Chapter 5. Digital Illustration

Digital illustration is an exciting medium for creating art on the computer. With just a few strokes and clicks (OK, more than a few), you can create wonderful line art in Illustrator, using your screen as a canvas. No pencil sharpeners required, just a mouseor a drawing tablet if you get really obsessed.

Digital illustrators use the traditional principles of drawing and painting, using line and shape to represent form, space, and light. But once the work is created, the medium has no limitations. A digital illustration can be easily edited, resized, duplicated, and applied to a whole host of graphic design projects in print or on the Web.

In this chapter, you'll learn some ways to "see" objects as an illustrator, and then you'll explore how to create them using Adobe Illustrator. Don't worry if you don't have much traditional drawing experience. Digital illustrations can be created in many different ways; you may find that you can draw something amazing onscreen that you could never do on paper.

COURSE DEVELOPER: YOUNG MO YOON

This lesson was developed by Young Mo Yoon, an award-winning digital illustrator who holds an MFA from the School of Visual Arts.

Figure 5.1. Designer Joshua Hood created this simple but effective logo illustration with a stylized approach to color and curves.

In this chapter you will:

• Learn to use Illustrator guides to position objects on the Artboard.

• Create a stylized alarm clock using basic shapes, colors, highlights, and eye-catching details.

• Learn time-saving ways to duplicate objects and create complex shapes from very simple ones.

• Use the Pen tool to create closed paths and join existing paths.

• Learn to create smooth curves and hinged curves with the Pen tool.

• Create a stylized TV and tennis ball using Pen tool paths, colors, highlights, and other details.

• Learn to use the Pathfinder to create complex objects from the intersections of simple ones.

• Create an illustration of an everyday object of your choice using shapes, the Pen tool, the Pathfinder, and other features.