PRACTICE ILLUSTRATOR TECHNIQUES

Adobe Illustrator So, what is Adobe Illustrator anyway? Well, Adobe Illustrator is a vector drawing application that's been around for quite a while now. As a matter of fact, Illustrator's been around for over 25 years, and it's the industry standard when it comes to creating graphics that can scale infinitely without penalty. That means they are completely resolution-independent and they will never pixelate.  Take that same graphic and put it into Photoshop, and... uh, yeah, that's what it's going to look like. Unfortunately Photoshop is a resolution-dependent application, so that means if we create something at 25 pixels by 25 pixels, it's not going to look quite as good blown up at 2400%. So exactly who uses Adobe Illustrator?  Graphic designers, artists, illustrators, web designers, and even fashion designers are using Illustrator to create a whole lot of stuff.

Illustrator is resizable where photoshop pixelates Take that same graphic and put it into Photoshop, that's what it's going to look like. Unfortunately Photoshop is a resolution-dependent application, so that means if we create something at 25 pixels by 25 pixels, it's not going to look quite as good blown up at 2400%. 

Illustrations in illustrator  People are mocking up entire webpages using Adobe Illustrator. As well as mobile UI elements for applications, websites, and even icon sets. People are also using Illustrator to create rich and engaging infographics. And of course, funny cartoons.  So what does the CC mean in Illustrator CC, you might ask. Well, CC stands for Adobe Creative Cloud.

Adobe is not in the box anymore it’s a subscription Creative Cloud, where you pay per month for access to a whole suite of applications. Or for individual applications, the choice really is up to you. This is the future, and it allows Adobe to drip down new features as they become available. Keeping you on the cutting edge of technology.

Students and teacher pricing

Tools in Illustrator At the top we have the selection tools.We have the type and brush tools here in the middle, we have some transformative tools here in the next group. We have what I call some informational tools down here in the bottom including some eyedropper tools, things like that. We also have some colour manipulation tools and the gradient tool.  Really, this grouping is full of different stuff so I don't have a real broad name for this, but in general, this is just where you find a lot of color information and manipulation tools.

Setting up a print document in Illustrator The good rule of thumb here, if something is going to be printed, choose CMYK. If something is going to go on a screen only, choose RGB. The raster effect settings; In some cases, there are certain things that Illustrator cannot reproduce in vector form when it goes to print. Therefore, it will have to rasterize those which means it changes them from a vector object, which can scale infinitely without penalty, to a raster object which is resolution dependent. That means it's going to look different at 72 pixels per inch versus 300 pixels per inch.  When you're working with print, it's a good idea to keep this on the high side. When you're working with the web, it really doesn't matter. You can keep it at 72 pixels per inch and that should be just fine.  Align New Objects to Pixel Grid. Basically, what this is going to do is make sure that none of the objects that you create on screen fall halfway in between a pixel or two. When you're creating inside of Illustrator, there's an invisible grid that you can't see.It's called the pixel grid. What you want is things to snap to this pixel grid in order to avoid any unnecessary anti-aliasing. In most cases, people only turn this on for a web-based workflow. Even then, it might not make sense.

Adding artboards This is good if you are wanting front and backs to your business cards or pamphlets Artboard layouts Spacing and the number of columns you want

Direct selection tool A-the white arrow When you select all of them, the anchor points are going to remain highlighted, but the control handles are going to go away. Because there's no way for me to simultaneously manipulate all of the control handles at once. let's take a look at how these control handles actually work. So the first thing I want you to do is I want you to take this control handle, you'll notice when you get next to it, it'll actually say Handle. Just click on that and drag it in, just a little bit. You'll notice as you drag it in that the bottom part actually starts to bow out, because this is all connected.

You can also manipulate different sides of a control handle independently of the other side, but you have to use a modifier key in order to do that. So let's say that I just wanted to make this part, sort of curve inward, and I don't want this bottom part to bulge out. Hold down the option key on the Mac, the alt key on the PC, and click and drag in. You'll notice as I do that the other handle appears, but it is not changing in appearance whatsoever, I've broken the link between them. So now they operate completely independent of one another. I can do the same thing for the other anchor point, so if I click here and manipulate this one, holding down the option alt key, actually I don't have to hold down the option alt key, once it's broken. Direct selection tool

Direct selection tool You can also select anchor points and move them around. So if I click this anchor point, for instance, I can reposition it anywhere I want on the artboard. And when I let go, everything just follows along with it. I can also take this one, let's move it down just a little bit, and you'll notice sometimes you make a mistake, kind of folds things in on each other, just hit command or control Z if that happens to you. You'll also notice as I approach the outer portion of a path while I have an anchor point selected, I get that same sort of curved segment look.

