In the following steps you will learn how to create a 3D cursor icon in Adobe Illustrator. For starters you will learn how to set up a simple grid and how to create your main shape using basic tools along with the Snap to Grid feature. Next, you'll give it a 3D feel using the 3D Extrude & Bevel effect. Moving on you will learn how to add color, shading and highlights using the Appearance panel and some basic blending techniques. Finally, you will learn how to easily recolor your entire cursor using only one shape.
1. Create a New Document and Set Up a Grid
Hit Control-N to create a new document. Select Pixels from the Units drop-down menu, enter 600 in the width and height boxes, and then click on the Advanced button. Select RGB, Screen (72ppi) and make sure that the Align New Objects to Pixel Grid box is unchecked before you click OK.
Enable the Grid (View > Show Grid) and the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). You will need a grid every 1 px, so simply go to Edit > Preferences > Guides > Grid, and enter 1 in the Gridline every box and 1 in the Subdivisions box. Try not to get discouraged by all that grid—it will make your work easier, and keep in mind that you can easily enable or disable it using the Control-" keyboard shortcut.
You should also open the Info panel (Window > Info) for a live preview with the size and position of your shapes. Do not forget to set the unit of measurement to pixels from Edit > Preferences > Units > General. All these options will significantly increase your work speed.
2. Create the Arrow Shape
Step 1
Pick the Rectangle Tool (M) and focus on your Toolbar. Remove the color from the stroke and then select the fill and set its color to R=209 G=211 B=212. Move to your artboard and simply create a 42 x 41 px rectangle—the Snap to Grid should make your work easier.
Make sure that this rectangle stays selected and go to Object > Path > Add Anchor Points. Switch to the Delete Anchor Point Tool (-) and simply click on the four anchor points highlighted in the first image to remove them. This should turn your rectangle into a triangle, as shown in the second image. Focus on the bottom side of your triangle and grab the Direct Selection Tool (A). Select the middle anchor point and drag it 6 px to the right. Once again, the grid and the Snap to Grid feature will come in handy.
Step 2
Make sure that your triangle stays selected, keep focusing on the bottom side, grab the Add Anchor Point Tool (+) and add a new anchor point as shown in the first image. Switch to the Direct Selection Tool (A), select the two anchor points highlighted in the second image, and simply drag them 6 px up. In the end things should look like in the third image.
Step 3
Using the Rectangle Tool (M), create a 12 x 22px shape and place it exactly as shown in the first image. Select this new rectangle along with the other shape, open the Pathfinder panel (Window > Pathfinder) and click the Unite button.
Step 4
Make sure that your shape is selected and go to Effect > 3D > Extrude & Bevel. Enter all the attributes shown in the following image, check the Draw Hidden Faces box, and then click OK.
Step 5
Reselect your shape and go to Object > Expand Appearance. Make sure that the resulting group is selected and simply hit Shift-Control-G twice to Ungroup it.
Using the Selection Tool (V) and the Shift button, select only the visible shapes (highlighted in the first image) and simply hit Control-G to Group them. Keep focusing on the Layers panel and turn off the visibility of your group so that you can have a look at the shapes that lie behind.
Get rid of those darker grey shapes and then select the remaining one and replace the existing fill color with a simple black (R=0 G=0 B=0). Once you're done you can return to the Layers panel, turn back on the visibility for your group, and select and then Ungroup it using that same Shift-Control-G keyboard shortcut.
3. Add Color and Subtle Highlights
Step 1
Select the five shapes that make up the lateral sides of your cursor and make copies in front (Control-C > Control-F). Make sure that only these copies are selected, click the Unite button from the Pathfinder panel, and then hit the Control-8 keyboard shortcut to turn your selected shapes into a simple compound path. Make sure that your compound path is selected and simply replace the existing fill color with R=39 G=170 B=225.
Move to the Layers panel, select your black shape, make a copy in front (Control-C > Control-F) and bring it to front (Shift-Control-]). Make sure that this copy stays selected and focus on the Appearance panel. Remove the color from the fill and then focus on the stroke. Add R=247 G=148 B=30 for the color and increase the Weight to 2 px. With this orange path still selected, go to Object > Path > Outline Stroke.
Step 2
Reselect your blue compound path along with the orange shape and click the Intersect button from the Pathfinder panel. Make sure that the resulting group of shapes is selected and turn it into a new compound path using that same Control-8 keyboard shortcut.
Keep focusing on this orange path, grab the Delete Anchor Point Tool (-) and simply remove the six anchor points highlighted in the second image. In the end your orange compound path should look like in the third image.
Step 3
Make sure that your orange compound path is still selected and move to the Appearance panel. Replace the existing fill color with a simple black and then click that "Opacity" piece of text to open the Transparency fly-out panel. Lower the Opacity to 20% and change the Blending Mode to Soft Light.
Step 4
Select the five shapes that make up the lateral sides of your cursor one by one and simply replace the existing fill colors with the linear gradients indicated in the following image.
Step 5
Select the shape that makes up the top side of your cursor and simply replace the existing fill color with the linear gradient shown in the following image.
Step 6
Reselect the shape that makes up the top side of your cursor and focus on the Appearance panel.
Select the existing stroke, change its Blending Mode to Soft Light and add the linear gradient shown in the following image. Keep in mind that the blue numbers from the Gradient image stand for Location percentage while the yellow ones stand for Opacity percentage. Return to the Appearance panel and click that "Stroke" piece of text to open the Stroke fly-out menu. Make sure that the Weight is set at 1 px and then check the Rounded Join and the Align Stroke to Inside buttons.
4. Add a Subtle Contour Along the Edges of Your Shapes
Step 1
Reselect the six shapes that make up the visible sides of your cursor and duplicate them (Control-C > Control-F). Make sure that only these copies are selected, replace the existing fill attributes with two random shades of blue as shown in the second image, and don't forget to remove the stroke used for the top shapes.
Step 2
Select the blue shape that makes up the top side of your cursor and make a copy in front (Control-C > Control-F). Select this copy along with the darker blue shape highlighted in the first image, and click the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel.
Step 3
Reselect all your blue shapes and focus on the Appearance panel. Remove the fill colors and then add a 1 px black stroke. Once you're done, Group these shapes (Control-G).
Step 4
Make sure that your group is still selected and make a copy in front (Control-C > Control-F). Select this copy and click the Unite button from the Pathfinder panel. Focus on the resulting shape, set the fill color at white, get rid of that black stroke and then use the Delete Anchor Point Tool (-) to remove the anchor point highlighted in the second image. In the end things should look like in the third image.
Step 5
Reselect the white shape made in the previous step along with your only group, open the Transparency panel (Window > Transparency), and click the Make Mask button, and things should look like in the second image. Keep focusing on the Transparency panel, change the Blending Mode to Soft Light and lower the Opacity to 30%.
Step 6
Focus on the Layers panel, select the black shape that makes up the bottom side of your cursor, and move to the Appearance panel. Select the existing stroke, make it black, lower its Opacity to 5% and then open that Stroke fly-out panel. Make sure that the Weight is set at 1 px and then check the Round Join and Align Stroke to Outside buttons.
Step 7
Reselect the black shape that makes up the bottom side of your cursor, return to the Appearance panel, make sure that the entire path is selected (simply click the "Path" piece of text from the top side of your panel) and go to Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow. Enter the attributes shown in the top left window (in the following image), click OK and then add the other three Drop Shadow effects shown in the following image.
5. Add Shading and Recolor Your Cursor
Step 1
Reselect your masked group and make a copy in front (Control-C > Control-F). Make sure that it stays selected and click the Unite button from the Pathfinder panel. Now, you can use this new shape to easily recolor your entire cursor. Make sure that it stays selected and focus on the Appearance panel. Set the fill color at R=28 G=117 B=188 and then change the Blending Mode to Soft Light.
Step 2
Feel free to use a different blending mode for this shape that recolors your entire cursor.
Step 3
You can always adjust the Opacity percentage to increase/decrease the color intensity for the shape that adds color for your cursor.
Step 4
You can also try to combine two different blending modes.
Step 5
Finally, don't hesitate to experiment with different colors.
Congratulations! You're Done!
Here is how it should look. I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial and can apply these techniques in your future projects.
In the following steps you will learn how to create a pencil pattern brush in Adobe Illustrator. For starters you will learn how to set up a simple grid and how to create the main shapes using basic tools and shapes. Next, you will learn how to save two simple patterns and how to create your own pattern brush. Finally, you will learn how to create a simple text effect with this brush.
1. Create a New Document and Set Up a Grid
Hit Control-N to create a new document. Select Pixels from the Units drop-down menu, enter 600 in the width box and 400 in the height box, and then click on the Advanced button. Select RGB, Screen (72ppi), and make sure that the Align New Objects to Pixel Grid box is unchecked before you click OK.
Enable the Grid (View > Show Grid) and the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). You will need a grid every 5 px, so simply go to Edit > Preferences > Guides > Grid, and enter 5 in the Gridline every box and 1 in the Subdivisions box. Try not to get discouraged by all that grid—it will make your work easier, and keep in mind that you can easily enable or disable it using the Control-" keyboard shortcut.
You should also open the Info panel (Window > Info) for a live preview with the size and position of your shapes. Don't forget to set the unit of measurement to pixels from Edit > Preferences > Units > General. All these options will significantly increase your work speed.
2. Create the Main Shapes
Step 1
Pick the Rectangle Tool (M) and focus on your Toolbar. Remove the color from the stroke, and then select the fill and set its color to black (R=0 G=0 B=0). Move to your artboard and simply create a 15 x 35 px rectangle. The grid and the Snap to Grid feature should ease your work.
Step 2
Return to your Toolbar and replace the existing fill color with a simple white (R=255 G=255 B=255). Make sure that the Rectangle Tool (M) is still active, create a 5 x 25 px shape and place it as shown in the following image.
Step 3
Return to your Toolbar and replace the existing fill color with a simple black. Make sure that the Rectangle Tool (M) is still active, create a 5 x 25 px shape and place it as shown in the following image.
Step 4
Using that same Rectangle Tool (M), create four 5 px squares, make sure that the fill color is set to black and then place them exactly as shown in the following image. Once again, the grid and the Snap to Grid feature will come in handy.
Step 5
Using that same Rectangle Tool (M), create three 5 px squares. Make sure that the fill color is set to white and then place them exactly as shown in the following image.
Step 6
Using the Rectangle Tool (M), create a 30 x 35 px shape, place it exactly as shown in the following image, make sure that it stays selected and focus on the Appearance panel (Window > Appearance).
Set the fill color to white and then select the existing stroke. Make it black and then click that "Stroke" piece of text to open the Stroke fly-out panel. Increase the Weight to 5 px and then check the Align Stroke to Inside button.
Step 7
Make sure that the rectangle made in the previous step stays selected, focus on its left side and pick the Add Anchor Point Tool (+). Click to two anchor points as shown in the first image.
Move to the right side of this same rectangle and grab the Direct Selection Tool (A). Select the top anchor point and drag it 15 px down and then select the bottom anchor point and drag it 15 px up. In the end your shape should look like in the second image.
Step 8
Using the Rectangle Tool (M), create a 5 x 15 px shape, place it as shown in the following image, set the fill color to black, and make sure that there's no color set for the stroke.
3. Create Your Pattern Brush
Step 1
Select the three rectangles highlighted in the following image and simply drag them inside the Swatches panel (Window > Swatches) to save them as a simple pattern. Double click on this new pattern, rename it "startTile" and then make sure that you hit the Cancel button.
Step 2
Select the two shapes highlighted in the following image and turn them into a second pattern. Double click on this new pattern, rename it "endTile" and make sure that you hit the Cancel button.
Step 3
Select your seven squares (highlighted in the following image), open the Brushes panel (Window > Brushes) and click that New Brush button. Check the Pattern Brush box and then click the OK button to open the Pattern Brush Options window.
Name it "Pencil Brush", drag the Scale slider to 40%, select Tints from that Method drop-down menu and then move to the Tile boxes. Open the Start Tile drop-down window and add the "startTile" pattern from that list, and then open the End Tile drop-down window and add the "endTile" pattern. Finally, click OK and you should find your new pattern brush inside the Brushes panel.
4. Create a Simple Text Effect Using Your Pattern Brush
Step 1
Disable the Grid (Control-') and the Snap to Grid (Shift-Control-'). Pick the Type Tool (T), click on your artboard, and add your grey piece of text. Make sure that it stays selected and open the Character panel.
Use the Mistral font and set the size at 170 pt. Move to the Layers panel and simply lock this piece of text to make sure that you won't accidentally select/move it.
Step 2
Pick the Brush Tool (B), select your "Pencil Brush" from the Brushes panel and draw the first letter. Try to use the text that lies in the back as a rough reference. Make sure that this new path stays selected, focus on the Appearance panel, select the stroke and simply replace the existing color with R=28 G=117 B=188.
Step 3
Using the same tool and brush draw the rest of the paths roughly as shown in the following image. For your red paths use this color: R=239 G=65 B=54. Once you're done, move to the Layers panel and get rid of that locked piece of text.
Step 4
Select all the paths that make up your text and go to Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow. Enter the attributes shown in the following image, click the OK button and you're done.
Congratulations! You're Done!
Here is how it should look. I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial and can apply these techniques in your future projects.
Welcome to this interview with Romania-based illustrator Ioana Șopov. Share in her experience as an artist, her impressive body of work, her freelance work for global clients, and her future plans as an illustrator. Ioana has a wonderfully diverse portfolio and history of projects, and it's my pleasure to share her artwork and words of wisdom with you all today.
Hi Ioana! Thanks so much for the interview. Let's start at the beginning: What got you into illustration?
Thank you a lot for having me! Well I've always been into drawing like all kids are, and it has been a constant hobby throughout my life, though I was never sure I'd be able to turn it into a viable career choice. I was in my third year of studying Interior Design when I attended a local workshop with designers and illustrators and that sort of put me on this track. I started getting freelance work even before I graduated and that was the thing that sealed the deal, so to speak.
Ioana herself.
Who or what are your main sources of inspiration?
I've always liked sequential illustrations, comics and graphic novels. One of my first "heroes" so to speak, Matthew Woodson, is a fantastic illustrator who used to create short sequences of amazingly detailed illustrations that just blew my mind. In the beginning most of my personal work revolved around nature and man, and the relationship between the two. I think that influenced my commissioned work as well. But now I've gravitated more towards character design and I'm amazed by artists like Cory Loftis, Steve Simpson and Kyle Webster. I'm also a big fan of Tomer and Asaf Hanuka—seeing their work is always stimulating and makes me want to do better work myself. So besides the myriad of amazingly talented artists that serve as a constant inspiration, I get a lot from the people around me and the things I see.
Did you study art or are you self taught (or both)?
A little bit of both. We did a lot of drawing in college, but it was more environment-oriented as I was studying Interior Design at the local Architecture University. Most of the skills that I use now in my illustrations I've learned by myself from the internet or studying others' work as well as my own experience. I don't believe that you need to go to art school in order to be a good artist or illustrator if you have the discipline to actually study and learn by yourself. Art school creates a very good environment to do that as it sort of forces you to study and draw and learn, but the resources are out there, especially online. All you have to do if you don't want to go to art school is just tap into them and use them wisely.
It always starts out with a sketch, digital or on paper. Even for more complex projects, I like to start out with a really rough sketch on paper in order to get stuff like general composition or proportions right before I do anything else. I prefer paper because working digitally and zooming in will often be a distraction from the general composition issues and thus paper is a simple way of limiting yourself in order to get the big picture right. After this step I usually scan what I've drawn on paper and start working on the finer details in Adobe Photoshop.
If I already have something clearly in mind for the composition, I'll skip the paper step and just start doodling digitally. From there on it's a matter of the style and subject of the illustration. I usually like to start with the line art and develop that as much as I can before going in to the colors. If it's something without line art, I'll fill in most of the flat shapes while trying to solve issues like color contrasts, balance and harmony. After that I'll start shading and texturing the flat shapes until they start coming to life.
Time is precious, especially for freelance work, so I try to solve problems in very clear steps in order to avoid wasting time trying to fix something that I didn't think of from the beginning. That's why sketching sometimes occupies more time than the actual rendering, because I think planning ahead and thinking of all the potential issues that your illustration might have will save you a lot of headaches later on in the process.
What programs and tools do you use in creating your work? Anything you're especially fond of that you'd like to recommend to readers?
I've always been a fan of Adobe Photoshop, but I also work in Adobe Illustrator when needed. Recently I've found that using vector shapes in Photoshop saves me a lot of time so I've mostly given up on working in Illustrator. I use a Wacom Intuos 4 M and I couldn't recommend it highly enough. Every artist considering working digitally needs a tablet and I've found that the Intuos line is perfect for the job in every way.
I also use a Photoshop plugin called Coolorus that is basically a smart color wheel. I think it was the only thing Photoshop was missing and needed badly, and once you get used to working with it you'll never think of going without it.
I'd also recommend reading up on the basics of drawing and painting with books like "Figure Drawing for All It's Worth" by Andrew Loomis and "Color and Light" by James Gurney. I've found that studying both of these will drastically improve your knowledge of drawing, and studying these principles practically will add a lot to the quality of your work. I cannot stress how important studying is, and I'd like to recommend Anthony Jones' YouTube video called "How to Study" which offers a very good explanation of what studying actually means for artists.
How many years have you worked as an illustrator/designer?
I've been working as an illustrator/designer for a little over four years and with joy I can say that I've managed to make this my own line of work. Like I said at the beginning, when I was younger I didn't think I would ever get to do the thing I love so much and make a living out of it, so I feel incredibly lucky to be able to do so now.
What's your typical work day like? How about your work space? Can you give us an insight into how and where you work?
I've been working at a local creative studio here in Bucharest for the past two years as well as freelancing, so my work day consists of waking up, going to the studio for about eight hours of work, then coming home, having some dinner and getting to work on freelance work or studying for a couple of hours before some relaxation and sleep.
I definitely prefer my workstation at home as I've set it up to suit my every need. I have a large desk, two screens, sketchbooks and pencils everywhere, books on drawing and a very comfy chair. I think being comfortable at your workstation is very important. As a digital illustrator or artist you're going to spend a lot of time there so it's pretty essential to feel comfortable and not ruin your back while working.
Ioana's work space.
As a freelancer, how do you go about acquiring clients? Do they come to you, or do you seek them out?
Ever since I started freelancing I've mostly had clients come to me. If you're just starting out, it's a good idea to network as much as you can with other designers or people in creative industries. By attending that workshop that I mentioned at the beginning I met a lot of local creatives and some of them sent clients my way. From then on it's much like a snowball effect—the more work you do and have in your portfolio, the more clients will come to you by word of mouth or by finding your work interesting.
Keeping an online portfolio is essential. I find that while having a personal domain and portfolio site is important, the best idea is to get your work on platforms like Behance, which was the source of many of my commissions. Promoting yourself and your work on social media like Twitter, Facebook and even Instagram is just as important. I've often been surprised how people came by my work and contacted me for projects, you never know.
And if you don't have client work to show in your portfolio, create work for yourself, give yourself briefs to work on, produce quality work and get it out there as much as possible. "If you build it, they will come."
I love the board game style illustrations you've done as of late, like the Sainsbury's piece. Can you talk about the process of your design layout, what sort of perspective is utilized, and what went into achieving the gouache-like style of the artwork?
I loved working on that project a lot. The idea was to create a visual board-game-like visual representation of Sainsbury's Nectar Card Promotion. The layout had to reflect the four different areas that you could use your Nectar Points in. I created the layout in a standard A2 format, but each object was layered separately in order to achieve the flexibility needed for other formats and promotional materials the agency had to create afterwards.
I chose a typical board game isometric viewing angle so that you could clearly see the path and each building. The textures I used on the shapes I achieved by using Photoshop CS6's airbrushes with some custom tinkering as well as some other natural media brushes from the standard libraries.
Getting to know how to use brushes in Photoshop is essential; it's amazing how many effects you can obtain with just the default brushes used in the right way.
Your portfolio is quite varied in illustration style. What determines the look of a commissioned piece? Do clients come to you with a style in mind or is that something that you get to feel out in the conception process and sell them on?
It depends. Some clients do come with a specific reference from my previous works or something they've seen somewhere else. When clients don't really know what they want and leave it up to me, I try to think of the style that would best suit the subject matter and present it to them. I like to experiment with different styles in my personal work, it keeps me excited and enthusiastic. Very often I'll get clients who like something I did as an experiment for personal work and want to commission me for something similar, so like I've said before, if you create something beautiful or interesting for yourself, other people will want you to do it for them as well.
When commissioned to do editorial illustration (or magazine cover work), are you given content/articles to read while working on your piece, or does an editor/art director describe what they want from you?
