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.
I’m taking a short break from the tutorials to catch my breath. My son graduated from high school this last Sunday. It’s been crazy, to say the least. We’ve been driving all around the countryside to celebrate at open houses. Indiana and Ohio roads have become quite acquainted with us.
I drew this sketch when I thought of how silly caps and gowns look to kids. Isn’t that the way things work? At one time, a cap and gown look so dignified. And I would say even today, if you know what they represent, they look dignified. But to a child, or someone who is comfortable with the extremes of casual fashion, they can feel quite silly.
Graduation is a time we celebrate accomplishment and the next step in a person’s journey. Like those cap and gowns, it can feel uncomfortable, even silly as we take the next phase of life’s journey. Can anyone remember the first day of school? It wasn’t a relaxed, comfortable day for me! Yes, I felt silly and awkward. How about your first date? First kiss? How about the first time you held a paying job? They can all be awkward, silly feeling times.
That’s why feelings betray us. We need to strive to make it through those clumsy times, knowing there is a goal we are striving to reach. I smile when someone says they don’t want to try something because it doesn’t feel right. When I hear that, I try to remember ANY time, I felt comfortable trying something new.
So here’s my graduation speech for the class of 2011: When you go out to the real world, you may feel wobbly, like a newborn animal. You may wonder if what you’re aiming for is right because it just isn’t coming easy. Hold on! If you have a God-given dream to do something, know it may not come easy, it may feel weird at first, but pursue it anyway. Once you get pass the awkwardness, you can toss your cap in the air and graduate to the next level in your life.
Congratulations, class of 2011! (And congratulations, Garrett!)
I’m back with an update on the monster sketch. After I printed out the illustration, and used a pencil to show where I wanted to shade the drawing, I scanned it into Illustrator.
This time, I unlocked the new template layer so I can see where where I placed the shading. I move the template layer to the top. Now I can color the illustration while seeing the template.
Now before, I said I’ve been in Illustrator for a long time. So I’m very excited about a new feature in Illustrator CS 5. It was a long time coming. Before CS 5, clipping masks were a hassle. If you made an object a clipping mask, you would lose your shading. You’d have to reapply the shading and go through a bunch of extra steps to make it look the way you want. That has changed with the “draw inside” option.
You will find them in the bottom of the toolbar. The circle and square icons show what drawing mode you are in. In the picture on the left, the icon shows the normal drawing mode. When you use this, a new shape is placed over all the older shapes. The middle icon shows you can draw behind an object now. Thanks to this feature, you don’t have to keep rearranging shapes if you want something to go behind the other.
But by far, the best feature is the icon on the right.
When you click on it, you can draw inside a shape. This makes it so much easier to make the shading align with the original shape. Make sure you have the shape you want to modify selected before you choose “draw inside.” You know the shape is ready when you see dashed lines in the corners of the shape.
Here is an example of one of the finger shapes in “draw inside” mode. Notice that the inside shading extends beyond the original shape. This allows me to shade the monster much faster.
Next, I’ll add the finishing touches to the illustration.
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Monster sketch shading
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.