Fun With Illustrator Brushes (Best of clickpopmedia)

Fun With Illustrator Brushes

Step 0.5:
Open Illustrator


Step 1:
Using the Rectangle Tool (keyboard shortcut “m”) Create 1 black square and 1 white squarenext to each other (if you don’t know this yet, if you hold down shift while dragging out a rectangle, circle, etc. it will make a x by x square, circle, or whatnot).

Step 2:

Select the 2 squares and drag them into your brushes tab.

Step 3:

When the New Brush menu pops up, make sure New Pattern Brush is selected and pressOK.

Step 4:

In the Pattern Brush Options, give your brush a name, leave the other settings alone, and hitOK.

Step 5:

Use the Ellipse Tool (keyboard shortcut L) to make a circle. Apply your new brush as the stroke.

Step 6:

If you’re lucky, you’ll end up with the correct symbol. Odds are you won’t though, so adjust the stroke weight until you’re shape is just right.

Step 7:

Don’t worry, we’re almost done. Select your circle and go to Object>Expand Appearance. That will make your stroke into individual shapes that you can scale, color, and otherwise edit as you wish.

Step 8:

Now Delete the three white border pieces. This will leave you with two extra circles. Set one circles fill to black and shrink it down to the center. Give the other circle a black stroke and enlarge it.

By changing the stroke width before you expand the appearance, you can make some other neat shapes. Mess around with it and have some fun.

Illustrator Tutorial: Designing a Sleek Pencil Icon (best of designblurb.com)

Illustrator Tutorial: Designing a Sleek Pencil Icon

Even though I consider myself a newby with Adobe Illustrator, I’ve been learning it for a few months now, and I find it very intriguing! I was inspired to design this kooky little pencil, that some would say works for icon design. So I thought I would write a tutorial on how to achieve the design of this sleek pencil using Adobe Illustrator CS3.

Note: Since Illustrator changes very little over the versions, it shouldn’t matter too much if you’re using an older version.

Step 1

First thing’s first, set up your canvas. Just go to File > New, and use whatever settings you like. I’ve never been a big fan of using custom sizes and all that in Illustrator, unless designing a business card or something like that, so just change the color mode to RGB and leave the rest.

Enable the grid (View > Show Grid) and Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid).

Step 2

Let’s create the base of our shape. Using the Rectangle Tool (M), draw out a rectangle on your canvas, keeping it aligned with the grid. Looking at the subdivisions of your grid, make sure that the base of our pencil is an even number of boxes tall, umm, see the screenshot:

Width isn’t important at this time. You can easily change it later if it looks out of whack with the rest of the pencil.

Step 3

Now we should make the rest of the separate shapes. You’ll need to use various different tools for this one, such as: the Pen Tool and the Rounded Rectangle Tool. See the below screenshot to get the idea of it.

So, using the Pen Tool, you should create the pointed end(s). Start by creating the wood part of it, then afterward create the sharper point (the lead).

Step 4

Now let’s give the pencil some life! Start with coloring each shape the color you would like it to have.

Now, using these colors as a guide, add gradients to each of your shapes (some might not require it, though).

Now, as you can see we’ve added gradients to each of the shapes. All of these are simple two-color gradients except for one, the metal piece next to the eraser. All of the colors used in this gradient were: #f2f2f2,#b3b3b3, #ffffff and #e6e6e6.

You should understand that it isn’t important that you comply exactly with what you see above, the shiny metal effect is very random, so you should just add a few extra points, change the colors of them, etc.

Get creative, be messy with the settings.

Step 5

Let’s finish off by adding a nice little highlight effect to the top of our pencil. Start by getting out the Pen Tool, then draw a simple two-point path along the top like this:

When you’re done with the path, add a fairly-thick rounded-corner stroke to it, using whatever color you like. In the “Transparency” tab (Window > Transparency), change the mode to Screen and lower the opacity to around 50%.

Hopefully by now you have something like this:

Hopefully!

Completion

OK, looks like we’re pretty much done! My apologies if the tutorial was a little lean on instructions, but this was my first Illustrator tutorial! If you have any questions at all, please leave a comment or contact me!

Make a Handy 3D Vector Calendar Icon (best of Vectut)

Make a Handy 3D Vector Calendar Icon

Learn to make a handy calendar icon to use on your blog, website, or print projects. We’ll use Illustrators Path and 3D tools to create this design. Also, a simple page curl effect will be demonstrated as well. Let’s jump into this tutorial.

Final Image Preview

Here is the final look we’ll be achieving. To successfully complete this tutorial you should have a fundamental grasp of Illustrators tools.

Step 1

Start by drawing a square using the Rectangle Tool (M).

Step 2

Rotate the square by going to Effect > 3D > Rotate. You do not have to enter these exact values, but be sure to make note of the values you do enter because you’ll need to refer to them again when we add text. After you click OK, expand your shape by going to Object > Expand Appearance.

Step 3

To simulate the depth of the calendar we’ll use Illustrator’s 3D Extrude & Bevel Options. Go to Effect > 3D > Extrude & Bevel. Enter 1 degree for the X axis rotation (first box). In the Extrude Depth box enter a high number, as shown below. The larger the X axis number the smaller your value for Extrude Depth will be.

I prefer this method because it distorts the face of the calendar much less than entering a large X axis number and small Extrude Depth number. Click OK, then go to Object > Expand Appearance. Last, go to Object > Ungroup. Note, you may have to ungroup the object several times in order for each shape to be individually handled.

Step 4

Repeat Step 3 to make the base of the calendar. Enlarge the shape so that it is slightly wider than the top. Remember to expand and ungroup the shape so that you can color each side of the object later.

Step 5

Create a small border around each of the edges of the top part of the calendar by going to Object > Path > Offset Path. Enter the values shown below. This small border will allow us to give the edge of each side calendar side a little bit of highlight or alternative gradient, which is a small detail, but adds to the overall quality of the piece.

Step 6

Give the inner shapes you just made a slight gradient. Observe how the left side of the calendar has a slightly lighter gradient than the right.

Using the Pen Tool (P), draw lines inside the inner shapes you just made to simulate the edge of some of the calendar pages. There is no math involved with this step. Just use your eye and make it look good. Notice how the lines taper down to a point.

Step 7

Once you have all the lines drawn, use the Distribute Palette to make the space between each of the lines perfect.

Step 8

Additionally, you can select all the lines at once and give them a gradient to help them blend into the shapes behind them a little more.

Give the base of the calendar some color making sure to apply a slightly lighter color on the left and a darker color on the right.

Using the same line shape you drew to create the edge of the pages, add it as highlights below to give the impression of a shadow and a highlight.

Step 9

Select a font that you like (I’ve used Din) and type the words you’d like to appear on the front of the calendar. Rotate the type to match the angle of the surface of the calendar by going to Effect > 3D > Rotate. Enter the values that you used in Step 2, then click OK.

Step 10

Add the type to the face of the calendar and change the color to white.