I love doing editorial work precisely because I usually get the text beforehand and get to explore the concepts for myself. However when I've worked with magazines published in other languages like DATUM, I was given the general idea from the editor as translating a very long cover story just for me would take up too much time.
So depending on the language barrier, I either get the entire text before or get pretty accurate descriptions from the magazine. I then get to producing some sketches for each illustration which I send back to the magazine for approval, and after that I work on the finished pieces.
I've always just gone with the flow in my work, the only thing that has remained a constant idea was that I want to improve constantly. I want to be a better artist with each project that I do, commercial or personal. The exact direction that my work will take is pretty much unknown for me, but I'd like to do more character design work and more editorial as well.
What words of advice do you have for emerging illustrators or artists who wish to engage in design as you have?
Whatever work you're doing, you're doing it for yourself. Even if it's client work, it's still for yourself and you have to like the end result, so always work with pleasure on whatever it is that you're working on. And learn at least a little bit of everything because it's all connected—editorial design, illustration, typography, figure drawing, etc.
Many thanks to Ioana for taking the time to share her work, experiences, and wisdom with us today. You can check out more of her fantastic work and follow her around the web in the links below!
This week marks a huge milestone for Tuts+ learning as we celebrate the release of our 500th video course!
From our humble beginnings way back in 2007 we’ve grown to incorporate 10 different creative and technical topics including Code, Web Design, Design & Illustration and Photography. We now house an extensive library of more than 19,000 free tutorials to help you build real life skills, and more than 190 downloadable eBooks.
For those who love the hands on approach to learning, our most popular channel remains our short video courses. We’ve had 111 instructors, to date, from around the world contributing to the collection and taking you through their favourite programs and techniques, step by step.
Together they’ve produced 9213 individual lessons, 77,315 minutes or 53 days of content!
To honor the publication of our 500th video, Creative Vector Hair by Sharon Milne, we’ve made the 18 lessons in this course free for one week only. Which makes this the perfect opportunity for you to develop a new skill, or to experience our video course learning for the first time. For free!
Plus, as a special bonus, we’re also giving away three free files from some of our wonderful Envato Market authors to help you with your future design projects. Get in quick, because this offer is limited and will finish Sunday 29 March.
About the Course
In this course you will learn how to create five different hairstyles from scratch, and then go on to create a series of variations. In total, there are 19 end results to this course. The aim is to arm you with the skill set to be able to render your own hairstyle creations without needing a reference image. This course is ideal for all digital artists, although it's specifically aimed at those with an advanced knowledge of Adobe Illustrator.
Create quick hair styles with the use of a collection of Scatter and Art Brushes. They can be used to create silhouetted hair, black and white, grey scale, monochrome, colored and even realistic styled vector hair!.
This set of brushes, for Adobe Illustrator, includes 10 different media libraries with 168 unique art brushes. Add a hand drawn feel to your clean vector lines. These brushes were created by hand from actual media.
These seamless texture patterns are great for adding a roughened look to text, vector shapes and backgrounds. The non-colored part of each pattern is transparent so you can add your own background color.
Free files are available for download on the course page under the "source files" download button. Files and course are free until Sunday 29 March. If you don't already have a free Tuts+ account you will need to create one to view the course and download the files.
Have you ever looked at something and thought, "That would look awesome in vector," but didn't know where to even start?
Half of the battle is knowing your vector program of choice, and the rest is being able to break down scenes, objects and more into manageable elements. It's knowing which areas you can create more easily with vector tools, which will reduce your workflow and improve the overall appearance of your rendering.
In this article, I'm going to show you some handy tips and tricks on learning to "see in vector" and to be able to render anything in vector.
1. Break Down Your Composition Into Base Shapes
When you're wanting to tackle a subject, consider breaking it down into base shapes.
Base shapes are shapes which represent core areas of a design. They're great for creating, as you can get a good impression of the overall composition based purely on these flat shapes of colour.
When you've broken down the image into base shapes, you can then look at how each area should be rendered. By using base shapes, you may avoid overwhelming yourself.
In the majority of my tutorials which work from a stock image, my first step will always be marking out my base shapes and then working from there. Whilst many areas of my process may have changed, this step has not in over ten years.
I work a lot from stock images, although it's of course not the only way to approach an illustration. There are plenty of illustrators who don't need to look at stock images. They work from sketches and their imaginations. When you're working in this way and you've not got precise base shapes to follow, don't dismiss basic shapes. I'm talking about circles, rectangles, triangles. But not everything in reality is a perfect shape.
As I said at the beginning, knowing your vector program of choice is half the battle, and this is where you have to think of effects which warp basic shapes, with ease, into the shapes you need. Not only will you create clean shapes, but you'll also save time.
The tutorials of Nataliya Dolotko are prime examples of this technique. The majority of her tutorials use basic geometric shapes and Warp effects to create otherwise complex shapes. My favourite is her living room scene where the majority of the illustration uses one basic shape. Can you guess?
Many objects and scenes have repeating elements. Being able to spot them will save you time in workflow. If you're going for a realistic look, learn how to duplicate elements and then modify them (be it colour, texture, size or rotation) to make them look unique. There's nothing worse than a realistic render and elements looking like carbon copies. However, if you're working with something a lot more simple, there's no shame in copy and paste (or using clever Transform effects).
In How to Create a 3D Lego Text Effect in Adobe Illustrator, it's obvious to see that the bricks are made from repeating elements. However, the finesse comes in making sure all the angles and sizes of the bricks are rendered separately first and then brought together as duplicates.
Like repeating elements, brushes can work in a similar way. If you can identify a simple object being used over and over again, consider it may be easier to make it into a brush. I love brushes and I love seeing creative ways of using them to support illustrations and sometimes making them the core of the illustration.
A good example is my night-time cat tutorial. If you look in the sky, we have stars. It would be time-consuming to create each star individually, but with the use of a Scatter Brush, you can create stars of varied size and spacing in no time at all. The fence in this is also a good example of how to use basic shapes and repeating elements using Blends!
Brushes can also help with other small details within a composition. Although this tutorial by Andrei Marius (in fact a lot of his tutorials demonstrate a lot of ways to use brushes creatively) focuses on creating a rope text effect, it perfectly illustrates how taking something as small as rope, perhaps a small detail in a design, can be done quickly and effectively with a brush.
However, if you really want to push your creativity with brushes, consider checking out this tutorial on creating a snake brush. While a lot of work has gone into creating a single snake, imagine if you had a client wanting a massive illustration of several snakes and each snake had to look just as sleek as the last? Ah, Pattern Brushes... such a wonderful function.
I could really go on and on about brushes, but let's look at something else which you may not consider when you see repeating patterns.
5. Are There Any Textures?
In an ideal world, everything would be flat. There would be no textures. It would make things so much easier. But we don't live in that kind of world. Surfaces have textures. Thankfully there are a variety of ways you can render textures in vector. Let's have a look at some of them.
Create Texture From Patterns
Texture can be created by using vector patterns. Wood is one of those areas in which you can save time by using a pattern. Check out this tutorial on creating a wicker pattern, which is a great example of a texture that can be created in a Pattern.
Within Adobe Illustrator there are a variety of Photoshop effects which can be used to add anything from a dirty surface to a grain effect to your work. In this tutorial, we look at adding grain and sponge effects to create a stone texture.
I wasn't kidding, I love brushes! Here is a tutorial I created a while back on how to use brushes to create a grunge effect pattern, then Graphic Style.
Not all textures are symmetrical, so consider using brushes when the texture needs to be different in certain areas.
If you've got one or more shapes which appear to be the same style along a line or within a shape, then consider creating Graphic Styles to render the shape. This will help create a clean, even look to those elements, and will save you time.
I've got a few examples of when Graphic Styles and the Appearance panel have been used to render random objects. Let's try a simple kiwi fruit made from one shape.
As you can see, within a close, even shape, the kiwi fruit takes on the same layers from the outside to the inside. You'll know you can create a Graphic Style for an object when you could cut a section from the shape and it could be any part of the overall shape.
However, the shape doesn't necessarily have to be a perfect ellipse. How about creating an avocado from a single shape? Avocados aren't a regular shape. This is again when knowing your vector program is an asset... the stone of the fruit is created using Convert to Shape and Warp Effects.
When we think about "cheating" in terms of vector, we perhaps think of using tools such as Image Trace. It's "cheating" to create an image just from Image Tracing a stock image and selling it to the client, right? Of course it is—it's unethical of us to do such a thing.
However, there are some "direct from stock" instances that create subtle details in your work, which isn't "cheating".
Create a Background With Image Trace
The first is using Image Trace to create a background detail. It's not the main focus of the image—that is the cat—but the tree in the background is used to add atmosphere to the illustration.
Even with detailed renderings, you don't need to illustrate every single element to create a complete picture. An extreme example of this is when I used negative space to fill out the remainder of a graphic I did of my dog, Shelley, when she was a puppy.
I didn't need to render all of her fur, because the background filled this in for me. I simply added highlights and shadows in the red to give her shape.
If you've got a brief that's rendering a specific object or scene showing specific details, stick to that brief. Don't over-complicate it and bombard the viewer.
Do you really need to add all of those flyaway hairs? Do you really need to show the texture of a very small area? Do you really need to show the crack in the glass on the shelf when you're illustrating a larger composition? Yes, we should be all about the small details, but not the unnecessary details which ultimately lead to clutter and heavy files.
9. Keep It Consistent
The whole point of this article was to break things down into more manageable chunks to deal with. However there's one final thing to point out, and it's probably the most important. That is, keep your composition style consistent.
While you may be treating each object differently, remember they belong to the same design and they'll need to work cohesively together so that it doesn't look like a mixture of independent objects.
There are a few things to keep in mind with this one:
Either use line art in all areas or no areas. Keep an eye on core styles such as line art for defining areas. If you're going to use it, use it throughout your whole creation.
Use the same palette throughout. Introducing new colours to one area only may make that element stick out like a sore thumb.
Remember how light interacts with your illustration. One of the tell-tale signs of a stitched-together composition is the inclusion of objects which appear to have different light sources.
Test Your Knowledge by Looking at Stock Images or Your Surroundings
I'm not kidding when I say I see in vector. I'll go for a walk and I'll break down objects I don't usually encounter and think of how I'd render them. So let's look at some stock images and put all these theories into practice. I'll start with an easy one... look at the image and see how you'd render it.
Remember, there's more than one way to approach things, and what I'd do may not be what the next person does. That being said, I'd tackle this as follows:
Base shapes and not over-complicating: I'd break the image into base shapes for the green grass and the sky only. I may show a slight bump where the horizon meets the sky, but I don't need to illustrate every lump and bump, only enough to show it's an organic surface.
Repeating elements: The trees could be looked at as repeating elements... they are so small in the context of the image that they won't need rendering from scratch individually. I'd be tempted to render perhaps two or three types of foliage, and then add subtle brush strokes to duplicates to make them look unique.
Textures: The grass is an obvious texture and it always makes me think of this awesome tutorial on rendering grass. However, I'd be tempted to use a pattern fill with a warp effect to create perspective, and then draw individual blades of grass in the foreground to make it look less pattern-like.
Graphic Styles: The ball could be created using Graphic Styles, using gradients to create depth and using a pattern to create the dimple effect.
Ahh, but what about the clouds? Well, I'd use a combination of the tip for using a defocused background and using soft brush strokes from Bristle Brushes to create a soft texture.
So let's try another image, a more difficult one. Of course I could be here forever describing how I'd tackle it, but the exercise is to pick out the core objects and surfaces in the image. How would you tackle the below image of a group of people from a bird's-eye point of view?
Time to break this down:
Base shapes and decluttering: Base shapes for most things will be created, but perhaps just one coffee cup. Do we need eight people at the table, or will the illustration work with just six? Not entirely sure what the white triangle is, perhaps a napkin or something? I don't know what it is, so I'd exclude it from the base shapes. A lot of these shapes are geometric shapes... the laptop, table, glasses, cups, and even consider the plant pot underneath the basil.
Textures and patterns: The obvious pattern/texture here is the table surface. I wouldn't need to render the whole texture, just enough to show that it is panels of wood making the table surface. Maybe some grain effects could be used in the clothing to give the impression of texture. I'd definitely not render the plaid shirt at the bottom middle or the detailing on the denim on the top middle, because I feel those may over-complicate the illustration.
Repeating elements: There's a repeating element here, and that's the coffee cups. They could be rendered with a Graphic Style and then perhaps a couple of shapes on top of each to make them look unique. The same applies to the glasses of water.
Brushes: There seems to be a basil plant in the middle of the table. Perhaps I could create an art brush of a basil leaf and just draw the leaves from that, meaning I'd only need to render one leaf and then create the brush.
Creative shortcuts: Things such as the keyboard and newspaper could be done with Image Trace, avoiding the need to create these shapes individually but still giving the impression of the objects they're meant to be.
I hope this article has given you insight into how you can vector anything. If you want to test me or anyone else in the comments, why not upload an image and see if people can advise how they'd go about rendering it? Or if you're struggling how to render something, perhaps ask in the comments to see if the community can assist. Happy vectoring!
Cursive type was once an oxymoron, but modern OpenType technology now lets us create true cursive fonts with letterforms that behave according to their context, just like true cursive lettering, to some degree.
In this tutorial you will learn how to create a cursive design, translate it into valid bezier outlines and clean it up, package it into a font, and code the OpenType rules that program its cursive behavior.
1. Do You Really Need a Font?
This may seem like a strange question to ask, but more and more today designers overuse fonts. The word “font” literally means “cast source”, referring to the metal blocks that once made up a typeface. These blocks were made of incredibly hard metal, designed to survive hundreds of thousands of presses, or later on, to serve as molds repeatedly casting copies of its letters into softer metal slugs for letterpress printing.
With this there is an implication that fonts are meant for heavy, repetitive use. Type designers sink a great deal of work into a font to ensure that it functions as well as possible in any given setting.
Thus, if you only need one decorative word, it does not make sense to design (or nowadays buy) an entire font. You are probably better off hand-lettering your word or phrase and importing it into your design. But if, perhaps, you need multiple different headings, or want to set a particularly long passage in that typeface, or want a design that can otherwise print whatever the heck you want it to, then a font is the way to go.
2. Creating the Design
Type designs are often the result of happy accidents. Often I might casually letter something on paper that looks really good, and that will turn into inspiration for an entire typeface. For example, here were some headings I wrote for some physics/stat homework that I thought might make a nice typeface.
Word of advice: if you are trying to letter a sample, it’s often helpful to letter on grid paper so you can keep your letters—and scan crops—nice and straight.
These were written with a broad-nibbed calligraphy pen. You can buy some very inexpensive calligraphic fountain pens for less than $10 from manufacturers like Sheaffer.
You will have to scan them into images in order to vectorize the designs. If you don’t have a scanner (like me), you can simply take a picture from an orthogonal angle and use that. Both of the above scans were made with an iPhone camera. The image quality does not have to be great—you only need concern yourself with avoiding geometric distortion.
3. Tracing the Letters in FontForge
To create the font itself, you will need an font editing program. Several horrendously expensive options exist, but one great app, FontForge, is free and open source. We will be using FontForge in this tutorial. Make sure you set it to use only integer coordinates (File> Preferences> Editing> SnapToInt).
Step 1
The first thing we have to do is import the scan into the FontForge drawing area. Do this by clicking into a glyph edit window, and going to File>Import.
Then, making sure you are in the Background layer, use the move and scale tools to position and size the reference image. For demonstration purposes, I will start with the letter ‘r’ in this sample, so center the ‘r’ in the middle of the glyph frame, right on the baseline.
Step 2
We start by drawing the junction where the letter’s instroke begins.
Then we plant HV-curve points at all the minima and maxima of the letter’s contour. Using HV-curve points helps anchor into place important points along the letter contour, and also forestalls endless headaches with missing extrema points down the road. For now it’s fine if the path intersects itself.
Then copy the instroke points and shift them straight horizontally over to form the outstroke points. It is very important that the y-coordinates of the two sets of points remain the same.
Then finish outlining the glyph.
Step 3
Adjust the bézier handles of the curve points to better match the contour of the glyph.
You can see a filled preview of the glyph in the main Font view.
Step 4
Now we can tackle the next glyph, in this case, an ‘i’. Start by roping off the ‘r’ by setting its advance width on top of its outstroke edge.
We trace the glyph with the same techniques we used to do the ‘r’, taking care to make the junction between the ‘r’s outstroke and the ‘i’s instroke smooth.
You will need to draw the outstroke of the ‘i’ at the correct height, so that it lines up the instrokes of all the other letters, so it can be enormously helpful to create Fontforge guidelines marking out the heights of the joins. Create guidelines by dragging down from the top ruler in the glyph window. Make sure the guidelines are rounded to integer coordinates.
Then just draw the rest of the glyph.
Step 5
This ‘i’ was drawn in the ‘r’ glyph space; we need to move it to its own glyph slot. Select the contour (and dot) by double clicking the paths, and cut and paste them into the ‘i’ glyph slot. Set the advance width by setting all sidebearings equal to 0 (Metrics>Set Both Bearings). Shift the background image if needed.
You can still see the letters side by side by typing them in the wordlist box. This is extremely useful when making cursive fonts to make sure joins are smooth and line up.
Step 6
Here I am tracing the letter ‘l’ from the sample. It can be easier to copy an existing letter (in this case, a dotless ‘i’) and move the points to match the new letter, though everyone has their own way of hand tracing scans.
The HV-bounding-box-points system sometimes breaks down, as it can be impossible to trace certain curves using just HV points.
In this case, it may be necessary to insert additional curve points along the spline.
Hand lettering is rarely perfect, but fonts do have to be (one of the disadvantages of using fonts). That means that in order to avoid problematic combinations, the letters, especially their instrokes and outstrokes, have to be somewhat standardized. In the case of the ‘l’, that means lowering the tail so that it sits on the baseline.
Step 7
Here is a tracing of the letter ‘c’. As you can see, I made a few changes from the written version to make it play well with other letters. The Metrics Window can be very useful to test strings of letters.
4. Deriving the Rest of the Alphabet
Your lettering sample will probably not contain every letter in the alphabet. In fact, you
can sometimes get better results deriving letters from letters you’ve
already drawn. For example, a script ‘a’ is very similar to a ‘ci’.
I created the aforementioned ‘a’ just by squishing together a ‘c’ and an ‘i’ in the sample.
Each letter you create will beget more letters. The ‘a’ for example gives rise to the ‘d’.
The ‘d’ is not the only letter that comes from ‘a’. You can also conceivably derive the ‘q’, ‘u’, ‘i’ (if you started with an ‘a’ instead of an ‘i’), ‘n’, ‘m’, ‘p’, ‘h’, and several more from ‘a’. There are countless ways you can derive an alphabet starting with a few sample letters. One way is shown below, starting with an ‘s’, ‘a’, ‘c’, ‘e’, ‘l’, ‘o’, and ‘r’.
Here is an example of a font I made with all 26 letters.
5. Assembling a Functional Font
At this point, the font contains a full alphabet, but barely works as a font, since the letters only work together at the most basic level. The next part of this tutorial will focus on creating necessary alternates and programming the font to link up the letters in a pleasing cursive script.
Step 1
Your letters ‘b’, ‘o’, ‘v’, and ‘w’ will almost certainly have outstrokes that terminate higher up than the other letters. Do your best to standardize these four letters just as you did with the normal letters.
Step 2
If one of those four letters occurs, the letter after it will not link up because its instroke will be lower than the previous letter’s outstroke. We need to create a set of alternate glyphs with high instrokes that can link up with the ‘b’, ‘o’, ‘v’, and ‘w’. Do this by first adding 26 glyph slots to your font, in Encoding>Add Encoding Slots.
The new slots will enter as blanks, and you will need to sort them by going to Element>Other Info>Mass Glyph Rename.
Give them a suffix of ‘high’, and map them to the alphabet block starting with ‘a’.
This creates a block of slots named ‘a.high’, ‘b.high’, ‘c.high’, etc. Copy and paste a copy of the lowercase alphabet into this block.
Step 3
Give the ‘a.high’ glyph an instroke that would connect with the ‘b’, ‘o’, ‘v’, and ‘w’.
Step 4
This produces an appropriate alternate ‘a’ to be used after a ‘b’, ‘o’, ‘v’, or ‘w’, but it does nothing unless the font knows when to use it. To tell the font to substitute the ‘a.high’, we have to create a font lookup (Element>Font Info>Lookups>Add Lookup). Make it a Single Substitution lookup, but don’t set any features to it. Without a feature set, this lookup will serve as a list of paired glyphs for other lookups to use.
Then add a subtable to the lookup. Use the Default Using Suffix button to automatically populate the list with pairings based on the glyph names. If the button doesn’t work, save your font, close out Fontforge, reopen it, and try again.
