Two Objects Interacting


Before we start this next piece, I'd like to share some thoughts on illustration.

When I was in college, I was frustrated about not being as good as van Gogh (he is my favorite painter). But once I entered the workplace, I realized that pure talent is not everything, because I work for clients! They are the ones who judge my artwork. Sometimes they make me feel like van Gogh, sometimes like nobody.

To keep my clients happy, I put a lot of effort into conceptualizing the design, sketching out various options before I get started. I tend to avoid abstract concepts, because almost every design has to make sense to a lot of people. I aim for realistic concepts and add my point of view. And I try to pull it all together through composition.

When I move forward with the design, I pay a lot of attention to the little details. Simplicity is the goal, so I try to avoid boring and unnecessary details. I concentrate instead on elements that hold people's attention. Sometimes it's the smallest thing. For example, if I have to draw ten straight lines horizontally, I would never draw ten lines with the same length and angles. I would make sure that I produce my lines with slightly different angles and lengths. Try it! I know it will make people more interested in your artwork.

Making Guides from an Object

We're going to make an eye-catching illustration that involves composing two different objects and making them interact. Along with our trusty Pen tool, we're going to play with the Pathfinder and some other cool Illustrator features.

Figure 5.31. This finished illustration involves planning, composition, and … the Pen tool.


Start a new Illustrator document that is in RGB color mode and U.S. letter size (8.5" by 11"). Save the file. Let's call the document TV.ai.

There are many different ways of creating guides. The one you learned earlier, dragging from the rulers, is a basic method. This time we will use a rectangle to create guides. Huh? That's right. In Illustrator, any object can be used to create guides. You will see how.

First of all, let's draw a rectangle. Go to the toolbox, select the Rectangle tool , and click in the center of the document. Type 1.55 in for width and 1.17 in for height.

With the rectangle selected, go to View > Guides > Make Guides. It's that easy.

Figure 5.32. The initial fill on your rectangle (left) doesn't matter since it will become a blue guide (right).


We will illustrate a TV on top of this, so let's lock this guide so that it doesn't get moved by accident. Go to View > Guides > Lock Guides. Most of the time, guides start out as locked.

Drawing a TV Using Guides

On top of the guides we just made, let's draw a TV set. Select the Pen tool and move the pointer inside the guides. Just make two angled shapes similar to my example. It is not that hard, right? To create these angled brackets, you'll just use straight lines. They don't have to be proportional or perfect; in fact, it's better that they're not.

Figure 5.33. Our TV will be very stylized, starting with these angled shapes.


You've just created an outline of a TV, so now add a fill color. It will be 51 in R, 51 in G, and 153 in B.

Now with the Pen tool, draw a leg, the left one. It is just a triangle. We will use the same color we used for the TV outline.

Figure 5.34. The second leg will be a simple duplicate of the first.


Because the two legs I'm using are the same, we will make a copy to use as the right one. With the Selection tool, click the left leg and drag it to the right with the Alt/Option key pressed. That will make a duplicate. Find an appropriate place, and release the mouse.

We may need more guides for other parts of the TV later, but we don't need the rectangle guide anymore. To avoid confusion, let's delete it. Go to View > Guides > Clear Guides.

The TV's body and screen are next. Using the Pen tool, draw a (slightly off-kilter) rectangle with fill color settings of 102 in R, 102 in G, and 255 in B. It will be a TV body. It's currently on top of the frame we made, so let's send it to the back. Cool.

Notice that the upper-left corner in my example is not fully covered by the rectangle. I meant to create this highlight by using negative space. Sometimes you can create highlights out of light effects without adding anything to the illustration. In this case, omitting the corner of the TV creates a light effect with negative space.

Figure 5.35. Sometimes you don't need to draw anything extra to make an interesting effect.


For the screen, select the Rounded Rectangle tool and click with it on the Artboard. Use 1.12 in for the width and 0.85 in for the height, and give it a Corner Radius of 0.2. Place it in the middle of the TV and give it a fill. I used 51 in R, 204 in G, and 255 in B to get the bright aqua color.

Now just add a circle of 0.13 in for width and height. This will be a channel dial.

Figure 5.36. Now we have the basic TV shape finished.


Modifying Shapes with the Pathfinder

In this section, we will use Pathfinder commands to modify shapes. The Pathfinder uses special commands to create new shapes using the intersections between simpler objects. We will try it out by creating some objects here. Let's begin.

First, we'll draw an antenna base using a half circle. We will start with a full circle that's 0.33 inches in width and height. Now draw a rectangle a little bit bigger than a half of the circle.

Select both objects with your Selection tool, holding down Shift. Go to the Pathfinder paletteif you don't see it, go to Window > Pathfinder. Click the Subtract from Shape Area button in the Pathfinder (the second button in the Shape Modes row.

Figure 5.37. When we use the Pathfinder, the intersection of the two shapes will be removed (right).


