MAKER PROJECT: LEARNING ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR
To complete this Maker’s Project, the task was to learn a skill via an online platform and utilise it into building a physically deliverable creative.
For this project, I chose to go with the aim of acquiring the skills to develop creatives using one of Adobe’s most popular creative works designer, Adobe Illustrator (AI), which is now an industry standard in developing artistic works in the form of vector graphics.
Since AI is a software, it is necessary to understand its working to use it to its full capabilities.
To do this, I considered YouTube tutorials and found a publisher known as TastyTuts. He was dedicated to using AI and all his tutorials were very elaborative and guided people who are to enter the creative works field. This project has been built with the help of his tutorials on how to create artistic works, using AI. The video playlist is composed of 19 complete videos teaching every aspect of AI.
The tutorial videos are structured into teaching the following concepts:
1. Interface: Panels and Workspaces.
2. Art-boards
3. Vector Basics
4. Fill and Stroke art
5. Swatches and Colour Selection
6. Creating Shapes
7. Different Tools from Basics to Advanced
8. Setting up Documents
9. Applying Colours
10. Printing the Final Work
Each video was of bearable length and lasted around 15 minutes on average. The tutorials were so well explained that I did not feel any need to consider other sources.
LEARNING THE INTERFACE
As mentioned above, I gradually worked my way through AI, trying to familiarize the position of each tool, and the various shortcut commands, which was not an easy task. It took me roughly 3 days of playing around with the software to get familiarized with the interface. In my opinion, this was the most difficult task of all.
LEARNING TO DRAW VECTOR SHAPES
Now that the interface was familiar, I could jump into learning the basic concepts of drawing vector shapes. For this, I had to understand the working of the various drawing tools. After working on this for around a day, I was able to draw basic shapes and combine them together to build up a much bigger compound shape.
LEARNING TO SELECT COLORS AND APPLYING THEM
Now that I could draw shapes and build vector objects, I needed to learn how to fill them with life by adding color. From this section of the tutorial I learnt that the colors we choose is the most crucial part of a creative art.
LEARNING TO SET UP PRINTING
After learning how to create a good vector graphic, I had to print it out in the right form. For this I had to learn the basics of how a printer perceives color and the different forms of printing options.
BUILDING THE PROJECT
To obtain the final vector graphic I had to now use all that I had learnt previously and the existing resources provided by the youtuber during the tutorial. The objective was to create a Skull Artwork, using the skills learnt throughout the tutorial.
STEPS INVOLVED IN BUILDING THE FINAL ARTWORK
- First, a skull was drawn on a piece of paper and then it was scanned into the format of a basic ‘.png’ file.
2. Next the scanned image was converted into a vector form. Now this image became editable using the AI software. Once the image was in the form of a vector, the human imperfections were removed, and the shapes were corrected to fit a more symmetrical view.
3. Next, a proper colour palette was chosen and each vector shape was coloured into.
4. Finally, the appropriate print settings were chosen.
Citations
1. The materials used as the learning source for creating this maker project:
· http://www.tastytuts.com/ai-beginners-guide.html
· https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYfCBK8IplO4X-jM1Rp43wAIdpP2XNGwP
2. Course materials acquired from the site:
· http://www.tastytuts.com/ai-beginners-course---download.html