Step 5
Add another lookup, this one a Contextual Chaining Substitution lookup. Assign the calt feature to it, which “activates” the lookup in the font when it is used to type text.
Add a subtable, and in it, create two classes—one with ‘b’, ‘o’, ‘v’, ‘w’, and high forms, and the other with all other letters not in the first class.
At the beginning of each list, insert ‘void’ or ‘void2’, because for some reason, Fontforge will only read starting from the second glyph in each class. For the matching rule, type the name of your first class, a pipe, the name of the second class, and the “highlinks” lookup in @<> form (you can use the Add Lookup menu).
What’s going on here? The Chaining Substitution lookup goes along through each letter you type and looks to see if it’s a member of Class 1 (‘b’ and friends). If it’s followed by a member of Class 2 (all other letters), it will look in the highlinks lookup, and replace that glyph with the associated alternate glyph listed in highlinks. In this way, [b][a] becomes [b][a.high] when typed.
Step 6
Because classes have to be disjoint, this fails if you have more than one ‘b’ or company in a row. We account for this by creating a second subtable, with one class containing the ‘b’, ‘o’, ‘v’, ‘w’, and their high forms. The matching rule will have the same class twice, and the second has highlinks lookup applied. This subtable will look for ‘b’s followed by other ‘b’s (or other letters in that class) and perform the same substitutions.
You should have two subtables in the calt lookup now.
Step 7
Once you ‘OK’ out of the Font Information panel, you should be able to see the lookup in action in the Metrics Window.
With the Metrics Window as a visual aid, convert the rest of the letters in the high block to having high instrokes.
The high joins should connect smoothly in the Metrics Window.
6. Stylistic Polish
At this point, the font has technically become a true cursive, since the font will automatically ligate any letter combination you type. But it still has some way to go to make it look better.
Step 1
High up on the list of problems to smooth out is the link between x-height letters and ascending letters like ‘h’, ‘k’, and ‘t’. As you can see, the joins can look a little awkward.
We have to fix this by creating another alternate set of letters, to be substituted in when they occur before an ascending letter. Name these like the high glyphs, except give them the suffix .steep.
Create another unfeatured lookup, with a subtable filled with pairings of regular and steep glyphs.
Step 2
You will also need to create alternate versions of the ‘h’, ‘k’, and ‘t’ glyphs, to link up with the steep glyphs (having steep instrokes). It is probably easiest to add three glyph slots and name them h.insteep, k.insteep, and t.insteep through the Element>Glyph Info window. You might also want to make another three copies of these glyphs for instances when more than one ‘h’ occurs in a row, though it seems this is currently nonfunctional.
Of course, give them their own subtable.
Step 3
Next, we go into the calt lookup and add a third subtable to it to set up our chaining rules. In one class, put the ‘h’, ‘k’, and ‘t’, and in the other put the rest of the alphabet, except for the ‘h’, ‘k’, and ‘t’, because classes must be disjoint; and the ‘b’, ‘o’, ‘v’, and ‘w’, which, as high letters, cannot have steep outstrokes.
The second class (regular letters) goes first, and gets the steeplinks lookup applied to it. The first class gets the insteeplinks lookup applied to it. This means that if the font produces a combination like [a][h], the [a] will get replaced with [a.steep], as specified in the steeplinks subtable, and the [h] gets replaced with [h.insteep], according to the insteeplinks subtable. This produces the matched pair [a.steep][h.insteep].
Step 4
Then we go in and actually modify the alternate glyphs to have steep links. It will be useful to create a third set of guidelines here. You can skip the ‘h’, ‘k’, and ‘t’, and the ‘b’, ‘o’, ‘v’, and ‘w’, since they can’t provide steep links under our current programming.
As before, the Metrics Window helps you see how the font functions, and helps you design smooth links.
This should produce smooth linkages in most cases. It will fail if there are multiple ascending letters in a row—in theory you can create a fourth subtable in calt to substitute substituted ascending letters themselves, although for whatever reason this doesn’t work. The font will fall back to the old, less smooth, but still connected linkage.
It will also fail in combinations like ‘bat’, with a high letter combined with a steep letter—again, in theory, you can program a subtable that would replace high letters with alternates that are both high and steep, but again, in my experience this does not work.
The best you can do, however, is to make sure the steep linkage subtable is listed below the high links subtables when listed in calt; this fallback mechanism makes sure that the first two subtables can perform their more important functions over the third should a conflict arise.
Step 5
One more important problem can be fixed—clashing pairs like ‘ti’ and ‘th’.
The easiest way to fix this is to create ligatures—custom replacements for these problematic letter pairs. I created six ligatures—a ‘ti’ ligature and a ‘th’ ligature, plus high and steep variants (remember to add them to the lookup lists).
Step 6
Ligatures need to be programmed into a font with a Ligature Substitution lookup, which you should add to your font’s lookup list. Flag it dlig (discretionary ligature). Since calt is more important than the dlig lookup, make sure calt is listed first in the lookup list to give it priority if there’s a conflict.
Ligature substitution is simpler than contextual substitution—you just create a subtable within it to enumerate the ligatures and the letter pairs they replace. Because dlig takes effect after calt has done its thing, the source glyphs should be the ones substituted by calt.
You should be able to see the ligatures in action in the Metrics Window.
Step 7
This covers the basics of how to create a cursive font. A complete font will contain a great deal many other glyphs, including accents, symbols, capitals, and others. Some of these glyphs will need to be integrated into the link programming by adding their names to the various lookup subtables.
A word of warning for when you go to export your font as an actual font file (.ttf, .otf) through File>Generate Fonts. Little of the programming we added to the font will be saved in the exported font file unless you check the OpenType box in the Options window. There are a few other housekeeping things you should run before exporting your typeface that are standard in digital type:
Remove all overlaps (select all glyphs with Control-A, Element>Overlap >Remove Overlap).
Round all coordinates to integers (select all glyphs, Element>Round>To Int).
Make outer contours run clockwise (select all glyphs, Element>Correct Direction).
Congratulations, You’re Done!
You now know how to design truly cursive type, type that simply works when you use it in an app. Such a font is not always necessary—hand lettering mustn’t be forgotten! But it is certainly a useful and fun thing to have around, and the possibilities with OpenType programming are endless. Happy font-making!
The font used as an example in the second half of this tutorial is In Screaming Color, a cursive font I designed which can be found on dafont.com.
In this tutorial we’ll walk through the step by step process of creating a simple, photo-based Tumblr diary theme in Photoshop. I will start totally from scratch and will guide you through the whole process of setting up the document, using some basic tools and completing the design in no time. The aim of this tutorial is to show how some of the design decisions are being made and how the final design comes to life.
Tutorial Assets
In order to follow along you will need some (freely available) assets:
Begin by creating a new Photoshop document (File > New…) using the settings shown below. You’re free to use a canvas of whatever dimensions you prefer–the web is not fixed width, after all.
Step 2
Let’s set some guides so our layout has enough space and looks balanced. I don’t always use a predefined grid, but setting some guidelines will ensure neatness and will help to define our website’s width. Go to View > New Guide… and set some guidelines. I usually choose 1000px as a website width and add some guidelines from the corners so it has space to breathe.
Note: Guidelines used for this tutorial: vertical at 100px, 600px, 720px and 1100px.
Tip: You could also use the GuideGuide Photoshop plugin to make this process even quicker.
Designing the Header Area
The header or area “above the fold” (wherever that is these days) plays a very important role in engaging with users and ensuring that visitors stay on the website. For this traveler’s photo diary I will use a beautiful beach scenery photo to set the adventurous mood and subconsciously send a message for the visitors saying that this is website is about traveling.
Step 1
Let’s first create a group called "Header" for header by clicking Layer > New > Group... or hitting the little icon at the bottom of layers panel.
Step 2
To get started let’s put navigation at the very top of our diary so people can easily navigate through. Select the Horizontal Type Tool (T), choose PT Sans font 13px size, set color to dark grey #323232 and enter the name of your photo diary. This is a suitable place for our logo, so throw one in if you have one. I am using a fictional name for this photo diary “Boarding Gate”. To make it more visually appealing expand the tracking (the spacing between letters) to 200.
Make sure to allow some space for the title above, I’ve moved it down by 25px.
Step 3
Now using the same tool enter some links for your photo diary. To indicate the active link use a different color, in my case this is a lighter grey #666666. Place it in the top right corner right before the last vertical guideline.
Step 4
Inside the “Header” group draw a rectangle shape (use any other color than white to make it visible) using the Rectangle Tool (U). In my case I drew a 1200x640px sized rectangle and placed it at the top of the document leaving 25px gap below the top navigation.
Step 5
Now download this beach photo (or any other you like), drag it to the Photoshop document and place it above the rectangle layer. Rename the image layer to something you’ll recognize later, in my case I’ve used IMG. After that hold down the Alt key and mouse over the photo layer until you see a little arrow pointing down, then release it. You have just created a Clipping Mask. Finally reduce the IMG layer Opacity to 75% to make text we’ll put on top will be more readable.
Now hit CMD+T and resize the photo to fit your needs.
Tip: hold down Shift key to transform proportionally.
Step 6
Let’s make an introductory message telling users what this is all about. Make sure you use large text to draw visitors’ attention. In my case it’s the same PT Sans font, 52px size. For a secondary message use a smaller font, I’ve used PT Serif 28px size. Notice the space between the lines, always leave enough space for copy to be readable.
Step 7
Finally we need a call to action (CTA) button to tell people what to do. Pick the Rectangle Tool (U) and draw a white #FFFFFF rectangle shape. After that place text inside of the white rectangle saying something like “Browse Photos”. Make sure to allow some space above the button so it looks strong and independent.
Designing the Text Post Unit
As you may already know Tumblr has many different post types available. Below is a screenshot of the Tumblr dashboard interface showing possible post types you can create.
Over the coming steps I will walk you through the process of creating some different post types, namely:
Text post
Photo post
Video post
Quote post
I will leave you to complete the rest as an assignment.
Step 1
Let’s start with Text entry first. We’ll be creating one unit then reproducing it for the other post types. All the posts will be based on the same structure and share similar features (date of post, tags, sharing options).
Create a new group called “Text Unit”. After that change background color to light brown #f8f7f6, pick the Rectangle Tool (U) and draw a rectangle shape between the first and last vertical guidelines. In my example the rectangle is 1000x284px.
Grab the Horizontal Type Tool (T) and using PT Sans (Bold) 32px enter a headline. Make sure to give your title some space around to make it look balanced and clean. In my case I’ve pushed it 50px from the top and left.
Step 2
Using same tool pick PT Serif font, reduce the font size to 15px and change the color to lighter grey #444444. After that enter your post content. Make sure to increase line height to make it more readable and visually appealing. In this case I’ve set the line height to 26px.
Step 3
Finally we need to display the date of publishing alongside, with some tags and sharing options. Using the same type tool enter some tags, each prepended with a hashtag #, and place it below the content. After that change the color to lighter grey #666666 so it is visually lighter and gives the impression of being less important, allowing more attention for the main content.
Step 4
Now head over to Iconfinder and download share, retweet and heart icons.
Lastly, create a new group called “Icons” and place the icons inside the group. Apply some space to the sides and reduce the group’s Opacity to 30% so the icons match the date and tags color.
Designing the Photo Post Unit
Step 1
With that done, duplicate the “Text Unit” group and rename it to “Photo Unit”. Move it 60px below the first block, remove the content layer and move the post title to the bottom to be in line with the post date and tags. Change the post title, date and tags. Select the unit background layer, hit CMD+T and resize it to have 50px space above and below.
Step 2
Duplicate the unit background layer and resize it using CMD+T. In my case I’ve resized it to 1000x510px.
Move it above the title and head over to Skitterphoto to pick a photograph you’d like to use for the photo post , placing it above the rectangle. Hold down Alt key and mouse over the layer thumbnail until you see a little arrow pointing down. Then release the mouse to create a Clipping Mask.
Designing the Video Post Unit
Step 1
This one is easy. Duplicate CMD+J the “Photo Unit” group and rename it to “Video Unit”. Move it 60px below the photo post and change the image, title, date and tags. After that we need to indicate that it is a video post by placing a YouTube icon over it.
Download the YouTube icon from Iconfinder and place it in the center of the video post image.
Designing the Quote Post Unit
Step 1
Once again duplicate (CMD+J) the “Text Unit” group and move it below the video post. Remove the title and content layers leaving the date, tags and sharing icons.
After that, pick up the Horizontal Type Tool (T), choose PT Serif (Italic) font, set size to 35px and make sure the color is dark grey #323232.
Finally, paste your favorite quote and adjust the background around it, remembering to leave consistent 50px gaps on the sides.
Now duplicate the “Photo Unit” group and place it below the quote post so our mockup looks more like a real Tumblr blog.
Designing the Rest of the Post Units
There you are. I’ve showed you how to create text, photo, video and quote post types and now it is time for you to create the rest of the post types for link, chat and audio. Consistency is key, try to reuse elements we’ve created already and use the same fonts, colors, spacing so your design looks balanced and is perceived as a whole.
Designing the Footer Area
We’re very close to finishing this simple Tumblr theme. Let’s now add a “load more” button (something common to Tumblr themes) and a copyright statement.
Step 1
Minimize all groups and create a new one called “Footer”. After that open up the “Header” group and find the “Browse Photos” button layers, the rectangle shape and text layer. Hold down the CMD key and select both of these layers, then hit CMD+J to duplicate them and drag them to your “Footer” group.
Once done, double-click on the rectangle shape layer and change its color to the one used for the “Photo” background to keep consistency.
Step 2
Finally, enter the copyright information. For consistency use the same font as used for the photo entry copy. In this case it is PT Serif 15px color grey #444444. Notice the spacing, in the whole layout we have a lot of white space that gives this feeling of cleanliness and organisation. I’ve used 60px for spaces between the photo entries, “load more” button and copyright line.
The alignment is centered to keep things consistent with the messaging and call to action (CTA) buttons.
Congratulations!
That’s it! We’re done with the theme design, now review your document layers, delete the unnecessary ones and hand it over to your developer, or even better code it yourself. In a coming tutorial we’ll be coding this design into a fully functional Tumblr theme, so stay tuned!
You can draw, you know it. You can hold a pencil, you can lead lines, but somehow they don't want to listen to you. As long as you draw something that doesn't require precision, something chaotic, it works all right. But any time you try to draw from a reference, the proportions are so off that it's scary.
Why does it happen? Is something wrong with you? Your eyes are OK, your hand is OK... why can't you just draw what you see? It looks so easy!
A lot of things that we do in life seem easy only because they're automatic to us. But if you tried to explain them to someone who'd never done them, you'd understand how complex they are. Just try to focus on your steps when walking!
Automation is great—it lets you do certain things effortlessly and almost magically. However, in order to reach this state, you need to put an effort into it first. When first learning how to drive, there's so much to focus on that it's totally overwhelming. But after some practice you're able to talk and listen to the radio when driving, and you still have enough attention to see that pedestrian.
Professional artists make drawing look easy, but it's only because it was hard for them earlier in their lives. When you force yourself to draw complicated things over and over again, and they don't turn out as intended, it's because you ignore this simple fact—you must learn how to do it in order to do it.
This is the second part of the drawing basics series. In the first part we were learning how to control the tool so that it didn't disturb your future exercises. If you still have problems with it, don't start this part before finishing the previous one! It's very important to do it at your own pace. Come back here when you're really ready, otherwise you'll make it harder than it needs to be.
Also, if you're new to this series and you're sure you don't need to practice pure manual skills, read that first part anyway. You'll find there a very important introduction and general tips about learning.
What There Is to Learn
There are things that you learn consciously, things that are fully explainable. Precise drawing isn't one of them. It's one of the "mind skills", meaning it's learned by your mind rather than consciously by you. For example, as a child you learned how perspective worked. That's why now you're not scared of the world constantly moving and changing size as you move. But do you, consciously, know the rules of perspective?
These "mind skills" are very easy to learn—and very hard at the same time. They're hard, because you can't learn them consciously. You can't read a book about them, and you can't listen to a lecture, come back home and just know them. You can't learn them—it's only your mind that can do it.
And the mind learns best through repetition. That's the simplicity of this. You just need to practice, and practice a lot, until it starts being automatic. That will be the sign that your mind is grasping it! Easy, isn't it?
Well, if it were that easy, you would already be a master of copying references. Haven't you practiced it many times? Your manual skills certainly developed, but your problem with proportions hasn't been solved. It's because you were practicing many kinds of exercises at the same time. Even if you progressed at one of them, it wasn't noticeable because of other mistakes.
This is what this stage is about. I'll show you simple exercises, each focusing on a slightly different part of the problem. This way you'll clearly see your progress, and even though these drawings won't be anything worth admiration, you'll be able to transfer the skill gained here to your "real" works—not only for copying references, but for everything!
What you need to keep in mind when practicing:
Never forget that you're doing it because you want to. Nobody's forcing you, and you don't have an obligation to draw well.
It's perfectly normal when it turns out bad. You're learning! If you were expecting your drawings to turn out great every time, why would you learn? There's nothing wrong with the outcome, but with your expectations about it.
Each exercise is based on skills gained in the previous one. Therefore, the last ones may be impossible to do before you practice some more. Don't push yourself—take it easy. Being too ambitious may slow down your progress!
It will take time. It doesn't require much time every day (see the previous part for more info), but it needs to be a constant, regular practice.
There may be moments when you feel uncomfortable. This feeling of "mental stretching" is a clear sign that you're working on a long unused "mind-muscle". It may be painful, in a weird way, but this is a direct signal that you're learning something new! Learn to embrace this feeling, and don't use it as an excuse to do something more pleasant.
Take a break from drawing serious things for some time. This way you'll prevent yourself from being disappointed (if you expect to be much better after one session of exercises), and you'll have a pleasant surprise when you're ready.
Always start a session with a warm-up, also described in the previous part.
Use continuous lines only for small shapes. For drawing in a larger scale, use the "soft lines" described in the previous part.
1. Measure the Distance Between Dots
Let's start slowly. Draw two dots with a random distance in between. Then draw another dot, trying to use the same distance. Repeat it many times in various directions, and feel free to use diagonal lines, too. Try a different distance every time you do this exercise. The longer the distance, the more challenging the exercise.
This exercise:
"warms up" your mind for working with proportions
is focused on seeing distance, a base of proportions
is extremely simple in construction—there's only one type of mistake you can make here!
2. Copy the Length of Lines
Draw a line of random length. Then try to draw it once again under the original. After finishing a column, repeat them on the sides. The lines don't need to be perfect (mine certainly aren't!), but if drawing them seems too hard, it's a sign you haven't finished the first stage.
This exercise:
is not only about seeing distance, but also about replicating it
engages your hand, eyes, and mind all together
extends the exercises from the first stage about line control
3. Measure the Distance Between Equal Length Lines
Draw a line of random length, and then draw it once again. Repeat the process, using the same distance that appeared between the first two. The longer the lines and distances, the harder the exercise.
This exercise:
is another level of the two previous ones
stretches your mind-muscles very intensively, because you're processing two distances at a time. Don't let it discourage you!
4. Draw Crosses: Squares
We're picking up speed now, so don't worry if you start losing your breath. The beginning must be hard!
Draw a line of random length, and then cross it in the middle with another line of the same length. "Close" the cross with more lines. The more like a square it looks, the better. Do the same with rotated crosses (45 degrees).
This exercise:
contains a clear indicator of your progress (how squarish the squares are)
extends your manual skill by drawing squares
introduces you to seeing angles
5. Draw Stars: Circles
Draw a line of random length. Cross it with a line of the same length, but on a 45 degree angle. Add another one, rotating by another 45 degrees. Do it until you have four lines crossing each other. Close the star with a circle—the more lines touch it, the better.
This exercise:
contains a clear indicator of your progress (if all the lines touch the circle)
is very complex: combines seeing distance, copying distance, seeing angle, and copying angle
extends your manual skill by drawing circles
6. Copy Squares and Circles
Draw a circle, then a square of similar size below. Copy the circle and square, trying to achieve the same size every time. Remember: if it's too hard, draw the shapes "softly", with repeating-overlapping lines.
This exercise:
extends your manual skill by drawing circles and squares
introduces you to a concept of "general size" (various lengths combined to create a shape)
trains your "complex precision"—it's the first step to copying more complicated shapes
7. Scale Squares and Circles
Draw a circle, and then draw smaller copies of it. Do the same with squares.
This exercise:
extends your manual skill by drawing circles and squares
is the first step to scaling the reference
8. Copy Combined Figures
Time to combine all the skills you are learning into one complex exercise, a simulation of what you're going to do when drawing from a reference.
Draw a combination of shapes: squares, circles, rectangles, lines. Then copy the figure as accurately as possible.