You will notice that the front rectangle and the intersection of the circle are gone. Now you have a perfect half circle. Fill it with the same color as that of the TV frame.

Now we will add two antennae to the base in the same color. Just draw two triangles in any shape, and add two circles to their peaks.

Figure 5.38. The antenna object adds interest and asymmetry to the composition.


We are almost finished drawing the TV set. How are you doing? Your TV looks great so far, but look again at the final illustration. We have a way to go! Let's keep up our hard work and do some more Pen tool studies.

The Curved Segments

We'll put what you learned earlier about curved paths to work here. You just need a little practice to create beautiful curved segments.

With the Pen tool selected, click in two places on the page, outside of your main drawing. You will see a line connecting two points. Grab the Convert Anchor Point tool. Click and drag slightly the two points you just created, one at a time. You'll see direction lines and direction points appear.

Just play around with the direction points for now. You can click and hold them with the Direct Selection tool and move them around. Why don't you spin one 360 degrees slowly and see how the curved segment changes?

You can also play with curves using a circle drawn with the Ellipse tool. Make one now, and use the Direct Selection tool to pull one of the direction points down. Wow. See how it changed? The longer the direction line, the longer the curved segment with the strange angles. It's a rule!

Figure 5.39. You can move the direction points on any objecta circle, a Pen tool path, a star, you name it.


Don't forget to delete the practice shapes once you are done with them.

Accents on the TV

The TV looks good, but it still needs some accents to pull the eye. I'd like to put some around the corner of the TV set. Let's do it. This requires the Pen tool skills you just practiced.

First, we need a swoosh shape in the top-left corner. I just put a guide in blue to show you what kind of a shape we will draw. With the Pen tool, click and (somewhere toward the top of the screen) slightly drag the line toward 11 o'clock. Don't worry about the precise direction too muchyou can change it later.

Figure 5.40. The blue guide shown here is the shape you will make with these direction line tweaks.


Move the Pen tool to the right. Click and slightly drag toward somewhere between a 3 o'clock and 4 o'clock direction. Notice that the bottom direction line of the first anchor point disappeared. Why? Because you are not using it in that direction. But it will appear when you close the path.

Now here comes the tricky part. We must go back to the first anchor point, keeping the sharp edge. You can't do it without changing the direction of the direction point. If you just go back to the first anchor point without changing it, you will lose the sharp edge. Just try it (and use Edit > Undo when you're done). It's good to experiment.

OK. We will change the direction point toward a 9 o'clock direction. Press Alt/Option and click the direction point. Drag the point toward 9 o'clock. You kept the sharp edge and just changed the direction.

With Alt/Option pressed, click the first anchor point (to close it) and drag it toward 6 o'clock. If you get confused here, it's OK. Even though you drag it down, you may see a direction line pointing upward, instead of downward. That's all right. You're dealing with the hidden direction line of the first anchor point.

Figure 5.41. Close the path, and make your direction lines like mine.


If you find this hard to believe, just go back to the previous stage by going to Edit > Undo or pressing Ctrl+Z/Cmd+Z. Then, close the path without pressing Alt/Option. You will now see both direction lines.

The reason to press Alt/Option when you close the path is to keep the direction point and line 1 of the first anchor as is and change the other direction point and line 2 of the first anchor point to keep the sharp edge and smooth curve. If you don't press Alt/Option, you will lose both the direction point and line of the first anchor point and control of the shape.

Figure 5.42. A close-up look at the shape you created and its direction lines


Play around with it until you get it right. Then just add a fill color: 51 in R, 51 in G, and 153 in B.

Now, just add a couple more swooshes next to it and at the bottom right. This will give you some more practice.

Figure 5.43. Practice your curves by adding some new swooshes.


Next, we will add a visual effect in the middle of the tube, where the tennis ball we draw later will come out. I used the Star tool and modified its shape with the Twirl tool . Here's how:

First, select the Star tool and click in the center of the TV screen. A dialog box will appeartype 0.2 in for Radius 1, 0.4 in for Radius 2, and 12 for the number of points. Now you have a star with 12 points.

Select the Twirl tool, and click and drag it around. The star will start twirling from the center.

Figure 5.44. Little touches like the twirled star make your illustrations feel alive and active.


Now let's add a background image. We will start by using a circle, as in my example. We will use only a section in yellow for the background. In order to do that, we will have to add a rectangle with edges that are similar to the TV outline, then cut out the intersection and the rest of the images using Pathfinder.

Figure 5.45. We'll create this yellow background in the Pathfinder.


Draw a circle that's 1.45 inches in width and height, and then use the Pen tool to draw a rectangular shape that has a similar edge to the TV outline. Overlap them like in my example. Then use the Pathfinder's Subtract from Shape Area button to cut out unnecessary images. Color it with 255 in R, 255 in G, and 0 in B.