Working with fills and strokes So when we click on that ear, you'll notice that it does get a selection around it. And it has a white fill currently. So let's come over here and let's just pick a color for the elephant. So, elephants are usually a sort of a grayish color so let's pick maybe this gray right here which is about 50% gray. It's just above the normal default purple fill here so I'll just go ahead and click on that. And that adds the fill for me, same thing here I want to make sure that I'm targeting the ear. And I want to make sure that the fill color is active. Working with fills and strokes

Gradient fills open up the Gradient panel. You can see it. It looks like a little gradient, and gradient just means that it slowly changes from one color to another, so you start with black, end with white, start with yellow, end with green, et cetera. And so let's open this up, and I'll just bring this panel out into the window so you can see it and collapse the rest. Inside of this panel, you have the ability to apply a gradient fill. So, in this case, let's just grab the standard black and white gradient fill, so click right here and black and white gradient fill will be applied by default, and this is the same gradient fill that you see going across this area up here. In order to change it with the Gradient Tool, all you have to do is simply click and drag across the shape in any direction you want the gradient to go, so I can go up and down, I can go diagonal, I can go back the other way, I can hold the down Shift key to draw straight lines as long as I make sure that it ends up in the right spot. Doesn't really matter how you do it just as long as you get the end result that you want. You can also manipulate the gradient from over here inside of the gradient panel. We have a horizontal linear gradient, a vertical linear gradient, and we have a radial gradient and the reverse of a radial gradient.

You can also open up the Artboards panel and double-click on the Advanced Gradients artboard. Choose the type of gradient that you want. You can take colours from your colour chart –dragged on top of the existing colours

The Appearance panel is truly an unsung hero in the world of Adobe Illustrator. Let's take a moment to explore the Appearance panel itself before we actually get started. Here I have the Appearance panel over here on the right. When you have the Essentials work space activated you can find it right over here. It kind of looks like a little sun over there on the right-hand side. I'm just going to drag that out into my work space so you can see it, and I'll expand it out a bit. Let's take a look at the appearance panel here. At the top it tells me whether or not I have something selected.

ADDING STROKES first off, we're going to add just a basic stroke, and you can see the stroke is located right here in the appearance panel, so let's go ahead and drop that down, and let's give it sort of a BLACK stroke.

OUTLINE CROP

EXCLUDE BUTTON GO TO THE WINDOW MENU TO OPEN THE APPEARANCE WINDOW CHANGE THE FILL COLOUR

FX BUTTON

SELECT THE TWO WORDS SELECT THE STROKE-MAKE IT WHITE-5 POINT ALIGN STROKE TO OUTSIDE DUPLICATE STROKE

THE NEW STROKE WILL BE CHANGED TO DARK BLUE AND CHANGE THE POINT TO 15 DRAG THE BLUE STROKE UNDER THE WHITE STROKE

ADD NEW FILL OPEN THE SWATCH AND OPEN PATTERNS

Fx BUTTON ILLUSTRATOR ABOVE PHOTOSHOP BELOW KEEP TO THE ILLUSTRATOR EFFECTS TO KEEP IT SCALABLE FX-STYLIZE-DROP SHADOW

HAVE PREVIEW ON TO SEE HOW IT LOOKS FX-WARP- TICK PREVIEW

SAVING YOUR STYLE NEW GRAPHIC STYLE SAVED STYLE-YOU CAN USE THIS AGAIN ON ANOTHER WORD YOU CAN DOUBLE CLICK ON THE STYLE AND NAME IT WHAT YOU WANT

PATHFINDER-an exercise you must do IDENTIFY THE PATHS CORRESPONDING WITH THE PATHFINDER CHEAT SHEET MAKE SURE YOU SELECT BOTH SHAPES FOR THE PATHFINDER TO WORK

Vector brushes http://www.vectorportal.com/Extras/Illustrator-brushes/GRUNGE-BRUSH-PACK-ILLUSTRATOR/10372.aspx

Add brushes Open your brush pack then open the brush gui then add your brushes

Paint oranges/open your orange file all of the brushes, whether they're an art brush or a pattern brush or a scatter brush, are all flowed upon whatever vector path, or stroke, you lay down, and so I'm going to show you the process

Adding line work The outside of the orange is selected We will choose a small brush to do the outside of the orange

Select the leaf and add the line Select the leaf and add the line. You can play with the sizing to get the look you want Place the anchor tool in the middle of your line that you made with the pen tool the shape the curve of the orange in where the shadow is Adding the shadows with your brush-or pen tool

Keeping in mind where the shadows and highlights are

Finished article