Cartoon of two babies. One says, “My first birthday is next week. Talk about pressure!”
There are lots of birthdays in my family this time of year. I don’t know how we planned multiple generations to have summer birthdays, but I’ll take them. I much rather eat ice cream with my cake in the summer instead of the dead of winter. No pressure for you winter birthday people. I’ll eat the ice cream in January too, if prodded.
Cartoon of a boy with a frisbee and a dog. The boy says, “Any dog can catch a frisbee. My goal is to teach you to throw it to me.”
The dog would extra bonus points if he could throw it with his paws.
Next, I print out the sketch and determine where I will place the shading. This is a technique I learned from the illustrator, Von Glitschka. He has a great site called illustrationclass.com. He also has a book called “Vector Basic Training” that is chocked full of great info.
The shading is even more important if I choose not to outline the art. Many times, I outline the details and the outer portion of the art with a black rule. On this one, I want the shading to define the shape. It will also allow me to emphasize the roundness or volume of the figure.
Next, I’ll place this file into Adobe Illustrator and make it a template. Yes, you can have more than one template in Illustrator. I’ll start the shading within the program next.
Now the fun stuff begins. I start laying out the vector portions of this illustration. It may sound strange to say this, but when it comes to Adobe Illustrator, I’m probably old school. What I mean by that is I’ve been using Illustrator since it was Adobe Illustrator ’88. The program was so basic then, that you couldn’t have the preview on while you edited. Everything had to be in outline mode as you drew your artwork.
Yes, this was my world twenty-three years ago!
This is an advantage when you are tracing your artwork. You can keep whatever fill and stroke you want, yet see underneath to the object you are tracing. You can find the outline mode under the view menu. It’s the first item in the menu.
When you draw in Illustrator, you’ll save yourself so much trouble if you learn to use the pen tool. One book I’ve gotten a lot of info out of is Sharon Steur’s “Illustrator Wow” books. within it, she has an exercise called “Zen of the Pen.” She has included the activity online. Check out the pdf. And if you get a chance, I’d get one of the books.
The key is to keep the points to a minimum. The less points you use to create an illustration, the more smooth an illustration will appear. As I’m drawing each point, I use the option key (on the Mac, alt key on the PC) to create desired corners. Sharon’s pdf will explain how you develop the skill to do that.
I start with the shape in the character that appears to be the farthest away from us. On this character, it is the back arm. One of the things I love about Illustrator is it allows you to “draw through” the illustration. What I mean by that is I can draw the whole shape in an illustration to make sure it fills the space like it would in the real world. When your arm is behind your body, the whole mass of your arm still exists, you just see part of the arm. Similarly, if I draw the whole arm, I can tell if it is taking the proper space within the whole illustration. This also gives me freedom to animate it in the future if I choose to take it to Adobe Flash.
As I begin drawing the back arm, I put it on its own layer. Layers are essential in Illustrator as well as Photoshop. Before layers, it took a lot of work to organize the picture. If you had a complex drawing, editing it could dictate your entire day. Layers allow you to isolate small parts of the the illustration. This is also essential if you choose to animate your drawing.
After I get the arm drawn, I’ll add details, such as the fingers. I want to get the whole shape in rather than the partial shape we see in the real world. The color will eventually blend together, so when we are previewing the finished illustration, it will look like a single finger instead of an oval. But for the moment, I want all shapes to be closed up.
I continue drawing each shape. Next comes the back leg, then the body, front leg, front arm and head. Each section of the character gets its own layer. When I have all the shapes drawn in, I’ll change the view to preview. This is what the illustration looks like before any color is added.
In the next post, I’ll begin adding the color. See you then.
This is the third part of my tutorial on how I create an illustration in Adobe Illustrator.
I have placed the file and am ready to start with the pen tool. When I placed the file, I checked the “template” option within the place dialog box. This allows the image to come in dimmed and locked. It treats the image as if I’m tracing it on a light box.
Many people skip this step and just start drawing in the program. Perhaps that would be fine if I used a Wacom Cintiq or a touch screen to draw, but even then, I would probably draw the image by hand first. This allows me to get a feel for the third dimension when I draw. Yes, my illustration is two dimension and my paper is flat. But what I mean is I want to be able to see the figure as a 3D object. It is easier for me to see how the head fits on the body if I can get a solid drawing together first. I have yet to see how to build the foundation on the computer. But if you’re willing to send a Cintiq my way, I’d be happy to give it a try!
All my computer drawing is done on a Wacom Intuos 3. I’ve had Wacom tablets for the last fifteen years, and I would not part with them. They make drawing easier on the computer, even if I’m using the pen tool. I thank one of my art professors for teaching me how to make a blind contour drawing. At the time, I thought she was nuts. She asked us to look only at the subject we were drawing and not look at the paper. At first, I couldn’t understand how that would work. Of course you have to look at your paper! Her aim was to make us really see what we were drawing. Several years later, it had the added benefit of helping me adjust to drawing on a Wacom tablet while looking at a screen.
If you are having problems using a drawing tablet with your computer, I’d encourage you to try some blind contour drawing.
Now that I have my drawing placed, and my drawing tablet ready, I’ll outline the shapes in Illustrator. See you then.