Illustrator Made Easy

Anyone can make their own portfolio!

2009-06-19T22:47:00.000-07:00

I found this awesome new
place to make a design portfolio!

Anyone can do it, and it's free!
Check mine out at danlong.carbonmade.com

80 of the Best Vector and Illustrator Free Resources

2009-02-25T10:06:00.000-08:00

SPECKY BOY SAYS "

I have taken all Vector articles and all User Submitted/Recommended Resources and compiled this list of the Best Illustrator/Vector Resources.
I took into consideration popularity (both from outgoing links and Technoratii ranking), the quality of resources, number of resources and, to be honest, how well there site was designed.

I have split the resources into categories: Free Resources (downloads); Tutorials; Free Illustrator Brushs; Illustrator Symbols; Illustrator Plugin; Free Vector Logos; Free Vector Editors.

Thanks to everyone who helped me with this list. "

80 RESOURCES

LEARN ILLUSTRATOR CS3 IN 30 DAYS!!!

2009-02-06T13:15:00.000-08:00

This is an awesome group of posts from Vectordiary that will teach ya Adobe Illustrator in 30 days or less!

Check out NOLAN CURTIS

2009-01-15T15:13:00.000-08:00

I know, I haven't been posting for a while. With school and work, it's been hard to find some blogging time, but I've got something special for you coming up within the next month!!

It's top secret right now, but it might have something to do with this guy....

Nolan Curtis

Nolan has some REALLY COOL free vectors!

I will be posting soon.........

Illustrator’s Pen Tool: The Comprehensive Guide by Vectortuts.com

2009-01-03T14:14:00.000-08:00

Ah, the pen tool.

So useful and yet so difficult to understand.

There is such a horrible learning curve with that stinking pen tool. I found an awesome tutorial that will help you on your way.

Ian Yates wrote this awesome tutorial for Vectortuts.

Illustrator’s Pen Tool: The Comprehensive Guide by Vectortuts.com

Adobe Illustrator Broken Text Video Tutorial

2008-12-31T12:45:00.000-08:00

Here is a quick tutorial that will show you how to make your text look broken and shattered.

Does this tutorial help you out? Please comment and let me know what you think!! I would really appreciate it!!!

Awesome Artist!

2008-12-29T16:45:00.000-08:00

Marcus Vinícius is 21 years old, living in Brazil and works with interactive projects, graphic design, branding and advertising.

Marcus is a very talented artist. This stuff will show you what you can do with vector graphics.

Click on the link below!

SucraM

For further information, e-mail sucram@sucram.art.br or call +55 (61) 91776267

Stroke and Fill

2008-12-28T13:30:00.000-08:00

This is a very basic tutorial about Stroke and Fill.

Pen Tool Basics

2008-12-26T11:34:00.000-08:00

Here is a quick tutorial about the Pen Tool.

Please post any comments or questions.

Bamboo Tablet Reviewed

2008-12-24T23:25:00.000-08:00

I totally recommend this awesome product!!! I purchased it about a month ago, and now I use it all the time for any artwork that I create. This thing works awesome with Adobe Illustrator!! It comes with a battery free mouse and battery free, pressure sensitive stylus (pen) that is really comfortable and feels natural and intuitive when you use it.

Bamboo Funmakes your computer your canvas, allowing you to freely express yourself by simply touching the pen tip to the tablet. Touch up digital photos, draw by hand, create artwork and paintings, and even write in your own handwriting.

Not only is it awesome with Adobe Illustrator, but it comes with other software. Check it out!!

Adobe® Photoshop® Elements (5.0 WIN / 4.0 MAC) for editing, retouching, enhancing, organizing, and sharing digital photos
Corel® Painter™ Essentials 3.0 for creating natural media art and turning photos into paintings
Nik® Color Efex™ Pro 2.0 GE for selectively applying lighting and photo enhancements with the pen

Bamboo Fun is also available in a variety of colors and sizes. For small workspaces or someone on the move, the small Bamboo Fun size is perfect. If you’re starting to explore graphics applications or completing hobby projects on your home computer, you’ll appreciate the extra workspace of a medium tablet.

The Bamboo Fun (Small) Black Tablet with Pen, Mouse & Graphics Software is priced at $91.60
Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 7.6 x 0.5 inches ; 12.3 ounces
The active area is 5.8" W x 3.7" D

The Bamboo Fun (Medium) Black Tablet with Pen, Mouse & Graphics Software is priced at $171.52
Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 11.1 x 0.5 inches ; 1.5 pounds
The active area is 8.5" W x 5.3" D

If you have any comments or questions, please post them. If you already have one of these, or you decide to purchase one, let me know what you think.

Top 5 places to download FREE VECTORS!

2008-12-24T08:36:00.000-08:00

If your looking for some inspiration, check out these awesome places to download free vectors! Everyone loves something for free, right? You are really gonna love this stuff. Not only will you be inspired, but you'll want to use some of this stuff in your own creations! Just be sure and check out the licensing, so you don't infringe upon anyone else's rights.