This exercise:
combines all the previously practiced skills
is a simulation of 1:1 reference copying
9. Copy and Scale Combined Figures
Again, draw a combination of various shapes. This time don't copy it directly; instead, scale all the components at the same degree.
This exercise:
combines all the previously practiced skills
is a simulation of scaled copying—the case when it's the easiest to lose proportions
10. Copy and Rotate Combined Figures
Draw a combination of shapes. Copy all the components, this time rotating them all by the same degree. Be very, very careful!
This exercise:
combines all the previously practiced skills
trains you for seeing proportions even in a disturbed reference
11. Copy, Scale, and Rotate Combined Figures
Draw a combination of shapes. Copy the components, transforming them all in two ways: scaling and rotating. Paradoxically, you may find it easier than the previous exercise!
This exercise:
greatly engages all kinds of mind-muscles
12. Copy, Scale, and Rotate Smooth Shapes
Let's finish this session with a very strong accent. Draw a simple, smooth shape. Transform it in all the ways: copy 1:1, scale, rotate, and combine the transformation.
This exercise:
is extremely hard!
greatly engages all kinds of mind-muscles
is a good final exercise—when all the previous ones become boring, this one will stay challenging
Good Job!
That was the second stage. Make sure to stay here for longer—these aren't easy exercises, and the harder they are for you, the more important it is to work through them. Give yourself as much time as needed, and even more than this!
How can you tell when to stop? When these exercises become boring, but not in an unenjoyable-boring way—rather I-can-do-it-with-my-eyes-closed boring.
The next step after mastering them is to draw from a reference. However, keep in mind it won't become completely trivial. It depends on how much work you've put into these exercises, and what you've learned from them.
So, this was about drawing from a reference. Next time we're going to look into drawing from imagination!
You can print this image for a quick reminder of all the exercises
We're covering the essentials in Digital Painting 101, a series dedicated to helping you improve your digital painting technique. In today's quick tip, learn about Selection Tools in Adobe Photoshop, and the many benefits of incorporating them into your workflow.
What Is a Selection?
A selection allows you to work within a specified area without making any changes outside that area. The border is defined by a blinking dashed line that can be applied in an array of shapes.
Best Selection Tools for Digital Painting
The following Selection Tools will make your life a little easier. Take some time to try them out and get to know them better.
Rectangular Marquee Tool (M)
The Rectangular Marquee Tool allows you to make rectangular or square-shaped selections.
Elliptical Marquee Tool (M)
The Elliptical Marquee Tool allows you to make elliptical or circular-shaped selections.
Lasso Tool (L)
TheLasso Tool allows you to make freehand selections, allowing you to
create the selection shape you want. Great for quick, loose selections.
Polygonal Lasso Tool (L)
The Polygonal Lasso Tool is great
for drawing selections that have a straight edge. It also allows you to
create the selection shape you desire, allowing for more control with
your selections.
Magic Wand Tool (W)
The Magic Wand Tool selects parts of your painting with a similar range of colors. Great for quick selections and adjustments.
Pen Tool (P)
You can also use the Pen Tool to create fast and easy selections similarly to the Lasso Tools. Just use the Pen Tool (P) to create the selection shape you desire, then Right-click to Make a Selection.
Using Selection Tools for Digital Painting
Draw a portrait on paper with a pencil. Now redraw that same portrait with much bigger eyes.
... I can just feel the frustration brewing in your blood.
Painting in Photoshop allows you to make simple edits that aren't even imaginable with traditional art. By taking advantage of the right tools, you can save endless amounts of time and energy attempting perfection.
Here are some great ways you can incorporate Selection Tools into your digital painting workflow:
Select and Flip Details for Better Symmetry
Drawing
a perfectly symmetrical face is hard. Make this process much easier by
creating duplicates of the details you've already drawn.
For instance, to create perfectly symmetrical eyes, simply make a
selection with the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M), and then Copy and Paste the already drawn eye onto a new layer. Go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal and now you've got a perfectly drawn right eye to match the left.
Scale, Rotate, or Warp Details
In collaboration with the Free Transform Tool (Control-T) you can scale, rotate, and even warp certain details faster than ever before.
Change Colors Quickly
Use the Polygonal Lasso Tool plus a quick adjustment layer like Hue/Saturation in order to quickly change colors to improve your overall color scheme.
Selection Tool Exercise: Paint an Easy 3D Circle
Quickly develop light and shadow by taking advantage of painting within the selection border. Try out this quick exercise for yourself and learn this super efficient technique!
Step 1
Open a 600 x 400 pixel document in Adobe Photoshop. Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool (M) and create a perfect circle by holding down the Shift key.
Step 2
Select the Brush Tool (B). Adjust the Opacity to 30% and the Hardness to 50%. Use a large Standard Round Brush to paint a solid medium gray for the circle's color.
Step 3
With the circle still selected, hover the brush
along the outside of the selection border and add more gray to gradually build shadow. Use the Eraser Tool (E) to erase away excess buildupuntil you've developed a nice 3D effectfor your circle.
Step 4
Now use a dark gray color to add a touch more shadow to the lower left side of the circle. Then grab the color white to add a nice bright spot to complete this simple 3D effect.
And that's it! Developing your overall lighting scheme just became a whole lot easier with this quick and easy selection technique!
Conclusion
Photoshop is packed with many tools that can make digital painting a breeze. Save yourself years of headache by simply utilizing what's in front of you. Learn how to paint more efficiently and you will see a dramatic transformation in all your digital art. Stay tuned for more Digital Painting 101 lessons where we'll continue to show you essential tips and tricks for painting confidently in Adobe Photoshop. Good luck!
We’re running a brand new creative contest for our entire
community across Envato Market, Tuts+ and Envato Studio, and we'd love to see
what you come up with!
Create and Win With Envato Remix!
We want you to create a brand new piece of digital artwork from
an asset we provide you, and we’ve got some awesome prizes to give away! Below is a preview of the vector file you can modify in any way you wish!
See our official Envato
Remix contest page for full details, to post your entry, and to keep
track of all entries as they come in!
How Do I Enter?
Use your best creative skills to
create a unique piece of digital artwork.
You may create/submit 1 entry only.
Your entry must be a minimum of1200 px wide or tall and in JPG format.
Before you enter, you mustcomplete
our registration form. This form will ask for your name, your Envato
Market username, and a valid PayPal email address. The email address must be
the same one that you use to access your PayPal account.
Entries must be submitted no later
than midnight (CST/US) on Sunday, April 12, 2015.
See full terms and conditions
below.
What Can I Win?
We have some amazing prizes up for grabs! A big thank you
to our generous prize sponsors of this event: PayPal have very graciously donated US$250(deposited into your PayPal account) and we’ve also got Envato
Market credit, some awesome Tuts+ subscriptions, and super useful Envato Studio
credits and discounts to give away!
Grand Prize
US$250 PayPal Prize (deposited
into the winner’s PayPal account)
One-year subscription to Tuts+
$150 Envato Studio voucher
A “Won a Contest“ badge on Envato Market
Runner-up
US$100 Envato Market credit
Three-month subscription to Tuts+
$50 Envato Studio voucher
Third Place
US$50 Envato Market credit
Three-month subscription to Tuts+
20% discount Envato Studio voucher
Judging
Envato staff will select and announce all winners on Friday,
April 17, 2015 via the Envato Market blog. Judges will be looking for a
combination of creativity, originality, and technical execution.
Skateboarding is
one of those rare rebellious things that ended up changing the lives of thousands if not millions of kids around the world. It's
something that continues to fascinate me, and that is why I decided to create
this in-depth tutorial on how to design your own skateboard piece using Adobe
Illustrator.
The process will rely on the use of basic shapes
(rectangles, rounded rectangles and circles), and some help here and there from
the Pathfinder panel.
1. Setting Up Our
Document
Assuming you
already have Illustrator up and running, create a New Document (File > New) and adjust the settings as follows:
Number of Artboards: 1
Width:
1000 px
Height:
800 px
Units:
Pixels
And from the Advanced tab:
Color Mode:
RGB
Raster Effects:
High (300ppi)
Align New Objects to
Pixel Grid: checked
2. Layering Our
Artboard
Once you’ve
created a fresh document, go to the Layerspanel and make sure to create seven layers and name them as follows:
background
skateboard
trucks
wheels
wrench
plates
bearings
3. Setting Up a
Custom Grid
If you are
familiar with the way Illustrator works, you should know that it gives you the
option to snap your design to its Pixel
Grid. That means that each anchor point will be positioned at the middle
intersection of four pixels.
Because there
are different situations that require different grid settings, sometimes you
might find yourself in the position to adjust the ones running on your version
of Adobe Illustrator.
I personally
have gone for the lowest and at the same time the most accurate settings, because I
feel I have more control over my designs.
To change these settings, you must go to Edit > Preferences > Guides &
Grid. From there, a little popup will appear, where we need to adjust the
following:
Gridline every:
1 px
Subdivisions:
1
Once you’ve
adjusted these settings, all you need to do in order to make everything pixel
crisp is enable the Snap to Grid option
located under the View menu.
Quick tip:You should know that the Snap to Grid option
will transform into Snap to Pixel
every time you enter Pixel Preview Mode,
but don’t worry—that’s totally fine. Most of the time you will be going
back and forward with this display mode.
4. Creating the
Skateboard
Step 1
Position yourself on the skateboard layer, making
sure to lock all the other ones. Using the Rounded Rectangle Tool, create a 132 x 520 px shape with a Corner
Radius of 66 px. Color the board
using #F47D7D and then position it by inputting the following coordinates into
the Transform panel.
X:
450 px
Y: 400 px
Step 2
Once we have our board in place, we need to
create its outline. To do so, we will first create a duplicate by copying (Control-C) and then pasting(Control-F)
our original shape. Change the duplicate’s color to #44423E and then, while having it selected, go to Effect >
Path > Offset Path.
Step 3
Adjust the Offset
as follows:
Offset:
8 px
Joins:
Miter (default)
Miter limit:
4 (default)
Quick tip: once you have created the offset, you can
either expand it (Object >Expand) or leave it as it is so that
you can adjust the thickness later on with the help of the Appearance panel.
Also, once you’ve created the outline shape, for
both the deck and future objects, make sure to send it to the back of the main
shape using the Send to Back option.
Step 4
Once we have our deck and its outline, we need
to create the holes to which you would normally attach the trucks. To do so, create a 4 x 4 px circle, and
position it as follows:
X:
438 px
Y:
246 px
Step 5
With the first hole positioned, create a
duplicate by dragging to the right side while holding down Alt, and position it at a distance of about 20 px from the original shape, making sure to group the two (Control-G).
Step 6
As soon as you’ve created the first two holes,
create a duplicate row by using the same dragging trick, but this time towards
the bottom. Then select both the first row and the newly created one, and
distance the duplicate group at about 40
px.
Step 7
Because any normal skate deck has a total of
eight holes, we need to add the bottom ones to ours. First create a copy of the
ones we have right now (Control-C >
Control-F) and then position the duplicates with the help of the Transform panel:
X:
450 px
Y:
532 px
Step 8
As you might
have guessed, once we have all our holes in place we need to actually cut them
out of both the deck and the outline. To do so, we first have to select the
circles and make sure they aren’t grouped together (right-click > Ungroup), otherwise Pathfinder won’t be able to extract
them from the shapes.
Once you’ve made sure that the elements are not
in a group, create a copy (Control-C), which we will need in a couple of seconds), and then select both them and the
skate deck and use Pathfinder’s Minus Front function.
Step 9
Paste the previously copied circles (Control-F) and this time select them
and the outline and repeat the same process as before with Minus Front. Once the holes are extracted, your outline shape will
be positioned on top of the deck, so you will need to send it to the back one
more time (right-click > Send
to Back).
Step 10
Remember I told
you to keep a copy of the little holes a few steps ago? Well, I hope you did, because we need to create the outlines for the deck’s cutouts.
Simply paste the circles (Control-F) on top of the deck, change their color to #44423E and
then flip the stroke with the fill (Shift-X). Change the thickness to 4 px and
make sure to Align the Stroke to Outside.
You should now have something like this.
Step 11
Once we have our
basic skateboard deck, it’s time to add some highlights and shadows to make it
more interesting.
Before we begin creating the highlights, we first
have to create a duplicate of the pinkish deck. Once we have our copies, use the
Ellipse Tool (L) to create a 148 x 30 px shape, which we will vertically
center to the board, and then move it towards the bottom by about 64 px.
Step 12
With both the ellipse and the pink deck
selected, use Pathfinder’s Minus Front option.
Step 13
Once you have extracted the ellipse, you will
have two sections of the deck grouped together. As we only need the top part,
ungroup them (right-click > Ungroup)
and delete the bottom one. Change the color of the remaining object to white (#FFFFFF)
and set its Blending Mode to Soft Light, lowering the Opacity to 20%.
Step 14
To create the top section's smaller highlight, we
will first have to create two copies of the deck, and then move the upper one 4 px towards the bottom. Once we have them
both selected, go to the Pathfinder panel
and use Minus Front.
Quick tip: when you use Minus Front on objects that have sections cut out of them, in our
case the deck, you will manage to get your desired shape, but you will also get
a bunch of remaining sections. To correct this, simply ungroup them (right-click > Ungroup) and then
deselect the one you need, in our case the top curved section, deleting the
rest.
Step 15
Change the color of our newly created highlight
to white (#FFFFFF) and its Blending Modeto Overlay, adjusting its Opacity to a value of 20%.
Step 16
Create the bottom section shadows by duplicating
the highlights that we already have, horizontally reflecting them (right-click> Transform >Reflect). Position the duplicates by
selecting them and the deck, and then using the Vertical Align to Bottom option found in the Align panel.
Step 17
Color both sections black (#000000) and then change the Blending
Mode of the bigger section to Multiply
and also lower its Opacity to 6%. For the smaller section, set the Blending Mode to Multiply but keep a higher value (20%) for the Opacity.
Once you have created all the elements of the skateboard deck, group them
together (Control-G) so that things
won’t get lost if you move them by mistake.
Step 18
To create the grip tape, simply copy the pink
shape, move it to the left at about 38
px and then change its color to #44423E.
Step 19
Add a nice little texture onto the grip, by
duplicating (Control-C > Control-F) the object and then going toEffect > Texture > Grain and adjusting
the settings in the popup as follows:
Intensity:
74
Contrast:
50
Grain Type: Sprinkles
Quick tip: I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but when
you create textures onto shapes that are aligned to the pixel grid, the texture
itself will often go outside of the surface of the object
underneath it. To fix this, simply paste a copy of the shape onto the texture
and with both selected, right-click >Make Clipping Mask. If the option doesn’t appear, then you should
go to Object > Clipping Mask >
Make.
5. Creating the
Trucks
Step 1
Once you’ve
finished building the skate deck and the grip, it’s time to move on to the
trucks layer and create the little parts.
Grab the Rounded
Rectangle Tool and create a 36 x 56
px shape with a Corner Radius of4 px, color it using #BEBFCC and
then position it at about 80 px from
our previously created skateboard.
Step 2
Create an outline by duplicating the shape and
using the Offset Path effect,
remembering to send the offset to the back.
Offset:
6 px
Joins:
Miter (default)
Miter limit:
4 (default)
Step 3
Add a highlight by duplicating the main shape
twice, and moving the upper one 4 pxtowards the bottom. Select both of the copies and then use Minus Front from the Pathfinder panel, making sure to change
the resulting shape’s color to #BDCCD4.
Step 4
Copy and horizontally reflect the shape we just
created, moving it towards the bottom section of the larger object. Change its
color to black (#000000) and then set its Blending
Mode to Multiply,lowering the Opacity to 20%.
Step 5
Now it’s time to add the bolts that hold the
truck to the deck. First create a 4 x 4
px circle and position it at about 4
px from the top and left side of the truck’s main shape. To be more
accurate, enter Pixel Preview modeby pressing Alt-Control-Y (View > Pixel
Preview).
Step 6
Create three more bolts and position them towards
the remaining sides of the truck, keeping the same 4 px gap as before.
Step 7
Once we have the baseplate, we need to work on
the hanger. Using the Rounded Rectangle
Tool, create an 88 x 12 px shape
with a Corner Radius of 2 px, and change its color to a lighter#DDDEED. Position the object at 20 px from
the plate’s top section.
Step 8
Give the hanger an outline of 6 px using the Offset Path effect (Effect> Path > Offset Path).
Step 9
Add a subtle highlight by duplicating the
hanger’s main shape, twice, and moving the upper copy downwards by 4 px. Select them both and use Minus Front. Once the new shape is obtained,
change its color to white (#FFFFFF), Blending Mode to Overlay, and its Opacity to 40%.
Step 10
Add a bottom shadow by copying and horizontally
reflecting the highlight, changing its color to black (#000000), Blending
Mode to Multiply,and its Opacity level to 20%, making sure to align it to the bottom of the hanger.
Step 11
Add a bottom section to the hanger’s outline by
creating a 32 x 32 px circle (#44423E)
and aligning it to the top section of the outline.
Step 12
Next we need to create the darker area for where
the bushing goes. Grab the Ellipse Tool
(L) and draw a 20 x 20 px shape,
color it using #AFB0BD, and then position it by vertically aligning it to the
top section of the hanger’s main shape, not its outline.
Step 13
Once you’ve
finished step 12, it’s time to add the kingpin (a larger bolt) that holds the
hanger to the baseplate.
Grab the Polygon
Tool and create an object that has 6
sides and a total radius of 5.6569
px (don’t worry, we’ll fix this in a couple of seconds). Position it exactly
at the center of our previously created shape, and then change its Width to 12 px. That should fix any misalignment problems, making it snap to
the Pixel Grid.
Step 14
Next we will add the lateral axles that go on
each side of the hanger. Select the Rounded
Rectangle Tool and create a 120 x 8
px shape, with a Corner Radius of2 px, color it using the same #44423E
as we used for most of our outlines, and make sure to position it under the
hanger itself, centering it both vertically and horizontally.
Step 15
Once we’ve created our axles, it’s time to add a
nut to each side. First let’s create the base shape by drawing an 8 x 12 px rounded rectangle with a Corner Radius of 2 px. Color it using #DDDEED and then position it at a distance of 4 px from the left axle.
Step 16
Add a top highlight and bottom shadow using the
same quick process and colors as we did in steps 9 and 10, finishing the piece
with a 6 px outline. Group the nut (Control-G)and then create a duplicate and position it on the right side of
the hanger at 8 px from its outline.
Step 17
Finish up the truck by adding a subtle shadow
right under the hanger and its round middle section. We can quickly accomplish
this by using the Direct Selection Tool
(A). First we need to enter Isolation Mode for the truck's baseplate (right click on the group and select Enter Isolation Mode,or simply double click on the group). Then we use the Direct Selection Tool to create a set of duplicates by selecting the hanger’s outline and
round section, copying (Control-C)
and then pasting them (Control-F).
Step 18
After you’ve pasted the two, group them (Control-G) and then move them down by 4 px. Change their Blending Mode to Multiply and
lower their Opacity to 20%. As we want the shadow to appear
only on top of the truck's baseplate, we need to create a Clipping Mask using the plate’s main shape as a mask.
Step 19
Once you have the first truck completely
finished, group all of its elements (Control-G)
and then create a duplicate which we will position at a distance of 36 px from the original.
6. Creating the Wheels
Step 1
Moving up to the wheels layer, grab the Ellipse Tool (L) and create a 14 x 14 px circle. Flip its fill with
its stroke (Shift-X), making sure toAlign the Stroke to Outline and then
adjust them as follows:
Bottom Circle (the Outline)
Stroke
Weight: 20 px
Color:#44423E
Middle Circle (Our Wheel’s Base Shape)
Stroke Weight: 14 px
Color:#A5807C
Top Circle (the Inner Outline)
Stroke Weight: 4 px
Color:#44423E
Once you have all three circles created, expand
them (Object > Expand), and then group
them together (Control-G).
Step 2
Finish up the wheel by creating a 42 x 42 px circle, and flip its fill with
its stroke (Shift-X), making sure to Align the Stroke to Inside. Give it a 4 px Stroke Weight and expand it.
Cut
the ring in half, and change the top section’s color to white (#FFFFFF), its Blending Mode to Soft Light, and its Opacity to 40%. Create a duplicate, flipping it horizontally (right-click> Transform > Reflect > Horizontal)
and then align it to the bottom of the wheel, changing its color to black (#000000), its Blending Mode to Multiply and
its Opacity to 20%.
Step 3
Create three additional wheels by copying the
original we just created and positioning the copies at a distance of 48 px, displaying them in a square
formation.
7. Creating the Wrench
Step 1
The wrench is
basically a cross that has multiple segments duplicated and then rotated at a 90° angle.
First let’s draw some of the
basic shapes. Grab the Rectangle Tool (M) and create a 4 x 144 px shape, color it using #DDDEED, and position it right in the middle of the square like the formation of the wheels.
