Empire X and Game Logos

First I started out with some fonts. I played around with them until I felt comfortable with the tool panel to move on.

For Abduction, I took the shape tool  and made an oval. Shaped it until I was satisfied with the UFO outline. I drew another circle with the shape tool and erased the bottom half of the circle and used the curve tool to connect both lines on each edge of the circle and bend it to make it look like the shape of the top part of the UFO. Then I brought the two shaped together. I changed the font from a serif to a san serif for the "i" to make it look more like a human.

For the light coming from the UFO I made a rectangle with a yellow to white gradient and used the free transform tool with the free distort option selected to move the top of the rectangle in so it became a long trapezoid and looked like a beam of light. I positioned it under the UFO and strategically placed the "i" in abduction. I wanted the "i" to stand out so i made it black and san serif so it was opposite of the abduct and the on. I made the "i" look like it was being taken up by the beam of light by just moving it upwards a few pixels and rotating it with the rotate tool. I also kept those letters white with a black stroke at about 3px.

For Viking Saga I used a san serif and serif font and used the shaper tool to make a half circle for the helmet that is over the first "A" in saga. I used the curvature tool to form the horns and I copied the horn and made a mirror image for the other side. I placed it over the A and rotated it a tiny bit so that it was off center. It was too stiff when it was perfect. I tried to place the hat inside the A so it would replace the triangle but that was really awkward looking.

For the axe I started out with the shaper tool again and made a big circle and made two smaller circles around the same size of each other on each side. Then I erased the bigger circle to get the axe shape. I then used the rectangle tool for the handle and filled it with black. There is a gradient in the axe with grey and white. The hat is a similar color grey and I left the horns white to help them stand out a bit.

I couldn't decide which logo I liked best for my Empire X sketches so I made two. One is a circle with a stroke and a radial gradient with blue hues and a simple EX in the center. The other is the word "Empire" with the X in the background at a lower opacity, both with complimenting shades and strokes.