and play around, use your imagination and see what kind of family you can come up with. On the right is my family of bees, meet the Buzz Bee Family. This is a thumbnail image and may appear somewhat distorted, just click the image to see it full size, it will open in a new window.