Step 2
Add a 14 x 26 px rectangle
with a Corner Radius of 8 px. With the help of the Direct
Selection Tool (A) delete its top anchor point, and unite the remaining ones (Control-J),
aligning the newly created shape to the top section of rectangle we created a
few moments ago.
Step 3
Add a 14 x 4 px subtle white highlight (Blending Mode set on Overlay with a 40% Opacity level),
a bottom shadow (Blending Mode set on Multiply with a 20%
Opacity level) and a 4 x 4 px circle (#44423E) which you will center
to the top section of the wrench.
For the bottom section simply group the top ones we already have, flip them horizontally, and then position them to the bottom, inverting the Blending Mode and Opacity levels of the highlight
and shadow.
Step 4
Group the entire
vertical section of the wrench that we have so far, and rotate it at a 90° angle (right-click> Transform > Rotate).
Get rid of all shadows and highlights, leaving only the little darker circles. Create a set of two highlights, keeping
the same settings as before.
Step 5
Next, build the middle round section of the
wrench by creating a base shape of 24 x
24 px (#DDDEED), on top of which we will add a darker 16 x 16 px shape (#44423E). Then add another smaller and lighter 12 x 12 px circle (#BEBFCC), on top of
which we will create a double colored ring similar to the one from step 2 of
the Creating the Wheels section, adjusting it to the following values:
Width:
12 px
Height:
12 px
Stroke Weight:
2 px
Color:
black (#000000)
Blending Mode:
Multiply
Opacity: 20%
Once you have the top section of the ring,
reflect it horizontally and change its color to white (#FFFFFF) making sure to
set the Blending Mode to Overlay and the Opacity to 50%.
Step 6
Group all the elements (Control-G) and position them at the intersection of the two arms of
the wrench.
Step 7
All we need to do now in order to finish the
wrench is create its outline. To do so, we will have to select the wrench’s
arms, the heads, and the round center, group them, and apply an Offset Path of 4 px to the whole group. This is better than uniting them and adding the
effect afterwards, which would make some parts fall off the Pixel Grid.
8. Creating the
Plates
Step 1
Assuming you’re already on the plates layer,
grab the Rounded Rectangle Tool and
create a 48 x 68 px shape with a Corner Radius of 10 px, color it using #44423E and then top align it at about 30 px from the first truck we created a
while ago.
Step 2
Add a highlight and a shadow by repeating the
same trick of creating two copies, moving one downwards by 4 px and then extracting the top one from the one underneath.
Once
you have the top section created, create another one from it by dragging down
while holding Alt, making sure to
reflect the piece horizontally. Change the settings of the top and bottom sections as follows:
Top Section (the Highlight)
Color:#FFFFFF
Blending Mode: Overlay
Opacity: 40%
Bottom Section (the Shadow)
Color:#000000
Blending Mode: Multiply
Opacity: 20%
Step 3
Once we have our
highlight and shadow, we need to create the four little cutouts as we did with
the skate deck. First create a 4 x 4 px circle,
position it at a distance of 10 px both
to the top and left side of the plate, and then create another three copies, maintaining the specified distance towards the outside margins.
Once you have all four circles positioned,
select them and the plate, and use Pathfinder’s
Minus Front option to cut them out.
Step 4
Once the cutouts are made, your shape should
have covered your previously created highlight and shadow. To correct this, select the object, and right-click >
Arrange > Send to Back. With everything stacked correctly, select all
the elements of the plate and group them together (Control-G).
Step 5
The last step we need to take now is to create a
copy of our first plate, and then position it at a distance of 36 px towards the bottom.
9. Creating the Bearings
The last and final piece of our skateboarder pack is a set of eight little
bearings. As you might have guessed, we will create one and then multiply it
until we get the rest of the bunch.
Step 1
Grab the Ellipse
Tool (L) and create a 4 x 4 px circle,
color it using #44423E, and then position it using the following coordinates:
X:
735 px
Y: 443 px
Step 2
Flip the
circle’s fill with its stroke, aligning the stroke to the outside, giving it a Weight of 11 px. Create another duplicate circle, and change its color to #BEBFCC
and its Weight to 5 px.
Create a ring
circle of 14 x 14 px, flip its fill
to stroke (Shift-X), and give it a Stroke Weight of 1 px. Remove the bottom half, and color the remaining section black
(#000000) setting the Blending Mode toMultiply and its Opacity to 20%. Duplicate it and flip it horizontally, changing its color to
white (#FFFFFF), its Blending Mode toOverlay and its Opacity to 40%.
Last but not least, create another 4 x 4 px circle, flip its fill with its
stroke (Shift-X) and give it a Stroke Weight of 2 px, making sure to Align
the Stroke to Outside.
Step 3
Once you have the first bearing complete, group
all of its elements (Control-G) and
then create a copy to its left, at about 12
px. Group the two to create a row, and then create three more rows towards
the bottom, distanced at 10 px from
one another.
Quick tip: you could accomplish the same result by
entering Pixel Preview mode and
manually dragging the first row downwards 10
px while holding Alt and then
pressing Control-D twice more to
replicate the action and get the rest of the rows.
10. Adding the Background
The last and final piece of our illustration
will be the background. To add it, simply create a rectangle that has exactly the same dimensions as our Artboard (1000 x 800 px), color it using a dark
grey (#EFEFEF), and then center it both vertically and horizontally using the Align panel.
Skate On!
Grab your skateboard 'cause we got ourselves one
nice looking pack, and most importantly learned some neat tricks along the way.
Less is more when it comes to designing layouts! We take a look at how incorporating more white space into your InDesign layouts can make a huge difference to your work, taking your designs from crowded and fussy to streamlined and polished in an instant.
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a simple two-sided flyer in Adobe InDesign, create a simple grid for feeding in text and images, and be sparing with placing your elements to create a contemporary, calming design.
What Is ‘White Space’ and Why Should I Use It?
White space is the term given to the empty space on a layout. It doesn’t even have to be white, and it can also include negative space, which is the space between two elements on the page. What’s significant about white space is that it is free of elements—no text or images fill the space—and, as a result, it is calming and pleasing to the eye, and can help create a balanced composition.
It can be tempting to fill your InDesign pages to the brim with text, images, shapes and color. Particularly if you or your client have neglected to edit down the content for a flyer, brochure or poster, for example, you can end up with a layout that doesn’t look all that appealing.
If this is the case, it’s likely the main problem is the lack of white space on the layout. This can include a lack of standard white space, like margins or column gutters, which you may not have made generous enough. It can also include the lack of strategically applied white space on the main body of the layout.
Let’s look at an example. A fictional orange farm, Oli Farms, wants to produce a two-sided, single-page flyer aimed at potential local distributors. The first side should display a logo and address, and the reverse side should display more information about the farm and its products.
Take a look at these two different layouts for the reverse side of the flyer. The first layout has very little white space: the margins and gutters are narrow, and almost every part of the page is filled with text, images or colored elements.
You may not think it looks that awful, but then take a look at this revised layout. This layout makes good use of white space, broadening the margins and column gutters, and strategically placing smaller sections of text at different vertical positions on the page.
This layout may contain less information, but it’s more likely you will find the relevant information more quickly and easily, in contrast to the previous layout design. As this is a promotional flyer, designed to grab the attention of a prospective distributor, it’s more important for the design to present only the essential information and give the reader a good impression of the business’s brand.
Put side by side, it’s also clear that the right-hand layout is easier for the eye to process. The increased white space allows the Oli Farms address at the top right to breathe, and makes the separate sections of text, each under their own color-coded heading, appear more equal and ordered. The images of the sliced orange and orange leaves also become more prominent and artistic.
Let’s now walk through the steps of creating the flyer in InDesign, giving emphasis to the white space on the layout.
1. Prepare a Grid for the Flyer
Creating a three-column grid gives you plenty of flexibility to play around with the placement of text and images on your layout.
Step 1
Open InDesign and go to File > New > Document.
In the New Document window set the Intent to Print, up the Number of Pages to 2 and Uncheck Facing Pages.
Under Page Size, select Custom... from the drop-down menu to open the Custom Page Size window.
Step 2
Type Flyer 8.5x11 into the Name text box. Type 8.5 in into the Width text box and 11 in into the Height text box. If your Preferences are set to millimetres, InDesign will convert this to 215.9 mm by 279.4 mm.
Click Add and then OK to return to the New Document window.
Step 3
Under Columns, set the Number of Columns to 3 and increase the Gutter width to 9 mm.
Set the Margins on all sides to 15 mm, and give the flyer a 3 mmWidth Bleed all the way around.
Click OK to create your new document.
Step 4
Navigate down to Page 2 of the document. This will be the reverse of the flyer.
Ensure the rulers are visible (Window > Show Rulers), then from the top ruler click and drag down a horizontal guide to Y position 26 mm. Drag a second down to 79 mm, and finally drag a third guide down to 163 mm.
These will mark out the positions for the text column headers on the reverse of the flyer.
2. Lift Color From Your Selection of Images
Now that you have prepared your grid, you can start to think about creating a color palette for the design. We want the flyer to look fun and optimistic, so let’s lift a sunny palette of colors from these images of an orange, orange half and orange leaves.
Step 1
Download the three images from the PhotoDune links listed above, and then return to InDesign.
Navigate down to Page 2 of the document, the reverse side of the flyer.
Select the Rectangle Frame Tool (F) and create a new square-ish image frame, about 90 mm in width and height. Go to File > Place and select the photo of the half orange. Select Open and arrange the image proportionally in the frame.
Position on the left-hand side of the page, as shown.
Select the Rectangle Frame Tool (F) again and this time drag to create a more rectangular frame with a slightly longer width. File > Place and select the image of the three orange leaves, and click Open. Position at the bottom right of the page, allowing the bottom of the leaves to cross the edge of the page.
Step 2
Select the Eyedropper Tool (I) from the Tools panel and hover over the image of the half orange. Click once on the segments of the fruit to lift an orange pigment from the image.
Open the Swatches panel (Window > Color > Swatches) and select New Color Swatch... from the Swatches panel’s drop-down menu (accessible from the top right corner of the panel).
The RGB swatch picked up by the Eyedropper Tool has automatically appeared. Adjust the Mode to CMYK, click Add to ad it to the Swatches panel, and then click OK.
Take the Eyedropper Tool (I) again and hover over a yellower part of the orange photo to pick up a paler, more golden color. Repeat the process above again, selecting New Color Swatch... from the Swatches panel’s drop-down menu.
When you’ve added this second swatch, return to your document and pick up a third color from the image of the orange leaves, a green tint. Add to the Swatches panel using the same method.
You now have three new CMYK swatches in your Swatches panel: an orange, a yellow/gold, and a green.
3. Choosing Typefaces & Creating Custom Elements
For this flyer layout, we’re predominantly going to be using a classic serif font, Goudy Old Style Std.
But we can also use a more playful font to add some more decorative, paint-like elements to our flyer design.
Step 1
Download the free font, Brushstroke Plain, install it, and then return to InDesign.
Still remaining on Page 2 of your document, select the Type Tool (T) and create a new text frame. Place your type cursor into the frame, and set the Font to Brushstroke Plain.
Open the Glyphs panel (Window > Type & Tables > Glyphs) to view the full set of characters available to you in the Brushstroke Plain font.
Select the ‘I’ glyph and double-click the icon in the panel to insert it into your text frame. Up the text size to a large size, like 200 pt.
Step 2
With the text frame selected, go to Type > Create Outlines to transform the ‘I’ into an editable shape. Rotate the shape so it lies horizontal (Control-Click [Mac OS] or Right-Click [PC] > Transform > Rotate 90 Degrees CW) and reduce the width and increase the height of the shape so it appears more squat.
Adjust the Fill Color of the shape to your newly created orange shade. With the shape selected, go to Object > Effects > Transparency and reduce the Opacity to 80%. Click OK.
Place the shape in the first, left-hand column of the page (on Page 2), resting the top of the shape against the lower guide.
Step 3
Select the shape and Edit > Copy, Edit > Paste, moving the second shape so it sits over the top of the first with a bit of overlap. Don’t worry about making it look too perfect; you want the shape to look a bit haphazard.
Select both shapes together, and Edit > Copy and Edit > Paste twice. Set one of the pairs in your yellow swatch and position in the second column, resting the top edge against the second guide down the page.
Set the third pair of shapes in the green swatch and position towards the top of the third column, resting against the top guide.
Step 4
We’ve laid the foundations for the reverse of the flyer. Now, let’s move the focus to the front of the flyer. Let’s look at how to create this simple logo design, which will balance with the white space on the front layout to create a balanced, beautiful look.
Navigate up to Page 1 of your document. Select the Type Tool (T) and drag to create a square text frame about 100 mm in diameter. Type a capital ‘O’ and set the Font to Brushstroke Plain, Size 150 pt and the Font Color to your orange CMYK swatch.
Position centrally on Page 1. Convert the letter to a shape (Type > Create Outlines) and stretch the shape so it’s a little wider and squatter.
Take the Rectangle Frame Tool (T) and drag to create a small image frame positioned just at the top of the‘O’ shape. File > Place, and select the image of the orange you downloaded earlier. Click Open.
Enlarge the image in the frame, so just the stem of the orange appears in the image frame. Position as shown below.
4. Build Up Text Sparingly!
Now we can start to introduce text onto our flyer. But let’s keep in mind that the text needs to be sparing, so no more than 200 words can be used overall on this flyer. When you’re creating your own promotional layouts, try to restrict yourself to including mainly essential information and keeping your sentences short and sweet.
Step 1
Open the Layers panel (Window > Layers). Double-click on the default Layer 1 name and rename the layer Color and Images. Click OK and then Lock the layer.
Click the Create New Layer square icon at the bottom right of the Layers panel to create a new, second layer. Rename the layer as ‘Typography’ and click the layer’s name in the panel to activate it.
Step 2
Remaining on Page 1 of your document, navigate up to the top left corner of the page. Select the Type Tool (T) and drag to create a small text frame one column in width. Position at the top of the first column, resting it snugly between the top and left margins.
Type the following into the text frame (adapting the address to your preferred address, if you like):
‘Oli Farms
Route 1
California
USA’
Set the Font of all the text to Goudy Old Style Std Regular, All Caps, Size to 13 pt,Leading to 18 pt and Tracking to 100.
Now highlight just the name of the business, ‘Oli Farms’, and make the Font a little larger, 19 pt, and pull out ‘Oli’ in Bold. Adjust the Leading of the line below to 30 pt to create some distance between the company name and the address.
Now select the Line Tool (\) from the Tools panel and, holding Shift, drag from left to right to create a straight line about 60 mm in Length. Set the Stroke Color to the yellow CMYK swatch, and the Stroke Weight to 0.35 mm. Position the line to sit between the business name and the address, resting the left edge on the left-hand margin.
Step 3
Create a second, wider text frame using the Type Tool (T), and position it below the central ‘O’ logo. Type ‘Oli Farms’ and set the Font to Goudy Old Style Std Regular, All Caps, Size to 40 pt and increase the Tracking to 100.
Highlight ‘Oli’, as before, and set in Bold.
Select the Line Tool (\) again and create a horizontal line 60 mm in Length. Set the Stroke Color to your orange CMYK swatch and the Stroke Weight to 0.5 mm.
That’s the front of the flyer completed—great work! Don’t be tempted to add anything more to the layout. Just let that lovely expanse of white space do the talking...
Step 4
Let’s move down to Page 2 of your document, to finish working on the reverse of the flyer.
Select the Type Tool (T) and create a short text frame the width of one column. Type a four-letter heading into the text frame, such as ‘ZEST’, and set the Font to Goudy Old Style Std Regular, Size 50 pt, Align Center and Font Color to [Paper].
Place the text frame over the top of the orange paint-like shapes in the first, left-hand column, as shown below.
Select the text frame and Edit > Copy, Edit > Paste twice, editing each text frame to read a different short word. Here I’ve used ‘LOVE’ and ‘TASTE’. Position each over the top of the yellow and green paint-like shapes in the second and third columns on the page.
Step 5
Create a new text frame using the Type Tool (T) the width of a column and about 65 mm in Height. Position in the first, left-hand column, just below the ‘ZEST’ heading.
Here you can start to enter a couple of paragraphs of text (be strict—restrict yourself to just a couple of paragraphs only!), setting the Font to Goudy Old Style Std Regular, Size to 11 pt, and Leading to 15 pt.
Highlight the first paragraph only and set the text to Bold, and pull out the first letter in a Drop Cap (edit this from the Character Formatting Controls panel running along the top of the screen) and a matching orange swatch.
Increase the First Line Left Indent of the second paragraph to 2.
Step 6
Select the text frame you created in the previous step, and Edit > Copy, Edit > Paste. Position in the second column, under the second heading, ‘LOVE’.
Adjust the content of the text, and adjust the color of the Drop Cap to yellow.
Edit > Copy and Edit > Paste this text frame to create a third column of text, and position in the third, right-hand column, below the final heading, ‘TASTE’. Adjust the text content and the Drop Cap’s color to green.
If you’re adding contact information on this part of the flyer, place it in the third column of text, and set the text in green and in Bold Italic.
Great work! You’ve finished the reverse layout of your flyer, and it looks fabulous. Both sides of your flyer are ready for proofing and exporting to PDF, ready for printing.
By sticking to a simple grid and restricting the quantity of text and other elements on the layout, you’ve created a design that looks clean, polished and professional. Read on for a summary of how to apply white space to your InDesign layouts.
Tips for Applying White Space to Your Layouts
As we’ve seen during the course of this tutorial, white space can really improve the legibility and overall aesthetic quality of your layout designs. Keep these tips in mind for creating your own minimal layouts in InDesign:
Plan a simple grid for your layout and split the layout into defined sections. This will allow you to more clearly assign areas for placing text and images, and define areas for promoting white space.
Less is always more. Edit your text down and keep your images down to a select few.
Create balance in your layout to keep it easy on the eye. Balance out busy areas of the layout by positioning them opposite clearer or completely empty areas.
Be playful with white space. Experiment with colored backgrounds, or with playful negative space to create optical illusions. White space doesn’t have to be boring—find ways of bringing it to life!
Hand and foot prints are a fun way to add a human element to a digital design. They are instantly recognizable, yet every one is completely unique. Hand prints are iconic and often symbolize intimate control. Foot prints tend to be seen as representing guidance or travel. Having a set of brushes for these can open up new opportunities for your design work.
Capturing these prints isn't difficult, and can be a lot of fun, although somewhat messy! In this Quick Tip I will share my technique for creating and capturing fun and usable prints.
1. Create the Practical Hand Prints
While it may seem fairly straightforward, obtaining a good quality hand print with no smudges can be more challenging than expected. Not every medium or surface holds a print well enough to translate into a digital resource. But once the correct combination is found, the process is simple and rewarding.
Step 1
The materials recommended for this project are easily found in any arts and craft store:
water soluble ink of any color
linoleum block
ink roller
heavy duty paper or cardstock
I found the lino block, ink, and roller all together in a Block Printing Kit at my local arts and crafts store.
The most important resource: hands and feet! It is possible to use your own for this project, but it is much easier to use an assistant. I found that a pair of eight-year-old daughters are more than happy to help!
Step 2
Squeeze some of the ink out onto the linoleum block
Use the roller to spread the ink around the block. The intent is to cover the roller with ink, not the block.
Step 3
Carefully "paint" the hand using the roller. Work to get good coverage inside the cracks of the fingers and slightly around the edges of the palm.
Step 4
Firmly press the hand onto the heavy paper. Check to make sure that the tip of each finger is making good contact with the paper surface.
Step 5
When the hand is lifted up, the paper will stick to it. Carefully peel the paper from the hand to see the result.
To create a fuller print, before peeling the paper off, press on the opposite side of the paper to make sure it contacts the hollow areas of the hand, like the palm and where the fingers connect.
Repeat the process, gathering several shots of various pressures and finger positioning.
2. Create the Practical Foot Prints
The foot prints are captured in much the same way. But there's the additional challenge of finding some way of getting to the sink to wash the ink off without staining your floors! I will admit that using the foot of a lightweight eight-year old girl made this a rather simple task.
Step 1
Ink the foot in the same way as the hand. Try not to tickle the helpful assistant—they don't appreciate it!
Step 2
Step onto the paper—try to avoid wiggling the foot, as it will smudge the ink.
Step 3
Peel the paper off the foot and evaluate the print. Our feet don't have nearly as much fine muscle control as our hands do, so it might take a few tries to some good surface contact with the paper.
3. Get Creative
Once you've got some experience working with the ink, roller, and paper, look around for other items that might generate an interesting print.
Step 1
I thought a shoe print might be a good alternative to the bare footprint. But I didn't want to ruin the sole of a good shoe with ink, so I chose some footwear that is easy to wash: a snow boot!
