Illustrator is also another easy program. I'm going to trace one of my drawings. The reason for doing this is so you have a Vector Image and not Rastor Image. Your probably wondering what does that mean. Well Rastor Images when you get realy close show little blocks and because of that it can't be any size. So if you wanted a picture on a build board and for it will stay looking good you have to vectorize it.

First open Illustrator and goto file/place and pick your jpeg you want. I'm going to be using a scary looking head. To scale it hit v then hold Alt+Shift and drag the corners until it fits in the border. My drawing is really sketchy so i'm going to improve it. When I first learned this Program my professor said he was going to teach me to draw with a potato! I think its a perfect way of looking at a mouse. Anyway by default your tools should be to your left. You should also open window/layers this is how you build up everything. So next to the layer we just placed the drawing in is an eyeball and an empty box. Click the empty box. This will lock your layer so you dont move it round while your tracing. Just like in photoshop your layers on top of the other layers will be the top layer to be seen. Its the hierarchy situation. I suggest naming everyone of your layers and there at the bottom of your layers pallet is a little arrow pointing to a tiny peice of paper. This is like a folder to put your parts in. Now there is only really 3 tools you need to know about to start. Selection Tool (shortcut v) this selects all of your paths, Direct Selection Tool (shortcut a) selects your points, and the Pen Tool (shortcut p) that creates points with anchors. I suggest first hit a then p. The last selection tool will be stored for the other quick keys I'm going to cover. Now you should be almost ready to draw. First create a new layer above your reference picture. Now since your on the pen tool click and drag. Then click and drag again. This should make a line like below. Those red lines are anchors. They help manipulate the line. The midpoint is where the anchor stops. Notice the long one pushed it further out than the shorter one. This is how you shape it.

Now to manipulate this line (I use quick keys) hold down Alt and the pen becomes the Convert Anchor Point Tool. This makes it so you can break the smoothness of the next point. If you dont want to don't hold down alt. If you need to adjust the anchor halfs hold Ctrl. this brings you back to your selection tool. Since you were on Direct Selection Tool last you can manipulate the anchor. I suggest sticking with this tool as your stored selection tool. To close the path click on the first point. You will see a circle next to your pointer. If you need to add a point just click on the line while using the pen tool. To delete a point just click on that point with the pen tool. You will see a + or - next to your pen tool letting you know whats going on. If you just want to redo the anchors from scratch use the convert anchor point tool on the point itself and drag while clicking on the point. Whats sad to say is this is the most important part of illustrator. All the rest of the tools are ok but no where near as important. So memorize these buttons. They are your life force and make it work so quickly when using them. If you want to delet your curve hold Ctrl select all the points and delete them. These same tools can be used in photoshop in the Paths tab using pen. It is a much better way to do coloring and selecting marques.
Now I'm going to help you dispose of those colors on your stroke and inside fill color. Also just as a note "ALWAYS CLOSE YOUR PATHS!" It is very unprofessional to leave them open. Next note "Make color swatches" although its good to have variety in your work most printing companies and web companies will not accept them lazily done. If they want to change the color of something its easier for them to do it when its a swatch you used over and over again. Last note "Name All Your Layers" companies will get mad if they can't navigate thru your work. Thats all the notes you need to know. OK now back to color. To get this window goto window/swatches and window/color. In the color window you can select your stroke or fill color. The filled square is your fill and the square one with the tiny square in it is your stroke. If you click the white box with the red line thru it you will turn off the colors all together. I prefer doing this for both of them right off the bat. It makes tracing easier. I dont like using strokes either when scaled up they dont scale with the rest of the vector image. So i usually dont use them. But you can convert strokes to fills but then you will probably have to mess with the points anyway. Its your choice.

 

Now is the real moment to shine! Start Tracing! To get in close use your mouse wheel while holding Alt. Holding Spacebar and click drag brings out the hand for moving around. What is really nice about this is you can add as much detail as you want because you can infinitely zoom in. I basically don't really care too much on this one. I'm only doing it for this tutorial. I always start with the outline of the figure to give a base color. Since this is a cartoon I'm just filling it in with black. Named the layer, locked it, and made a new layer for teeth. Made sub catagories of left to right then each tooth individually. I'm doing each one separate because I'm going to add color with a gradient. Make a color in the color pallet or a gradient in the gradient pallet. Then in the swatch pallet's top right hand corner is drop down menu. Click it then click new swatch... This will save your custom color in the swatch pallet. To apply your color or gradient hit v and select the fill and then click the swatch. To move the gradient around hit g this will give you the tool to the left that I used. You can then adjust the gradient bye moving the center point and grabbing the ends to shape it. This is helpful to add depth without getting to crazy with another feature I will introduce next. I must again remind you to keep all of your swatches! If you want to change all the colors at once it makes it much easier when they are saved. Now onto creating a gradient mesh! Select your mesh that could have alot of color values in it. This could be the option for you! I can get a little messy but goto object/create gradient mesh now it should make a mesh like below. Bend and Select it might work out for you. I think this one was a success! Select the point and add your custom swatch! it works nicely.
I could go much further with this but i'm thinking you should have the general idea. Move anchors, select colors, blah blah blah... I've used this for comics back in version 8 alot so I dont care to finish this. I'll just leave him looking like venom or something. Pretty much if you know one adobe product you know them all. Well have fun!

 

 

 

  
   
   


The work of Mark Matta
e-mail: freepupet@yahoo.com phone: 586-219-2368