1. FREEVECTORS.NET

FreeVectors.net was developed in 2007 with the intent of creating an easily searchable index/catalogue of free to use vector graphics.

2. VECTEEZY.COM

Vecteezy is an index of Free Vector Graphics available for download by some of the best artists around the world. The site is updated every day, so be sure to check back often.

3. VECTOR4FREE.COM

Vector4free.com is a web site dedicated to free vector graphics: Adobe Illustrator AI, EPS, PDF, SVG, Corel Draw CDR files free to download - that's what you can find here.

4. FREE-VECTORS.COM

Our FREE VECTORS may be used for your own DESIGNS, or your client designs but you may not sell/offer for free our VECTORS in any sort of collection, such as distributing to a third party via CD, diskette, or letting others to download them from your websites etc.

5. QVECTORS.COM

Q for Quality. that's our main objective, by showcasing only quality vector graphics for free download.

All of these places are really cool, and have different content on them. You can even submit some of your own vectors.

Please tell me what you think about these sights, and if you know of any sites that give away free vectors, let me know.

3D sphere in Adobe Illustrator.

2008-12-17T15:46:00.000-08:00

Today, I'm gonna teach you an easy way to make a 3D sphere in Adobe Illustrator.

Open up a brand new blank document in Illustrator.

If you don't know how, then follow this tutorial here.

In the Tools Panel, the 8th tool down is called the Rectangle Tool.We obviously don't wanna use that, cuz what we're making is ROUND!

So, move your mouse cursor over the Rectangle Tool, and hold down the left mouse button until this little beauty pops up.Still holding the left mouse button down, move your cursor over the Ellipse Tool and release the mouse.

Now the Tools Panel should look like this.Check out the Ellipse Tool highlighted there!

Next, we are gonna create the basis for our sphere. What do we start out with? Yup! You guessed it, a circle!

Move your cursor over to the middle of your blank document, hold down the ALT+Shift key on your keyboard, hold down your left mouse button and drag the cursor out about an inch or so, and then let go of the mouse button.

Here's what you get.What you want to do is fill that circle with with some kind of gradient to give it a 3D feel.

What's a gradient?

A gradient is a color that transitions from light to dark, or, from one color to another smoooothly.

Look to the right side of your screen at the Swatches Panel.
Specifically, the very first swatch in the fourth row down.
The little square that goes from white to black.

If you hold your mouse over it, it will say Linear Gradient 1.

Click on that and now the circle you made will be filled with a gradientTo help your little circle on its way to becoming a sphere, you want to make it look like the sun is shining down on it. Go up to the menu bar, click on object-transform-rotate.

When the rotate menu pops up, type in -45 then click on the OK button.Now your circle will look like this.For the last part of this, you want your circle to have a shadow, so go up to the Menu Bar, click on effect-stylize-drop shadow.

When the drop shadow menu pops up, click OK and now you have your finished sphere.

Did you find this tutorial helpful? Do you have any comment or questions? I would love to hear from you, so click on one of the links below!!

Use Adobe Illustrator's Live Trace to turn your photographs into vectors.

2008-12-16T12:46:00.000-08:00

Check out this tutorial to learn about vectors.

Do ya wanna quick way to turn your bitmaps into vectors quick and easy?

Use the Live Trace feature in Adobe Illustrator.
It's so cool!! Here's how.

First, open up a blank document, just like I showed you in this tutorial.
Click on "File" in the menu bar so you get your drop down menu, just like this.

Click on "Place" and go through the menu to find the photograph that you want to vectorize.
Double click on that and it shows up in the middle of your blank document.
I used a picture of my mom. LOVE YA MOM!!

The picture should be in a blue box with a blue "X" going through it and there should be 8 little blue boxes around the outside of your picture.
The little boxes are called "anchor points," and those are used to rezise the image.

To resize the image and keep it in the correct perspective, you have to hold down the shift key, and hover the mouse over one of the anchor points until the mouse cursor becomes two arrows pointing in opposite directions, then hold down the right mouse key, and move the mouse away from your picture.

Right below the "Menu Bar," which we talked about in this tutorial , is the "Control Panel." The Control Panel is where all the magic happens. It's where you can customize all of your settings.

There are four big buttons in the "Menu Bar." The "Embed" button, the "Edit Original" button, the "Live Trace" button, and the "Mask" button.
We are just gonna look at the tiny button to the right of the "Live Trace" button. Do you see the little button with the down arrow on it? This is the "tracing presets and options" button. If you click on it, you will see this menu.

For this tutorial, we are gonna click on the "Color 16" preset. Here's what happens to your photo.

If you don't like the results, you can either go up to the menu bar, click "Edit'"-"Undo Make Tracing," or hold down CTRL+Z to undo what you just did.
Mess around with the Live Trace presets and try "Comic Art," or "Grayscale." Have fun and remember, you can always hold down CTRL+Z to undo your last action. You can even press CTRL+Z multiple times to undo multiple actions.

Here's what several of the Live Trace presets look like. Remember, experiment and practice! But mostly, HAVE FUN!!

Did you like this tutorial? Did you learn anything? Drop me a comment, or email me to tell me what you think.