Step 2
Use the same process for inking the bottom of the boot and printing it onto the paper.
Step 3
Evaluate the print and repeat as needed.
4. Going Digital
With several prints to work with, it's time to clean up the ink (see why it's important to use water soluble ink?) and spend some quality time with the scanner before transforming these prints into a custom Photoshop Brush.
Step 1
Scan in each print using a high dpi setting. I recommend at least 600 dpi to generate a good high resolution brush. If your scanner has a setting for black and white, use that instead of the color setting.
Step 2
Open the scanned image in Photoshop. Increase the contrast of the image by going to Image > Adjustments > Levels. Pull the outer handles inwards until the print is a crisp black against a stark white.
Step 3
Use a large, soft edged brush with white paint to make certain that the edges are all 100% white.
Step 4
Look closely at the scan and if there are any stray marks, ink drops, splatters, or smears. Paint them out with the same white.
Step 5
Use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to create a selection around the print. Then go to Edit > Define Brush Preset. Give the brush a recognizable name and hit OK. Photoshop now adds this brush to your library.
5. Use My Brushes
While I fully encourage you to follow along and create your own custom hand and foot print brushes, I realize that not everybody has the time or
opportunity to craft their own brushes. So I've provided an
assortment of free custom brushes for you to use!
Step 1
Download the attached file for this tutorial, HandFootBrushes.abr. Then go to Edit > Presets > Preset Manager. In the Brushes section, use the Load button to navigate to the downloaded file.
This will add nine new brushes to your Brush Presets library.
Step 2
Go be amazing! Now use your smashing new brushes to produce some digital
artwork with hand and foot prints that you didn't have before.
Want More?
Can't get enough custom creative
brushes in Photoshop? Check out my previous tutorials on creating custom brushes for Coffee Rings, Smoke Tendrils, Water Drops, and even Water Splashes! Hungry to learn more about how to use custom
brushes in photo manipulation projects? Check out my profile of courses and tutorials here at Tuts+ and find all that, and much more!
Creating
your own library of digital resources pulled from real-world practical
effects is a skill that will pay off exponentially in the future.
Instead of searching stock sites for interesting textures, try creating
some for yourself! I'd love to see them in the comments below.
In our new course, Creature Design in Adobe Photoshop, you'll learn to create a fantasy creature in Photoshop, from sketch/concepts to final production.
What You'll Learn
Tuts+ instructor Tyrus Goshay will show you how to choose sketches, set up your workspace in Photoshop, use layer options, set up actions, and much more.
You will then go into rendering using Adobe Photoshop with light support from additional textures, before discussing using painting techniques and the right brushes to get the final look.
After this course you will walk away with new technical skills to enhance your workflow in Adobe Photoshop, while improving your rendering skills as well.
Watch the Introduction
Start Learning for Just $15
You can take our new course straight away by subscribing to Tuts+. For just $15 a month, you get access to this course and hundreds of others, with new ones added every week.
In the following steps you will learn how to create a daffodil text effect in Adobe Illustrator. For starters you will learn how to set up a simple grid and how to create your own art brush. Using this art brush, the Appearance panel, basic tools, and blending and vector shape building techniques, you will learn how to create the first petal.
Moving on, you will learn how to easily multiply your petal and how to create the middle part of your daffodil, taking full advantage of the Appearance panel. Finally, you will learn how to create the text effect and how to add subtle details.
1. Create a New Document and Set Up a Grid
Hit Control-N to create a new document. Select Pixels from the Units drop-down menu, enter 1000 in the width box and 600 in the height box, and then click on the Advanced button. Select RGB, Screen (72ppi) and make sure that the Align New Objects to Pixel Grid box is unchecked before you click OK.
Enable the Grid (View > Show Grid) and the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). You will need a grid every 1 px, so simply go to Edit > Preferences > Guides > Grid, and enter 1 in the Gridline every box and 1 in the Subdivisions box. Try not to get discouraged by all that grid—it will make your work easier, and keep in mind that you can easily enable or disable it using the Control-" keyboard shortcut.
You should also open the Info panel (Window > Info) for a live preview with the size and position of your shapes. Don't forget to set the unit of measurement to pixels from Edit > Preferences > Units > General. All these options will significantly increase your work speed.
2. Create the First Petal
Step 1
Pick the Ellipse Tool (L) and focus on your Toolbar. Remove the color from the stroke and then select the fill and set its color to R=39 G=170 B=225. Move to your artboard and simply create a 20 x 30 px shape. Switch to the Anchor Point Tool (Shift-C), focus on the top side of your shape and simply click on that anchor point. In the end your blue shape should look like in the second image.
Step 2
Using the Direct Selection Tool (A), select the top anchor point that makes up your blue shape and simply drag it 5 px up. Switch to the Anchor Point Tool (Shift-C), click on that same anchor point and drag those handles 5 px to the right. In the end your blue shape should look like in the third image.
Step 3
Disable the Snap to Grid (Control-').
Make sure that your blue shape is selected and go to Object > Path > Offset Path. Enter a -1 px Offset and click OK. Make sure that the resulting shape is selected and make a copy in front (Control-C > Control-F). Select this copy and move it 1 px down using the down arrow button from your keyboard. Reselect both shapes made in this step, open the Pathfinder panel (Window > Pathfinder), and click the Minus Front button.
Make sure that the resulting shape stays selected, replace the existing fill color with a simple white (R=255 G=255 B=255) and then move it 1 px up using the up arrow button from your keyboard.
Step 4
Make sure that your white shape is still selected, focus on the Appearance panel (Window > Appearance) and click on that "Opacity" piece of text to open the Transparency fly-out panel. Simply change the Blending Mode to Soft Light.
Step 5
Enable the Snap to Grid (Control-').
Using the Ellipse Tool (L), create a 1 x 3 px shape and make it black (R=0 G=0 B=0). Make sure that this tiny new shape stays selected, open the Brushes panel (Window > Brushes) and click the New Brush button. Check the Art Brush box and click the OK button. Pick a name for your brush, enter all the attributes shown in the following image, make sure that you select Tints from that Method drop-down menu, and then click OK. Now you should be able to see your new art brush inside the Brushes panel.
Step 6
Disable the Snap to Grid (Control-').
Pick the Brush Tool (B), select your art brush from the Brushes panel, and then focus on the blue shape. Draw a bunch of curvy black paths roughly as shown in the following image. Make sure that all these paths are selected and simply Group them using the Control-G keyboard shortcut.
Step 7
Make sure that your group of black paths is still selected, focus on the Appearance panel and change the Blending Mode to Soft Light.
Step 8
Pick the Brush Tool (B), reselect your art brush from the Brushes panel, and focus on the blue shape. Draw a bunch of curvy white paths roughly as shown in the following image. Make sure that all these paths are selected and Group them using that same Control-G keyboard shortcut.
Step 9
Make sure that your group of white paths is still selected, focus on the Appearance panel, and change the Blending Mode to Soft Light.
Step 10
Select your blue shape, focus on the Appearance panel, and replace the existing fill color with the linear gradient shown in the following image.
Step 11
Make sure that your main shape stays selected, focus on the Appearance panel, and add a second fill using the Add New Fill button. Select this new fill and add the linear gradient shown in the following image. Keep in mind that the yellow zero from the Gradient image stands for Opacity percentage while the blue number stands for Location percentage.
Step 12
Make sure that your main shape stays selected, keep focusing on the Appearance panel and select the existing stroke. First add the black to white linear gradient shown in the following image. Next, lower its Opacity to 50% and change the Blending Mode to Soft Light. Finally, click that "Stroke" piece of text to open the Stroke fly-out panel. Make sure that the Weight is set to 1 px and then check the Align Stroke to Inside button.
3. Multiply Your Petal
Step 1
Enable the Snap to Grid (Control-').
Select all the shapes that make up your first petal and Group them (Control-G). Duplicate this fresh group (Control-C > Control-F), select the copy and drag it 35 px down as shown in the first image. Make sure that your group copy stays selected, and go to Object > Transform > Reflect. Check the Horizontal box and then click the OK button.
Step 2
Make sure that the two groups that make up your petals are selected and go to Object > Transform > Rotate. Set the Angle at -55 degrees and then click the Copy button. In the end things should look like in the second image.
Step 3
Make sure that the two groups that make up your vertical petals are selected and go again to Object > Transform > Rotate. This time set the Angle to 55 degrees and then click the Copy button. In the end things should look like in the second image.
4. Create the Middle Part of Your Daffodil
Step 1
Using the Ellipse Tool (L), create a 20 px circle, set the fill color to R=231 G=96 B=38, and place it roughly as shown in the following image.
Step 2
Make sure that your circle stays selected, focus on the Appearance panel, select the existing fill and go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Roughen. Enter the attributes shown below, click OK and then go to Effect > Path > Offset Path. Enter a 1 px Offset, click OK and go to Effect > Stylize > Inner Glow. Enter the properties shown in the following image and then click the OK button.
Step 3
Make sure that your circle stays selected, keep focusing on the Appearance panel and add a second fill using that same Add New Fill button.
Select this new fill, set the color to R=255 G=149 B=67, and then go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Roughen. Enter the attributes shown below, click OK and then go to Effect > Stylize > Inner Glow. Enter the properties shown in the following image and then click the OK button.
Step 4
Make sure that your circle stays selected, keep focusing on the Appearance panel, and add a third fill using that same Add New Fill button.
Select this new fill, use the radial gradient shown in the following image and then go to Effect > Path > Offset Path. Enter a -2 px Offset, click OK and then go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Roughen. Enter the attributes shown below, click OK and go to Effect > Stylize > Inner Glow. Enter the properties shown in the following image and then click the OK button.
Step 5
Make sure that your circle stays selected, keep focusing on the Appearance panel, and add a fourth fill using that same Add New Fill button.
Select this new fill, set the color to R=114 G=73 B=9, and then go to Effect > Path > Offset Path. Enter a -5 px Offset, click OK and then Effect > Distort & Transform > Roughen. Enter the attributes shown below and then click the OK button.
Step 6
Make sure that your circle stays selected, keep focusing on the Appearance panel, and add a fifth fill using that same Add New Fill button.
Select this new fill, set the color to R=194 G=134 B=71, and then go to Effect > Path > Offset Path. Enter a -6 px Offset, click OK and go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Roughen. Enter the attributes shown below, click OK and go to Effect > Stylize > Inner Glow. Enter the properties shown in the following image and then click the OK button.
Step 7
Make sure that your circle stays selected, keep focusing on the Appearance panel, and add a sixth fill using that same Add New Fill button.
Select this new fill, set the color to R=251 G=224 B=68, and then go to Effect > Path > Offset Path. Enter a -7 px Offset, click OK, and then go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Roughen. Enter the attributes shown below, click OK, and go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Pucker & Bloat. Drag the slider to 50% and then click the OK button.
Step 8
Reselect your circle. Keep focusing on the Appearance panel, make sure that the entire path is selected (simply click on that "Path" piece of text from the top of the panel) and then go to Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow. Enter the attributes shown in the left window (in the following image), click OK and then add the other two Drop Shadow effects shown below.
Step 9
Using the Ellipse Tool (L), create a 22 x 33 px shape, make it black, and place it as shown in the first image. Make sure that this new shape stays selected, send it behind your circle using the Control-[ keyboard shortcut, change its Blending Mode to Soft Light and then go to Effect > Stylize > Feather. Enter a 6 px Radius and click OK.
Step 10
Using the Ellipse Tool (L), create a 22 x 28 px shape, make it black, and place it as shown in the first image. Make sure that this new shape stays selected, send it behind your circle using that same Control-[ keyboard shortcut, change its Blending Mode to Soft Light and then go to Effect > Stylize > Feather. Enter a 7 px Radius and then click the OK button.
5. Add the Background and Multiply Your Daffodil
Step 1
Select all the shapes that make up your flower (except the two shapes with the Feather effect made in the last two step) and go to Object > Expand Appearance.
Now, select all the shapes that make up your daffodil and Group them (Control-G). Download the attachment, drag that Grass Background image inside your document, make sure that it covers your entire artboard, and send it to back using the Shift-Control-[ keyboard shortcut. Move to the Layers panel, open the existing layer, and simply lock this image to make sure that you won't accidentally select/move it.
Make four copies of your daffodil group (Control-C > Control-F) and spread the copies roughly as shown in the first image.
Select the first group copy and go to Effect > Warp > Inflate. Enter the attributes shown in the following image and then click the OK button.
Step 3
Select the second group copy and go to Effect > Warp > Flag. Enter the attributes shown in the following image and then click the OK button.
Step 4
Select the third group copy and go to Effect > Warp > Shell Lower. Enter the attributes shown in the following image and then click the OK button.
Step 5
Select the fourth group copy and go to Effect > Warp > Fisheye. Enter the attributes shown in the following image and then click the OK button.
Step 6
Duplicate your five daffodils and move the copies down. Now you need to resize these copies. Select one of these groups and focus on the Transform panel (Window > Transform). Check that Constrain Width and Height Proportions button and then simply enter 50 px in the Height box. Select the other four group copies and resize them using the same technique.
Make a third set of group copies and drag them down as shown in the second image. Once again, you need to resize these new groups, only this time enter 40 px in that Height box from the Transform panel.
6. Create the Text Effect
Step 1
Pick the Type Tool (T), simply click on your artboard and add your piece of text. Use the Cooper Black font, change the color to R=0 G=113 B=53, and set the size to 170 px and the tracking to 50. Drag this piece of text below the group of shapes that make up your daffodils, and then lock it.
Step 2
Multiply, randomly rotate and spread your daffodils across that piece of text. Also, throw some flowers around the text. Once you're done, move to the Layers panel and get rid of that locked piece of text.
Step 3
Disable the Snap to Grid (Control-').
Pick the Brush Tool (B), reselect your art brush from the Brushes panel, and add some subtle grass as shown below. Use the four colors mentioned in the following image for these tiny paths.
Step 4
The following effects might challenge your machine, so it would be a good idea to save the work made so far. Reselect all your daffodil groups and add the five Drop Shadow effects (Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow) shown in the following image.
Step 5
Using the Rectangle Tool (M), create a 1000 x 600 px shape and make sure that it covers your entire artboard. Fill this new rectangle with the radial gradient shown in the following image and change its Blending Mode to Overlay. Remember that the yellow zero from the Gradient image stands for Opacity percentage.
Congratulations! You're Done!
Here is how it should look. I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial and can apply these techniques in your future projects.
Nature is the most inexhaustible source of inspiration! Follow me in this tutorial and let’s make a dedication to the beauty of nature by painting a lovely cartoon landscape in Adobe Photoshop, using default brushes with textured edges, creating a pastel drawing effect. We’ll start with a blank page and go through the full process of creating our sketch, enlivening it with colors, and filling our artwork with details. Let’s get started!
1. Create a
Rough Sketch and Make a Quick Underpainting
Step 1
Make a New Document from a Preset, selecting Film & Video and choosing the desired size. After you hit OK, you’ll get a blank canvas with the
Guides already placed automatically,
helping you to build the composition.
Since we’re working with raster graphics,
which can’t be scaled without losing their quality, let’s increase the size of
our canvas. Go to Image > Image Size and
increase the Resolution to 4000 px Wide (increasing the Resolution as well).
Step 2
Create a New Layer for our sketch and take the Brush Tool (B). Click the right mouse button to call out the Brush list and proceed to options (the
gear icon). Select Dry Media Brushes
in the drop-down menu and append the selected set to your brushes list.
Select
the Wax Pencil brush from the new
list and let’s start sketching. Don’t think about the tidiness of your sketch
and the smoothness of your lines at this stage. Concentrate on the overall idea
and composition of our future landscape. Start by depicting two rounded hills
in the bottom of the canvas.
Step 3
Place a large tree in the left part of our image, partially hiding its crown and trunk, so that
the tree looks bigger and closer to the viewer. Proceed by sketching a big curved ridge of mountains in the distance.
Add another hill in the right part of the canvas in order to balance the
composition.
Finish up by depicting another tree of a smaller size, closer to
the center, and fill the image with minor details, such as clouds and plants, making
some rough strokes for the grass, tree-bark and stone texture. Lower the Opacity of our sketch layer to prepare
it for coloring.
Step 4
It may be hard to define the overall
palette of our future landscape at first glance. We may color separate
objects and then find out that the colors don’t match or that we’ve lost the
right direction of the light while working on separate pieces.
So, in
order not to lose time editing inappropriate coloring later, let’s define our
palette at the very beginning and create a so-called undercoating or
underpainting. In other words, we create a colored sketch, choosing the basic
colors, which we will be refining. This will save a lot of time and make the
actual painting process much easier.
Create a New Layer beneath the outlines layer for our underpainting. To
start with, select one of the default Photoshop brushes from the Round Brushes with Size set, called Airbrush Pen Opacity Flow.
Check the
upper control panel and set the brush Opacity
to 100% and Flow to approximately 80%.
Enable the Pressure for Opacity and Air-brush functions
to make the strokes softer and more versatile. Pick a dark-turquoise color in theColor panel and start coloring the
tree crown, making wide strokes.
Step 5
We'll vary the brightness of the colors depending on the location of the objects. Let's use the darkest shades for the
foreground and the lightest ones for the distant elements in the background.
Paint the second tree with lighter turquoise color. Make both tree trunks
dark brown and move on to the front hills, filing the ground with rich violet tints.
Add a touch of
yellow to the hills, filling them with sunlight, and paint the sky with a gentle
gradient from light blue on top to a very light yellow closer to the mountains.
Make the background mountains much lighter than
the foreground hills, emphasizing the distance between the objects. The colors
look harmonic at this step, so now that we’ve set up the palette, let’s move
on and start painting the clean copy.
2. Color the Base of the Landscape
You can toggle the layer visibility by clicking the eye-icon
next to the layer in the Layers
panel. This way you can hide and disclose the underpainting layer, picking the
colors from it with the Eyedropper Tool
(I) (or by holding the Alt key
while you have the Brush Tool (B)
selected).
Another
convenient way to use the created palette is to save the underpainting as a new file, open in in a new window and pick the colors from there, while you’re
painting the main picture.
Step 1
Start by making a New Layer for basic colors. Use the Soft Pastel Large brush and pick the foreground hill color
(dark-violet). Start painting the hill that is closer to our viewpoint, making
wide grungy strokes. We need to keep this texture of the brush in order to
achieve a grainy effect of our artwork.
After filling the whole hill with
dark-violet color, pick the lighter hue and make some strokes on top, adding
dimension.
Step 2
Use the red-yellowish tint to add a gentle touch of sunshine to the top of the hill. Make “tapping”
moves with your brush to create grungy elliptical spots, making the strokes
look like real pastel marks.
Step 3
Paint the tree trunk with dark-brown
color, adding bright lilac spots for the overtone. Start covering the right side of the trunk
with light-pink spots, creating a subtle tree bark texture.
Step 4
Fill the
second hill with lighter violet color, adding texture with our pastel brush.
Step 5
Let’s
continue and apply a linear gradient from light-blue to gentle pink to the sky. Select the Gradient Tool (G) and
click on the gradient drop-down menu in the control panel above to access the Gradient Editor. Select the appropriate colors at the edges of the slider.
Apply the
created color harmony to the sky by making a vertical line with the Gradient Tool (G).
Step 6
Build up the
most distant mountains by painting them with greyish-lilac color and adding
lighter grey spots on top. This way we’re forming a so-called
aerial perspective between the objects. There is a thick layer of air between
the viewer and the distant object, so as the object moves away from the
viewer, it becomes lighter, more blurred and desaturated. We can apply this
natural effect to our artwork by making the closest elements much darker than
those in the distance. This makes the picture much more realistic and three-dimensional.
Make short
tapping strokes, adding vertical spots to our mountains in order to maintain the direction of
the strokes that we’ve made before. This adds a specific rhythm to our painting.
Step 7
Let’s make
our composition more intricate and add contrast colors by forming the
dark-green foliage for the trees. Start with the darkest shades and then
gradually add lighter green strokes on top of the crown, moving with the
same short vertical strokes. Make the closest tree darker than the one in the
distance, showing the perspective.
Feel free
to create New Layers for separate objects or even for separate color layers. This helps to
maintain a more flexible workflow, because you are be able to fix a small part of
your image much more easily when you don’t need to redo the entire object.
3. Outline
the Main Objects & Add Minor Details
Step 1
Let’s
use another brush and make our artwork sharper and more detailed. Select
the Conté Pencil on Bumpy Surface
brush from the same Dry Media Brushes
set. Pick the darkest violet tint from our front hill by holding the Alt key, and start tracing the edge of
the hill with the Brush Tool (B). Make a thick and steady line, at the same time adding shorter strokes
here and there, creating a “hairy” cartoonish effect.
