My artist/author copy of the Adobe Illustrator CC WOW! advanced vector art techniques book arrived. In addition to the one Gallery section I had from the last edition, I now have two more.
Thanks again to Sharon Steuer for the opportunity to be involved!
The CS6/Creative Cloud version of the superb Adobe Illustrator WOW! Book with advanced vector art techniques is now available. Along with my earlier technique contribution to the Illustrator WOW! CS6 edition last year, this updated edition has some more tips and techniques where I reveal the arcane secrets of my vector art workflow to the unsuspecting reader!
My recent article for CreativePro.com, Illustrator WOW! Techniques: Flexible Shading and Highlighting Effects, is now posted on their website. It expands on the coloring process using the Adobe Illustrator vector art Shapebuilder tool described in my Gallery page in the Illustrator WOW! CS6 book.
I just posted this screencast video on YouTube where I critique vector art created by a beginner Adobe Illustrator user. These critiques apply to any vector art software.
Just a quick news item: the Adobe Illustrator CS6 version of the superb Illustrator WOW! tutorial book series for Adobe Illustrator will feature a lesson by yours truly.
I was approached by the author, Sharon Steuer, to contribute an advanced technique to the book. We decided to present a unique method of quickly applying color to your line art using Adobe Illustrator’s Shape Builder tool. The cartoon logos and cartoon characters you see on my website and blog are created using this technique.
In this video, I am sharing with you a vector path creation technique to speed up the process of creating curved paths by adding intermediate anchor points after your corners have been created. I used to create my anchor points as I was following the curve of the shape I was tracing. Instead, with this technique the anchor points are added to your vector path after your corners have been created, allowing Illustrator to approximate the length of the curve handles for you with much greater accuracy the first time around.
Here’s a freebie for all my loyal readers: a free Photoshop action I created myself to eliminate repetitive tasks I (used to) go through each time I scanned in a new sketch for further work in Photoshop. Boost your productivity with this free Photoshop download.
My custom Sketch Prep action — as you can see from the screenshot — simply resets your color swatches back to the default black/white, does a Select All on the background layer, cuts the image to a new layer (leaving you with a flat white background layer) and then bumps the opacity of the newly-created layer down to 20%. It then adds a fresh new blank layer for you to start drawing in.
Here are a few handy keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop for those of you out there like me who spend an inordinate amount of time in the Creative Suite primarily using Illustrator. These are not keyboard shortcuts that you can use in Illustrator, but rather are keyboard shortcuts providing methods of doing things in Photoshop that you are used to doing in Illustrator that at first it might seem isn’t possible, like click directly on an object to select it, drag to a new layer, etc.
It’s happened to all of us digital creatives. The dreaded day when you just cannot get one of your Adobe applications to launch. Usually there’s a deadline looming (of course). You’ve restarted your computer (three times) and still you cannot get Photoshop to launch. You’ve tried a few tips from some Google searches, but still nothing. Your geek cred is showing it’s limitations. And your deadline isn’t getting any further away.
What if I told you this could be avoided, virtually forever? And also, that you can get back to work with all your settings just the way you like them?