Create a Brand Spankin' New Document with Adobe Illustrator

2008-12-12T23:46:00.000-08:00

This Adobe Illustrator tutorial is gonna teach you how to make a brand new document, super quick and super easy!
I am running Adobe Illustrator CS3 on a PC, so if you have a different version of Illustrator, or, you are using a Mac, things are gonna look a wee bit different, but its gonna work pretty much the same way.

Here's what your gonna see when you first fire up Illustrator.

The main thing that you notice is that big square in the middle of the screen. I like to call that the "getting started menu." There are tons of neat things that you can do with it, but your gonna learn that stuff a little later on. Check back for posts on that subject in the future!!

For now...

To start out, we are gonna go right to the bar that's at the top of the screen. You know, this bar with all the words on it.

This is called the Menu Bar and this thingy organizes all of your awesome Illustrator commands. What we are gonna focus on right now is the "File" menu. Click on "File" and your gonna see this menu.

Note to self...

There sure are a lot of words there, huh? But do you notice how most of them are kinda faded looking? That's because they are inactive, and you can't click on them yet.

The very top word under the"File" menu, the one that says "New," click on that and you'll bring up the "New Document" window.

This menu has all kinds of stuff. Do you see the little blue arrows that are pointing down that live inside the little boxes on the right? These are called drop down menus, and if you click on one, it will give you different options. Click on the arrow to the right of the word "Size," and you'll see this happen.

These are standard predetermined sizes. Personally, I like to select the "Letter" size, just cuz' it's the size of a standard piece of paper. You know, paper that you would use in a printer. Click on "Letter" and then go up to the top right side of the new document window and click on the box with "OK" in it. You should now see this.

A blank open document all ready to be used!

Now I know your excited, and you wanna get to some designing, but this tutorial is just about opening a file. Your just gonna have to wait for the next tutorial, or you can just mess around and click on stuff. Have FUN!!

What the heck is Adobe Illustrator?

2008-12-06T18:41:00.000-08:00

Adobe Illustrator is the industry standard for vector graphics.

I know, I know... your thinking, "What the heck are vector graphics?"

Well check this out. Vector graphics are digital images that use mathematical calculations and computer algorithms to define shapes and lines.

Isn't that awesome?
Do you realize what this means?

Um, no?

That's totally OK, because that's what I'm here for. To help you get past that pain in the neck, Adobe Illustrator learning curve.

Why are vectors so dang cool?

Vectors are awesome because all those calculations and algorithms give you a really crisp and clearly defined graphic that doesn't get all pixelated or fuzzy when you zoom in on it or blow it up really big. That means that you can use the same graphic that you made for a business card, blow it up really super huge, even up to the size of a billboard, and you will still have the exact same quality graphic

You would think that if you had a graphic that was little, and you blew it up really big, that the file size would get bigger. That is just not true with Illustrator, simply because no matter what size your graphic is, it still uses the same mathematical equations.

What kind of stuff can I do with Illustrator?

You can design ANYTHING you want.

You can design, logos, text documents or even cartoons, (have you ever seen South Park, or The Simpsons?)

You can design stuff for video games, and any kind of graphic used on the internet. It's totally ideal for the web because the files are so small compared to other kinds of graphics like jpegs or bitmaps.

When you get really good with Illustrator, you can even make photo realistic art that is so real looking that you literally cannot tell the difference between it and an actual photo.

So quit yer yappin' and post some tutorials already!

OK, I'm on it. You should see your first tutorial within a day or two.

If you have already used Adobe Photoshop, then you've already got one foot in the door. If you never have used Photoshop, no problem. I'll make sure that everyone at every skill level will be able to follow the tutorials in this here blog. If you don't understand something, have any questions or comments, or you would like me to write about something, I would love to hear from you. Just click on my link, or on the comment button below.

Greetings everyone!

2008-12-05T22:59:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! Welcome to Illustrator Made Easy on blogspot.com.

Adobe Illustrator is one of the best design tools around for artists today. While there are many great free online tutorials for the intermediate and advanced users of Illustrator, I realized that there is a limited number of tutorials for the beginner. If you are new to Adobe Illustrator, then this blog is for you! You will learn many cool and fun things about Illustrator in a way that's fun and easy to understand. Let's get started!!

Illustrator Made Easy

Anyone can make their own portfolio!

80 of the Best Vector and Illustrator Free Resources

LEARN ILLUSTRATOR CS3 IN 30 DAYS!!!

TOP 6 ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR TUTORIAL BOOKS

Check out NOLAN CURTIS

Illustrator’s Pen Tool: The Comprehensive Guide by Vectortuts.com

Adobe Illustrator Broken Text Video Tutorial

Awesome Artist!

Stroke and Fill

Pen Tool Basics

Bamboo Tablet Reviewed

Top 5 places to download FREE VECTORS!

3D sphere in Adobe Illustrator.

Use Adobe Illustrator's Live Trace to turn your photographs into vectors.

Create a Brand Spankin' New Document with Adobe Illustrator

What the heck is Adobe Illustrator?

Greetings everyone!