Figure 5.46. The TV-shaped intersection area is removed in the Pathfinder (right).


Masking the Ball

In this section, we will illustrate a simple ball and its tail. The tail is a swoosh that creates motion. This part of the illustration requires masking skills and very delicate lines. Sounds tricky, but I'll help you along.

As you work, you'll need to use layers to keep everything organized. This illustration is getting complex! If you don't see the Layers palette on your desktop, go to Window > Layers. Name the current TV layer TV layer.

Let's create a new layer and name it tennis ball. We will illustrate the ball objects on this layer because the TV layer is too busy. To avoid a traffic jam, we will temporarily hide the TV layer by clicking the eye icon. Done? Now you won't see anything on the Artboard.

Click the tennis ball to make it active. Let's draw a ball using a 1.1-inch circle in yellow (255 in R, 255 in G, 0 in B). This will be the outline of the ball. Add a green circle (0 in R, 255 in G, 0 in B) of 0.89 inch on top of the yellow circle.

Create two more circles with yellow strokes (255 in R, 255 in G, 0 in B) and no fills. The stroke weight should be 3 points. Put them in the appropriate place, referring to my example. We just drew a tennis ball.

Figure 5.47. Wimbledon, here we come!


We are about to put a mask on top of the circles to hide the outer rings. First draw a 1-inch circle. Select all the circles around, including the mask, and go to Object > Clipping Mask > Make. You will see only the properties inside the last circle. Cool! The ball is finished.

Figure 5.48. Only what's inside the last circle is visible.


Let's hide the tennis ball layer for now. Click the eye icon to hide it. We will show it again later.

Drawing the Ball's Tail

You'll find drawing the tail-like path of the ball to be highly challenging. Let's think about how could it be done in the easiest way.

First of all, go to the top of the page and look at the outline of the tail. How could it be done? That's right; I created it with two circles: a big one for the outer shape and a small one for the inner one. Then I used the Subtract from Shape Area to crop out the intersection of the two circles. Bingo.

First, create a new layer for the tail and name it tail. Now draw two circles. The big one is 2.65 inches and the small one is 1.6 inches. Move the smaller circle on top of the big one and arrange them like in my example. With both circles selected, click Subtract from Shape Area from the Pathfinder palette. The intersection is gone. To make sure, just add any color to it as a fill. Cool.

Figure 5.49. Arrange your two circles like these.


If you look at the completed illustration, you'll notice that only the bottom half of the image is used. So we will crop out the top portion.

At this point, working with colors makes it hard, so let's switch to Outline view (View > Outline). We won't worry too much about colors now, since we can change them later. When you're done with Outline view, you can return to regular view by selecting View > Preview.

Go to the toolbox and select the Rectangle tool. Draw a rectangle. It's got to be bigger than the top half of the tail image.

Place the rectangle on the top half of the tail image. Click the Subtract from Shape Area button from the Pathfinder palette. The top half of the tail should be gone.

Figure 5.50. Draw a rectangle over the top, then subtract this area with the Pathfinder.


Now we need to draw a circle, which goes on top of the tail. It will become the outline of the ball. As you can see from the finished artwork, these objects are filled with a gradient. Notice that the ball will sit on top of the circle. Hmm. Then it will be complicated, right? Just to make it easier, let's combine these images into one.

Select both images, then go to the Pathfinder window and click Add to Shape Area. Now they are one object.

Figure 5.51. A simple circle is united with the tail and given a snazzy gradient.


Fill it with a gradient: Select the Gradient tool and go to the Gradient palette. Choose 153 in R, 255 in G, and 255 in B for the beginning color; 102 in R, 102 in G, and 255 in B for the ending.

Now we must locate this object on the TV set. Let's make the hidden layers visible (a tennis ball and TV layer). The end of the tail should be in the center of the TV screen, so it looks like it is coming out of the TV. Let's move the ball onto the head of the tail. Drag the tail layer below the ball layer in the Layers palette. The illustration will look like my example.

Figure 5.52. Make all layers visible, and bring the ball and tail to the same location as mine.


Finally, we will draw three little tails inside the big one. Make sure you're in the tail layer. Go to the toolbox and select the Pen tool.

Ready? Try to produce an angle similar to that of the outer tail by modifying direction lines to produce the curves. It doesn't have to be perfectly accurate, but it should look like it is coming from the same place. Color it white and add another small tail right next to it, then one more.

Figure 5.53. These are the last elements of our illustration.


What do you think? It looks great! It's a fun interaction between two different illustrations, and it really shows off your Pen tool and Pathfinder skills. Great job.

Figure 5.54. That was hard work! Time for a TV break.





Sessions. edu Graphic Design Portfolio-Builder(c) Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator Projects
Graphic Design Portfolio-Builder: Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator Projects
ISBN: 0321336585
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 103
Authors: Sessions.edu

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