Adobe Illustrator for Zombies (and beginners too)

I like to set up my workspace before starting any illustration. Knowing where my tools are and planning out what we're drawing beforehand can be a big time saver.

Shapes and paths are the foundation of everything in Illustrator. In this section we go over the basics of the shape tool and how it is used to create the foundation for many illustrations.

Squares and circles are cool but they are just the beginning of what you can do with shapes. All shapes in illustrator are made up of encore points and in this section we’re going to be learning how to modify those anchor points to make more complex elements

Taking basic shapes and merging them can be a huge time saver and a lot easier than drawing custom shapes. The pathfinder tools help you do that and much much more. We will be discussing how we can use them as part of our illustration here

Up to this point we’ve been using shapes, but what if we turn the stoke on and fill color off. Drawing with lines can be incredibly useful. In this section we go over the basics of drawing with lines.

In this section we keep drawing a cage for Zombie. We go over alignment and how when paired with how we draw lines we can do some really interesting things

We can speed up the drawing process by understanding how objects snap together. We can also speed it along by creating guides and turning on the grid and snapping to it

We’re going back to the shape tool but this time we adding some elements to it and speeding up the process by laying out our illustration on a grid. This comes in handy if you are drawing cons that need to be uniform

In this section we go over Illustrator’s unique way of handling gradients and all the options contained in the gradients palette. We also talk about transparencies and how those are used in our illustrations

Before we start using the pen tool we should explain how layers work in Adobe Illustrator. In this section we’re going to import a sketch on one layer and then draw under it with the pen tool

Before we start drawing we go through how the pen tool works. It’s one of the most powerful drawing tools in illustrator and also one of the hardest to master

Now we’re really digging in. The pen tool takes a lot of practice and repetition and that’s what we do here as we continue to work on our illustration.

Masking lets you crop shapes or groups to an area. In this section we go through how masking works and how we can use it in your illustrations.

In this section I talk about how I approach larger compositions and illustrations. The larger your illustration the more pre planning help speed up the actual drawing process.

In this final illustration I start by setting up my block colors. This helps me see how the colors work together and how the over all contrast of the piece is before I get to far into the details.

We havn’t talked about the type tool yet in this section. Here we go over some of the things we can do with Type in Adobe Illustrato

Now that the composition is working we dig into the details and start to give the fine tuning and small elements that a good illustration needs to look finished.

We are almost done. This time we use the line tool and masking tools to continue to add detail to the background of our image. In the end we should have a pretty good band poster for Zombie.

In this section Zombie and I go through how to make custom brushes.