Step 2
Draw
several wisps of grass showing above the edge of the hill, and start doodling some simple branches with leaves, separate grass-blades and schematic floral
silhouettes on the ground.
Don’t make the elements too overloaded with details.
Otherwise, our artwork will seem too messy, because all these strokes, leaves
and flowers are too small, hence they won’t be distinctive when you zoom
out the image. Let it be, for example, just a curved line for the plant’s stem and some tiny loops depicting leaves.
Step 3
Add a few larger and darker plants on the foreground, next to the trunk, and start
drawing out the tree itself, forming its bark. Use dark-brown, dark-violet
and light-pink colors, making short vertical strokes, reminiscent of the cracks and notches of real tree bark.
Step 4
Increase
the light spot on the right side of the tree by making the bright-pink strokes
thicker. Fill the foreground with flowers and plants, covering the blank
space near the tree. Add thin outlines to the farthest tree as well.
Step 5
Use
separate layers for the outlines and details. In this case, you won’t damage
the color layer beneath if you use the Eraser Tool (E) to fix the outlines. Fill the front hill with more
spots, grass-wisps and stems. Use light pink to vary the brightness of the strokes, making the
composition more diverse.
Step 6
Let’s move
on to the bushy part of the trees and form the crown. Start drawing small
curved lines or half-loops, depicting the silhouettes of the leaves. Gradually move
from one edge of the crown to another, covering it with separate leaves of
lighter-green color.
As soon as
you finish with one piece of the tree crown, switch to another, using the same
technique.
Step 7
Move on to
the right part of our composition and cover the second hill with dark and
bright floral elements, depicting tiny flowers, grass-blades and spots.
Step 8
Switch to
the mountains and cover them with rows of short vertical stokes, like scratches. This way we are forming the rock texture that differs from the
foliage and lawns that we’ve painted on the foreground.
Step 9
Let’s make
the sky more vivid to create a sunshine effect, while the sun is still
hiding behind the mountains early in the morning, filling the sky with bright
hues of pink and orange. Add brighter pink and blue with thick, wide strokes.
Then blend
these colors with each other, softening the edge between strokes by
lowering down the Opacity of the
brush and painting above with the same “tapping” movements. Add a gentle touch
of orange next to the top of the mountains.
Step 10
Fill the
empty space in the upper part of our artwork with light watercolor clouds
by forming several feathered white shapes with light, semi-transparent strokes.
Make the shapes smooth and flowing to create a sense of motion in the air.
Emphasize the curved shape with thin strokes and outlines.
Step 11
Any artwork
becomes more interesting and fancy if you enliven it with creatures or
characters. Let’s add some! Sketch a flock of sheep browsing the grass on the
hill. Make the sheep simple, consisting just of a cloud-shaped body, head and legs.
Step 12
Color the
sheep, moving from the blurred spot to a defined shape with curly outlines.
Step 13
Color other sheep in the same way. These cute little fellows help us to fill the empty space and to add depth to our composition by showing the size difference between the objects and their true scale.
Great Job!
Our Pastel Painted Landscape Is Finished!
Finally
we’ve worked out all the pieces of our artwork and created a well-balanced
composition with a harmonic palette. I hope you’ve enjoyed using Dry Media Brushes and discovered some
useful tips and tricks about preparing a custom palette, building a composition
and perspective, and forming the overall style of such landscape paintings. Good
luck, and let the inspiration guide you!
Design and Illustration careers are as varied as the artists
that inhabit them. Today we’ll explore the world of freelance graphic
designers. As in previous articles in this series, I sought out
several freelance graphic designers from around the globe to share their
experiences with me. Happily, they obliged, and we discussed their training,
daily tasks, sourcing clients, various media they work in, self-promotion, and
more.
Previously we explored the career path of an in-house
graphic designer. While freelancers may take on the same tasks as those working
within a company, they also have to hustle for clients, be self-motivated, and
wear many hats (promoter, accountant, agent, art director, and more) in order
to keep their business moving in the right direction.
I hope you find the
following to be informative, motivating, and as inspiring as I did after
reading through the experiences of those I questioned. Consider this your guide
on the role of a freelance graphic designer.
What Does a Freelance
Graphic Designer Do?
Aside from the usual answer of “they design”, freelance
graphic designers offer a range of services, some of which I will highlight below:
Logo design:
Whether creating a unique image for a company, busting out some fantastic
hand-drawn type, or compiling a brand with existing typefaces, logos are
typically the realm of the graphic designer. This often goes along with
branding a company and can be something the designer creates from scratch, with
a team, or to complement existing design work.
Layout Design:
Whether printed or digital, any form of media that requires layout design will
call for a designer to do it. Magazines, newspapers, book covers,
advertisements and more all need someone to combine photographs, typography,
and illustrations into a cohesive design for the reader or viewer. Often this
coincides with preparing files for printing or publication.
Packaging Design: From
cereal boxes to make-up packaging, all products that require design before they
hit the shelves in stores need a graphic designer to create the box template,
layout, and composition of their packaging. It’s a very broad category, but
anything that is sold or displayed had a designer behind it in some capacity.
And more… Icons
for web display or mobile games, user interfaces, sell sheets for product lines
given to retailers, or literally anything that needs to be designed can and
will be created by a graphic designer.
"When I became freelance, some of my clients were Cerealicious, FCAID & HR Desk. I did minor works for certain friends as well. And now, my biggest client would be L'Oreal." - Grace Urbano, Philippines-based graphic designer.
Freelancers often don't stick to one sort of client or
specialty, preferring to diversify their portfolios and have as many clients as
they can. The possibilities for work are numerous, which can also bite a
designer in that there are many, many hungry artists out there trying to scoop
up said work as well.
Additionally, how
diversified and how centered your portfolio is on a single or small amount of
design styles may serve as a boon or detriment depending on the client. Some
want a designer who is an expert at logo design, while others want someone who
can do it all. What you decide to do is a personal choice that may be informed
by your work history and experiences. There is no real right or wrong answer.
"I'm working [...] on a magazine of the culture of the Yucatán. I'm in charge of all of the editorial design and illustration, so basically I'm shaping all of the magazine..." - Sofía Guerrero, Mexico-based graphic designer.
What Training Does a
Freelance Graphic Designer Go Through?
Just like in-house designers and freelance illustrators, the
training of a freelance graphic designer varies. Some have a degree in graphic
design, while others are self-taught and have worked up a portfolio over time in
order to acquire clients.
A degree can get your foot in the door with potential
clients or more hits on a site like LinkedIn, but can also be very expensive
depending on what school you choose to attend. Not every degree program is
equal either. Some schools have more recognition than others, larger budgets
for a more diverse degree program or access to better technology and supplies,
or a better staff (which really is a toss-up depending on what you want to
learn and who they’ve hired).
Regardless of whether you pursue a degree or not, good
designers make learning a lifelong pursuit. There’s never a time when you don’t
need to brush up your skillset, learn a new program, or work with a new medium.
Opening new doors for yourself or tackling a new self-guided project keeps your
mind and design skills sharp like the point of your pencil. And unlike in-house
jobs, it’s much easier to acquire freelance clients without having a degree, as they’re
less likely to overlook your portfolio because your resume hasn’t hit a certain
set of keywords (which is how some in-house job listings are reviewed).
Aussie Avenue business card designs by Kea Grace.
"I was trained for graphic and web design, as well as social media management, by the agency I worked with initially. After a few years of training and work with them, I branched out on my own." - Kea Grace, Massachusetts-based designer.
Who Does a Graphic
Designer Work for, and How Are Clients Sourced?
Let’s take this in two parts, starting with the type of
clients a freelance graphic designer may have. Clients may be small businesses just starting up
or large companies known worldwide. It’s not uncommon for a company to
outsource some of its graphic design work even if they have in-house designers;
especially to meet tight deadlines or get batches of work done (photo editing,
layout design, etc.). So really, the answer is any company or person that needs
design work on a freelance basis.
Now, let’s talk about how clients are sourced. When asked
how they acquired clients, every single one of my interview subjects said the
client comes to them at this point in their career. Whether it’s through social
media, their website, or networking, they are being contacted by the client who
at that point has already seen their portfolio or resume (presumably).
Early on, however, sourcing clients came through job listings, forum posts, and even tweets. There’s no wrong way to find work, but knowing your value as an artist, not undercharging for your services, and not being taken advantage of are important skills as a designer in addition to the work you provide. Learning that part of the trade often comes through experience, though, rather than simple advice from others or being something you can learn in school.
"My motto is that a happy client brings more clients who also would like to be happy. Word of mouth is definitely the most powerful tool you have. And to find those initial clients the secret is to network, network, network and network!" - Helder Olivier, Portugal-based Graphic Designer
How Do Designers
Self-Promote?
Designers have to be their own marketing team, often, unless
they have an agent or hire someone to do their marketing for them (which sounds
fantastic, but is also expensive). Many designers share their work through online
portfolio sites like Behance, Dribbble, and deviantArt. They also remain active
in social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
It's important not only to showcase your work in a way that makes it easy for clients to find you, but also to be relatable in some way, grow your fan base, and network.
Thriller novel book cover design by Leese Johnstone
"At the moment, online networking, mostly Twitter. I'm starting to network locally to build up my local client base (in Kent, UK) by attending networking meetings." - Leese Johnstone, UK-based graphic designer.
What Projects Do
Graphic Designers Produce, and What Media Do They Work With?
Let’s start this two-part question with what sort of
projects a graphic designer may produce. I’ve mentioned layout design, and in
particular layout design for printed media like magazines or advertisements
within magazines or newspapers. Since there are way too many project types and
associated media, I’ll use a magazine advertisement as an example.
The designer is given a brief from their client (usually the
company or person who has purchased ad space and would like to advertise their product
or business). Often they’ll provide product photos or the designer works with
the photographer gathering the images they need for the final advertisement.
Depending on the printer or client’s preference, the designer will work in Adobe InDesign or Adobe Photoshop (usually InDesign
is preferred). Any copy or editorial (words that appear in the advertisement) are
provided by the client, or if the designer is adding information to the final
piece, it is approved before being dubbed finished.
"The client wanted a rebrand of her logo because it was hindering her business. She wanted something more professional but still friendly and unpretentious. She let me have full control to do what I wanted but she let me know that she had this idea for it to be art deco in style. The creation of the logo took about a month plus a few days." - Alexandra Lucas, Ohio-based graphic designer.
The designer may provide multiple layout versions for
approval or a series of sketches beforehand. It depends on circumstances for sure, but
the project is similar to most design projects in that you'll follow a series of steps from
conception to completion and work in tandem with the client and/or other
designers along the way to get the product (in this case advertisement) to where
the client wants it to be.
Some designers charge a flat rate, some charge by the hour, and
others will charge per revision after their initial quote is met. This can have
an effect on how long a project takes and what media are used (digital, traditional,
or a combination), as well as how long that particular designer has involvement
with the project. Perhaps the client can afford layout work by them, but does
revisions or additions themselves or throws that to an in-house team, leaving
the conceptual phase in the hands of the freelancer.
"There’s a lot to layout design and making sure it works for what type of layout you’re doing. For magazines, booklets, and newspaper layouts I had to find the best font that would be readable at a small size, but also had to make sure that when printed and the ink spread that you could still read it. Whereas [with] poster layout, I have to find fonts that worked better on a larger scale and appropriate for the event." - April Baird, Nova Scotia-based graphic designer.
Conclusion
The role of the freelance graphic designer is quite varied.
Where design work is needed, clients will hire freelancers to create a plethora
of work for them, from logos to layout to packaging design and (quite honestly)
so much more. Budgets, media, and price ranges vary, and are often determined by client and designer together before work has begun.
Experience is
gathered not only in school, but also through each and every professional
project. Portfolios from graduation day are soon replaced entirely with client
work done over the course of several years.
Freelancers are constantly growing and developing and
hustling for work. Being self-employed means you have to be determined,
self-motivated, and flexible in terms of working under deadline and without the
rigidity of the in-house 9-5 job.
They sacrifice stability for diversity,
however, and many designers move fluidly between the freelance and in-house
world as their careers progress. There is no wrong way to freelance so long as
you’re respecting clients, fellow designers, yourself, and any contracts signed.
Many thanks to the designers who participated in interviews
for this article. You can check out their individual portfolios in the links
below, as well as getting a taste of their work and experience in the images and
quotes throughout the article above. I hope you found this guide enlightening,
inspiring, and motivating, whether you’re a new designer or an old hat at the
trade. Happy designing!
It's a common occurrence when you're reading a tutorial that probably matches or is easier than your skill set and you think, "That's not how I'd do it." I know this has happened to me several times. I go with the tutorial, though, because I know that in vector, there is more than one way to do things, and perhaps someone else's workflow may expose me to other techniques I hadn't considered.
There's a phrase in the UK that goes: "There's more than one way to skin a cat." OK, it sounds foul, but it basically means there is more than one way to do something and achieve the same result. This is the basis of today's tutorial.
It all started when I was in the back garden and I was looking for inspiration for a new article... and, well, it did come up, and that was 9 Tips and Tricks to Render Anything in Vector. The premise of the article was to show people how to get into the mindset of seeing in vector.
I decided to test myself and look for things I'd render in vector and how I'd go about it, and my eyes were drawn to a very vectorable thing... a garden fence.
I want you, the novice or the expert vector artist, to take a beat and imagine how you'd render that fence in vector. How would you start? What tools would you use? I can place a bet that not everyone would construct it the same way.
To make things a bit easier, let's remove the background, foreground and perspective, and look at it in a simple way as a stock image from PhotoDune.
So let's imagine we're aiming for this end result... but let's remove all colour and think of it even more simply as a silhouette.
I'm going to go over a few ways in which you could render it in vector. For each method, I'll explain how you'd do it, list the pros and cons, and give examples of when you might opt for that method.
1. The Image Trace Method
Step 1
I've opened the black and white stock image in Adobe Illustrator and then run Image Trace with the following settings.
Step 2
As an optional step, you could click on Expand to turn the Image Trace into a vector path. You could then recolour, should you require it. And you're done.
Rating the Image Trace Method
Pros
Super quick: took less than a minute, even after playing with settings.
Cons
Despite playing with the settings, I couldn't find a way to make all of the edges straight. So although it's an accurate representation of the JPG, it's perhaps not the most clean-looking end result.
Quite simply, Image Tracing an image feels dirty... well at least for me!
When Would You Opt for this Method?
When the fence is a small detail of your design, perhaps something in the background
When you need to present something in minutes and quality isn't an issue
2. The Pen Tool Method
Step 1
With Smart Guides (Control-U) enabled, use the Pen Tool (P) to trace around the first set of vertical planks. This will give you 90-degree corners where required and help you line up the points accurately.
Step 2
When the first group is complete, select them all and then with the Selection Tool (V), hold Alt and move your first group over to the next place to duplicate it.
Step 3
Then by pressing Control-D, you can duplicate your last action to accurately place your third group.
Step 4
Use the Pen Tool (P) to draw the top vertical plank. Then using the Selection Tool (V) while holding Alt, duplicate it to the bottom plank.
Step 5
As a final step, but not completely necessary, you could use the Pathfinder panel > Unite to combine all the shapes together. And you're done.
Rating the Pen Tool Method
Pros
Straight edges are created throughout.
Points are accurately placed due to Smart Guides.
It took longer than the Image Trace method, perhaps five minutes, but this is still relatively quick for a fence silhouette.
As the shapes are all straight sides, you don't need to be a Pen Tool master, as you don't need to play with handle bars!
Cons
If you're not careful with Smart Guides, you may misclick a point and would have to undo or use the Direct Selection Tool to adjust your points.
Spaces between the planks are not equally spaced.
When Would You Opt for this Method?
When the fence is a small detail of your design, perhaps something in the background
When you need to present something in a short amount of time and quality isn't an issue
3. The Blend & Clipping Mask Method
Step 1
Again with Smart Guides (Control-U) enabled, use the Rectangle Tool (M) to draw the first post. Draw the plank a little higher than the tallest plank.
Step 2
With the Selection Tool (V), Alt-drag the plank to the end of the first set to duplicate it.
Step 3
Select both rectangles and create a Blend (Control-Alt-B). While selected, go to Object > Blend > Blend Options and change the Spacing to Specified Steps and the value to 5,as there are five planks between the two you've already created.
Step 4
Use the Pen Tool (P) to create the shape which will trim the top of the edges of the fence. When you're drawing it, ensure the right side is flush with the next section of the fence. Then select this new shape and your blend and create a Clipping Mask (Control-7).
Step 5
With the Selection Tool (V), select the clipping mask group and Alt-drag to duplicate it, keeping the right side edge of the shape flush with the next group. Then use Control-D to duplicate your previous action to create the third group.
Step 6
To ensure we've got the same width, go into the blend group and duplicate one of the planks.
Step 7
While selected, go to Object > Transform > Rotate and rotate the vertical plank by 90 degrees to make it horizontal. Then, using the Free Transform Tool (E), stretch the shape and put it in the correct place. Use Alt-drag with the Selection Tool (V) to duplicate the shape.
Step 8
As an additional step, you could use Pathfinder > Unite to combine the shapes, but as is, here is the end result.
Rating the Blend & Clipping Mask Method
Pros
Straight edges are created throughout.
Rectangles are accurately placed due to Smart Guides.
Due to using Blends, the planks are all uniformly shaped and have equal spacing.
Cons
A little more time-consuming than the previous methods, perhaps 10-15 minutes.
When Would You Opt for this Method?
Due to accuracy, you could use this method in most scenarios.
4. The Pattern Brush Method
Step 1
Create the initial planks using the same method as before, with the Rectangle Tool (M) and Blend (Control-Alt-B). Duplicate one of the planks for use as a horizontal plank for later on.
Step 2
While selected, go to Object > Expand to expand the blend into fills. With the shapes selected, create a Compound Path (Control-8).
Step 3
Create the shape for the section using the Pen Tool (P) and with that and the compound path, use Pathfinder > Intersect to trim the shape.
Step 4
Using the duplicate of one of the original rectangles, Rotate it 90 degrees and use the Free Transform Tool (E) to resize the length so it is flush with the first plank of the set, and then the start of the second set as shown below. Then duplicate it using the Selection Tool (V) and Alt-drag.
Step 5
Select all of your shapes and go into the Brushes panel and select New Brush, then Pattern Brush. I've used the default settings below. Because the shape is one colour, I've changed the Colorization Method to Tints, should I wish to change the colour of the fence later on.
Step 6
Using the Line Segment Tool (/), draw a line and apply your new brush.
And here is the end result from using the brush:
Rating the Pattern Brush Method
Pros
Straight edges are created throughout.
Rectangles are accurately placed due to Smart Guides.
Due to using Blends, the planks are all uniformly shaped and have equal spacing.
Can be reapplied with a couple of clicks along a path, should it be required.
Cons
A little more time consuming than the previous methods, perhaps 10-15 minutes.
It's not a duplicate of the original image—if you wanted to duplicate the original image you'd have to take it a step further and create a clipping mask, which would add time to the process.
When Would You Opt for this Method?
Any time when you need to reapply the fence in any size, length, or colour.
So Which Way Is the Right Way?
There are many methods, and not just the ones I've shown you, that you could use to create the fence. I'm sure there are some advanced vector users who will want to point them out in the comments, and I encourage you to do that.
So which is the right way to go about it, given all the methods shown? Well, as with most vector tasks you undertake, it completely depends on the way in which you're intending to use the graphic. This will dictate which is the most efficient and most appropriate way to render it. Consider the following to decide:
How relevant is the element to the entire graphic? Is it a small detail in the background or is it the entire graphic?
How much time do you have to create it?
Will you need to edit the element in the future?
What is the purpose of the graphic? Is it going to be an icon, an illustration, a pattern?
Once you've considered those, then you'll know which is the right way.
In this tutorial we'll create a small set of custom brushes from scratch and learn how to render animal fur with them. We'll focus on rendering a fox tail in grayscale, using custom brushes and the Smudge Tool to create both soft and coarse fur, and use Blending Modes to add color and warmth to the rendered piece.
1. Creating Simple Custom Brushes
Step 1
Open Adobe Photoshop, create a New Document,and create a New Layer. Using the Brush Tool (B), choose the default Hard Round brush from the Brush Presets panel.
Draw a series of dots in different sizes. The size of your brush will determine how large your custom brush will be.
Keep the dots spaced out slightly, but don't bother to keep the formation uniform.
Either keep the dots within a circular or oblong formation.
We'll call this brush style the "dot brush".
Step 2
Create a New Layer or move to a free space within your document. The next brush style starts with the default Hard Round brush with Noise selected in the Brushes panel. Lower the Opacity and Flow to 60% or so (you can also experiment with both settings). Make sure Pen Pressure has been selected in Brushes > Shape Dynamics > Size Jitter so the ends of the default brush taper.
Consider this brush to be like a tuft of fur.
Draw overlapping lines that curve inward on either side.
Layer them up on each other so the length and opacity varies.
We'll call this brush style the "fur tuft brush".
Step 3
This is one of the main brushes that we'll use to create and render the fur. Using the default Soft Round brush, draw spaced out dots of varying sizes in a circular formation. Do this with Noise on and off (so do it twice) to create a soft fur brush and a coarse fur brush.
We'll call these brushes the "soft fur brush" and the "coarse fur brush".
Step 4
Finally, use the default Hard Round brush again, with Build-Up and Smoothing selected in the Brush panel, to create short fur or grass-like sections that will become brushes to be used later in the tutorial. Vary the size of the Hard Round brush in order to create variations in thickness of each piece of fur.
We'll call these brush styles the "short fur brushes".
2. Saving and Using Simple Custom Brushes
Step 1
Using one of the Selection Tools, select around one of the custom brush shapes that we created earlier in this tutorial. Go to Edit > Define Brush Preset and give your new brush a unique name (or don't if you're experimenting with brush shapes and styles). You'll find your newly saved brush in the Brush Preset panel or in the Options bar when you have the Brush Tool selected.
Step 2
Try out each of your brushes with the Brush Tool. Play with variations in Flow, Opacity, and the settings within the Brush panel. Try sweeping each brush across your document as well as using stippling techniques in order to see how each brush works for painting and adding texture to an area.
3. Rendering a Fox Tail: Building Values
Step 1
Create a New Document and a New Layer within that document. Starting with the default Hard Round brush, we're going to build up the values of our fox tail or swatch of fur. Consider the rest of this tutorial an exercise in becoming acquainted with your newly made custom brushes.
Build up values of light grays. Note the white at the end of the tail.
Concentrate darker grays at the top of the tail.
I'm ending this step with medium gray at the top of the tail. This gives you a good idea of what the tail's base should be.
Step 2
Switch from your current brush to the Coarse or Soft Fur Brush, both of which we created earlier. Note that I've set the Spacing all the way to the left at 4% and selected Build-Up and Smoothing. I've also enabled Pen-Pressure for the Size Jitter under Shape Dynamics, as I'm using a graphic tablet during the entirety of this tutorial. Digital painting can be quite difficult without a pressure-sensitive tablet of some sort.
Step 3
Let's continue adding texture and value to our swatch of fur.
Starting at the top, build up medium and light values of gray with the Soft or Coarse Fur Brush.
Note how the size of the brush will determine the look of the fur of the tail. Size your brush accordingly. You may need to experiment a bit to get what's right for you.
I've started using the Coarse Fur Brush at the top and the Soft Fur Brush at the bottom just to create variations within the look of the fur.
Step 4
Play with other brush textures. You'll notice there's more variation in the color of my fox tail now. The little spots around the tail were created by using one of the dot-like brushes around the top and sides of the tail.
Start to bring lighter gray back into the bottom of the tail. Consider how the fur may have highlights within sections of the tail itself.
I've decided the upper right contains the darkest shadows and strands of fur.
I've also decided to repeat the dark gray on some parts of the sides of the tail. Keep layering colors and use photo references if you need to see what animal fur can look like in terms of value.
4. Rendering a Fox Tail: Softening the Fur
Step 1
Let's set up our Smudge Tool.
Select the Smudge Tool from the Toolbar.
Set the Strength to 77%. You can, of course, vary your Strength settings as you go. You may find more or less will be better for your design.
Within the Brush panel, choose a more densely created Fur Brush. Make sure Shape Dynamics aren't checked and Smoothing is.
Finally, set the Spacing to 10%.
Step 2
Let's get to softening the tail.
Using the Smudge Tool, start at the top of the fox tail. Carefully begin to smudge strands of fur in a downward motion.
Vary between stroke lengths.
Also make sure you're mainly going in one direction. At this point I've gotten to the center of the tail.
Continue moving your way down the tail, smudging various sections of the tail. Note how the top half has softened up.
Step 3
Continue smudging sections of the tail.
Move as though you're sketching in small chunks of fur, rather than working through the entire length of the tail at once. Also allow your computer to catch up with the tool. Sometimes it may lag and you'll have to wait it out.
Start pushing strands outward at their ends. This allows the fur to look a bit shaggier and less contained.
Note how the end here is quite soft-looking and the ends taper. Any sketchy lines drawn previously should taper down to sections of fur.
Soften darker sections of fur so they move together in the same direction.
Step 4
Let's Zoom (Z) in further on our design (to be frank, I usually zoom in and out quite a bit on my work, but for the sake of this tutorial have shown each step as a whole).
Note how the fur kicks out at the sides. This is entirely due to downward and diagonal strokes from the Smudge Tool.
Create a New Layer. Using a small, hard brush, Tuft of Fur Brush, or Short Fur Brush (the latter two of which were created earlier in this tutorial), draw or stipple on darker, defined strands of fur within the design.
Note how these darkened strands help define the spaces between larger sections of soft fur. Experiment with their size, placement, and value.
5. Coloring the Fox Tail
Step 1
At this point we're no longer using the custom brushes (aside from final touch-ups later). We're focusing solely on adding layers of color to the fox tail.
Create a New Layer and use a default Soft Round brush with its Opacity set to 75% or so. Set the Foreground color to dark ruddy brown and brush over most of the tail.
In the Layers panel, set the Blending Mode to Overlay and the Opacity to 32%.
Step 2
Create a New Layer and use a default Soft Round brush with its Mode set to Multiply, Opacity set to 28%, and Flow set to 75%. Set the Foreground color to a ruddy brown and brush layers over most of the tail.
In the Layers panel, set the Blending Mode to Color Dodge and Opacity to 67%.
Step 3
This next step is one I find quite fun. Once again, create a New Layer in the Layers panel.
Using a tapered soft brush, brush layers of dark brown, yellow, orange, and ruddy brown along your tail. Feel free to Blur the layer slightly (Filter > Blur > Blur).
Set the layer's Opacity to 55%.
Set the layer's Blending Mode to Overlay.
Step 4
Create a New Layer once again and use a soft round brush to brush over yellow-orange, orange, yellow ochre, and brown tones. Then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur with a Radius of anywhere from 10 to 50 pixels, or so.
Set the layer's Blending Mode to Soft Light. This should add a soft glow of color to your tail.
Step 5
I've zoomed in again to show you the details of this final layer. Note how textured the fur looks. I've changed the spacing on the Coarse Fur Brush to a higher percentage in order to add more texture into some of the design.
You can either paint over the tail with yellows, oranges, and browns, or paint under the color layers with light grays. Play with other highlight and shadow details now that you're at this nearly completed stage of rendering.
Step 6
Finally, an optional step in order to add a bit more texture to the tail. This step requires the layers to be Merged (Control-E), so if you'd like to maintain your layers, Group (Control-G) them together and create a Duplicate of the Group before Merging together.
Go to Filter> Sharpen > Unsharp Mask and enter the following values for a result like the one seen below:
Amount: 180%
Radius: 8.0 pixels
Threshold: 19 levels
Great Job, You're Done!
Take the techniques you learned above (brush creation, rendering, smudging, and coloring) and push them further by rendering an animal head or the entire creature! Below, I've done just that with a cute fox spirit mask. Like the tail we worked on together, the fox mask was worked up in the same series of steps, but I kept the fox head's shape and planes in mind when rendering.
Share your results from this tutorial or with similar creations using the brushes you've made to render animal fur in the comment section below!
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In this tutorial we'll manipulate basic shapes into an Art-Nouveau-inspired composition featuring my favorite robot friend, Bitty Love Bot. Learn how to create compound shapes in CorelDRAW® with the Shaping docker, manipulate fountain fills, convert an outline to an object, and effectively use PowerClips to aid your design.
1. Preparing Your Document
Step 1
Let's start by creating a New Document. Mine is 8 inches by 10 inches at 300 dpi. You can adjust your page size later in the Property Bar if you find you'd like to work at a different size.
Step 2
Next, I've imported my sketches for this design. I like to quickly map out what I think I want the composition to be before diving into any sort of complex vector work. I've placed both sketch files in their own layer in the Object Manager docker.
When working on the Object Manager, you can create a new layer by hitting the New Layer button at the bottom of the docker. I'll be working in the same Master Layer for the entirety of this tutorial.
2. Set Up Your Background Layout
Step 1
Art Nouveau pieces often have beautiful backgrounds whose layouts help inform the rest of the piece's composition. I think this is an excellent place to begin our design. The colors used for this step are entirely up to you, as I've only chosen black and shades of gray for visibility's sake.
On a new Layer, use the Ellipse tool (F7) to draw a large circle in the top half of your page.
Draw a rectangle in the upper left corner with the Rectangle tool (F7) that overlaps the circle slightly.
Draw a larger rectangle over the bottom two thirds of the page, overlapping the circle slightly.
Adjust the fill and stroke colors of your objects in the Object Properties docker.
Step 2
Select the smaller of the two rectangles and in the Property Bar, select Scallop for corner radius type. Enter in the following numbers for each corner radius:
Top Left: 1.39"
Top Right: 0.12"
Bottom Left: 0.2"
Bottom Right: 0.06"
Step 3
Select the bottom rectangle and drag out the right side so it covers half of the large circle. In the Property Bar, select Scallop for corner radius type. Enter in the following numbers for each corner radius:
Top Left: 0.2"
Top Right: 0.2"
Bottom Left: 1.8"
Bottom Right: 1.8"
3. Using the Shaping Docker
Step 1
Reorder your objects so the circle is above the two rounded rectangles.
Select all three of your shapes and hit Simplify in the Property Bar or the Shaping docker.
Select the circle and in the Property Bar reduce its Object Size to 95% of its original size. Regardless of the dimensions of your circle, reduction by percentage should give you a good basis for creating similar spacing between objects. If you'd like more or less space between your objects, your reduction percentage will vary from mine.
Step 2
Copy (Control-C) and Paste (Control-V) the upper left shape. In the Property Bar, hit Mirror Horizontally so your shape flips over a vertical axis, and place it on the right side of the page.
Make sure the shape lines up with the other shapes in the same manner that the left shape does. Do this in the Align and Distribute docker by Aligning the smaller rounded rectangles to the outer edges (left and right respectively) of the larger rectangle.
Step 3
Draw two identical narrow vertical rectangles and place them on either side of the circle. I found it easiest to line them up with the corners of the medium gray shapes without the use of the Align and Distribute docker simply because they do not hit an outer edge or center of any object perfectly. Sometimes you've just got to eyeball design elements.
Select the two black rectangles and Weld them in the Shaping docker. Select the black rectangles and the lower light gray shape and hit Back Minus Front in the Shaping docker.
Group (Control-G) your objects together.
Step 4
Draw a smaller circle on the large black circle with the Ellipse tool. Align it to the center of your object group in the Align & Distribute docker.
With the Star tool draw some five-pointed stars on the left side of your circle. Group them together.
Duplicate (Control-D) and Mirror the star group. Place it on the right side of the black circle. I dragged some Guides out from the rulers to make sure they were aligned properly.
Step 5
Weld the stars and the small circle together in the Shaping docker. Ungroup (Control-U) the rest of your design so you can select the black circle, and then hit Back Minus Front in the Property Bar to subtract the circle and stars from the black circle.
4. Converting Outlines to Objects
Step 1
On a new Layer, select the Bezier tool. In the Object Properties docker, set the Outline properties to the following:
8.0 pt width
the bright, distracting color of your choice
solid line style
Use the Bezier tool to draw a long curve across the upper left shape.
Step 2
Continue drawing a series of mostly vertical curving shapes.
Then, begin connecting them with smaller curves. Note how they flow into each other. It's important your outlines move smoothly together for this design.
Step 3
Once satisfied with your outline shapes, select all of them and Convert Outline to Object (Control-Shift-Q). In the Object Manager, delete the extraneous paths so you're only left with the outlines seen below (I switched over to Wireframe view so the objects could be seen more easily).
Step 4
Weld your curved shapes together.
Select the gray corner shape and your newly welded curves and apply Back Minus Front in the Shaping docker.
Step 5
Repeat the previous steps of creating curving shapes on the lower left corner shape.
Draw interlaced curving outlines with the Bezier tool.
Select the curves and Convert Outline to Object. Delete the duplicate outlines in the Object Manager. Weld the curves together in the Shaping docker.
Select the gray corner shape and your newly welded curves and apply Back Minus Front in the Shaping docker.
5. Completing the Background Composition
Step 1
Copy and Paste the left corner shapes. Mirror them Horizontally in the Property Bar.
Align the copied shapes to their counterparts in the Align & Distribute docker. Delete the original right corner shapes.
Step 2
Weld all of your background shapes together in the Shaping docker to complete your background composition.
Step 3
Select the newly welded shape. In the Object Properties docker, set the Outline to the following attributes:
Weight: 1.5 pt
Color: Gray (#B3B3B3)
Cap: Rounded
Corner: Rounded
Outline: Outside
Move on to Fill in the Object Properties docker. Select Fountain Fill and change the colors to cyan (#00F2FF) and light yellow (#FEFFA6). Make sure it's a Linear Fountain Fill whose angle is set to 90°.
6. Let's Draw a Robot
Step 1
Let's start with the head. Most of the robot is built with basic shapes. Draw a rectangle with the Rectangletool and adjust the corner radii to the following settings:
Corner Type: Scalloped
Upper Corners: 0.2"
Lower Corners: 0.37"
Or whatever corner radii you find fit your robot friend best. Additionally, much of this section shows each object filled with white and outlined with black. If you already have plans for your color palette, feel free to use them from the start.
Step 2
Let's speed things up a bit.
The eyes and balls on the antennae are circles drawn with the Ellipse tool. The mouth and the antennae were drawn with the Bezier tool. They are closed shapes.
Use the Pen tool to draw a cute heart. Two ellipses form the robot's cheeks. I've drawn a curved shape with the Pen tool to form the inside of the robot's mouth. When we apply fills and outlines to these shapes it'll make a bit more sense.
The neck is a thin rectangle while the body is a rounded rectangle. Two circles form the shoulders.
Step 3
Draw a long, curved leg with the Bezier tool. Set the Outline width to 20 pt. Convert the Outline to an Object, as has been done previously with outlines.
Step 4
Next up are the arms.
Draw a curve from the shoulder to elbow.
Consider this robot's arms to be like metal noodles. My path has four nodes in total.
Set the Outline width to 20 pt, same as the legs, and Convert the Outline to an Object. Repeat on the other side.
Step 5
Place the legs beneath the body and the arms beneath the shoulders. Use ellipses for the hands and rounded rectangles for the fingers. Set the outline color to null and the fill colors to the following:
Hot Pink (#fa1790)
Gray (#d1cfcf)
Cyan (#59ffff)
Yellow (#ffdd19)
Light Pink (#ffbaee)
Purple (#ebb1f5)
Step 6
Group the robot's components together and Align it to the center of the background design.
7. Drawing Flowers and Mushrooms
Step 1
Our robot friend needs some company within the design. On a new layer, we'll draw flowers and mushrooms around the legs of the robot. I'll be using my sketch as a guide for the design. You can freehand your flowers or work from a more detailed sketch.
Select the Freehand tool from the Toolbox. In the Property Bar set Freehand Smoothing to 100.
Draw petal shapes. Use reference if you're unsure of what sort of flowers to draw.
Notice how each shape converges around the same area and then curves upward and outward.
Finalize four or five petal shapes. Adjust their node handles if needed with the Shape tool (F10).
Weld your objects together to form your flower.
Step 2
Use the Bezier tool to draw curved stems and large leaves.
Note how the leaves and stems curve away from the robot while converging in the same place near the bottom of the design.
Add another flower or two in the same manner as before.
Step 3
For the mushrooms, I manipulated half circles to create a few designs. To create a half circle that's not quite exact (more like a 3/5 circle), do the following:
Draw a rectangle and a circle.
Overlap the two shapes.
Hit Back Minus Front in the Shaping docker.
Step 4
Draw freehand scallops on the edge of a mushroom for cute frills. For other mushroom types, cut ellipses and circles in half.
Draw curved stems with the Bezier tool and Convert the Outlines to Objects.
Group your mushrooms together and Mirror Horizontally to place them on the right side of the design.
Step 5
Compile your flower and mushroom composition. Weld together your flower stems and leaves on each side and set the fill colors to the following:
Yellow (#ffdd19)
Green (#d9ff76)
Purple (#f4c8fd)
Cyan (#46ffef)
Magenta (#f91890)
Cream (#fffbe5)
8. Rendering the Robot Head
Step 1
Let's start at the top of the robot, working on the robot layer.
Select the antennae and change the fill to a Linear Fountain Fill going from dark gray to gray. Adjust the angle with the Interactive Fill tool (G).
Apply a Radial Fountain Fill to each of the balls on the antennae going from hot pink to light pink. Adjust the position of the fill's radius with the Interactive Fill tool. Transfer the fill to the second circle with the Attributes Eyedropper tool.
Step 2
Copy and Paste the white heart. Set the fill color to gray and the Merge Mode to Multiply under Transparency in the Object Properties docker. Set the copied heart downward slightly so it looks like a cast shadow.
Apply a Radial Fountain Fill on the head of the robot itself going from cyan to dark cyan. You can adjust your colors as you see fit for your overall composition.
Step 3
Draw five identical rectangles over the left eye. Weld them together after having Distributed evenly in the Align & Distribute docker.
Apply Simplify to the rectangle objects and the eye circle from the Shaping docker. Delete the non-intersecting rectangular components.
Add an Outline to the circle of the same dark yellow as the rectangles. Draw a circle behind the eye. Offset it to the lower left, and set the fill color to gray and the Merge Mode to Multiply. Repeat on the right eye.
Step 4
Set the cheek circles to a Radial Fountain Fill going from light pink in the center at 0% Transparency to 100% Transparency.
Draw a shape inside the mouth and fill it with a white to gray fountain fill to create a shadow. Set the Merge Mode to Multiply.
Set the neck rectangle's fill to a Linear Fountain Fill going from dark purple to light purple. Make sure the darker color is at the top of the shape.
9. Rendering the Robot Body
Step 1
Copy and Paste one of the arms from your working page. Use the Pen tool to draw curved stripe shapes down the length of the arm.
Make sure the shapes curve along with the curve of the arm itself. Weld the stripes together in the shaping docker.
Place the stripe group behind the arm and hit Back Minus Front in the Shaping docker.
Place the stripes on the corresponding arm behind the shoulder in the Objects Manager docker.
Repeat these steps on the other arm and both legs. Fill the stripe objects with transparent gray.
Step 2
Use the Attributes Eyedropper tool to apply the same Radial Fountain Fill from the shoulders to the hands. Adjust the radius with the Interactive Fill tool.
Apply the fountain fill used on the robot's neck to each of its rounded rectangle fingers.
Step 3
Group together all of your robot components. Copy and Paste the robot and Weld the copied robot together. Set the fill and outline color to gray and the Outline Weight to 2-4 pt. Align the copied robot behind the original robot group.
10. Render and PowerClip the Flowers
Step 1
Draw a rectangle over the background of your design. Adjust the corner radii so they match that of the background drawn previously in this tutorial.
Weld a rectangle across the rounded rectangle so that it contains the yellow flowers which would otherwise be cut off by the background. Notice how the shape cuts off the bottom of the flowers.
Select the flower and mushroom group and go to Object > PowerClip > Place Inside Frame. Select the newly drawn welded shape as the frame. Once clipped, set the outline to null.
Step 2
For the flowers and mushrooms, render each as follows:
The flowers have a yellow to orange Linear Fountain Fill.
The stems and leaves have a light green to dark green fountain fill applied.
The purple mushroom is a light purple to dark purple Radial Fountain Fill.
The blue mushroom's fill matches the robot's body.
The mushroom stems are a gray to cream Linear Fountain Fill.
The pink mushroom's fill matches the robot's antennae balls.
Step 3
Draw additional details on top of the mushrooms. I drew the faces with the Ellipse tool and the Pen tool, and then added shiny highlights on each of the mushrooms with the Pen tool and applied a transparent white fountain fill.
Step 4
As a final detail, I scattered sparkles around my composition.
Draw a small circle with the Ellipse tool.
Use the Distort tool to apply a Push and Pull Distortion with an Amplitude of 92.
Check out your sparkle. You can use this object as is, or double it up for a more dynamic and noticeable sparkle.
Copy,Paste, and Rotate the sparkle on top of the original.
Weld the shapes together and set the outline to null and the fill color to the sparkle color of your choice (ultimately I chose white).
Great Job, You're Done!
Scatter your sparkles around your composition and draw a large cream-colored rectangle over your page underneath your background design to complete the piece. Push your design further by creating a whole cast of robot characters in various Art Nouveau-inspired frames. Share your work in the comment section below!
