Illustrator One-on-One: Mastery

14h 9mAdvanced2021-11-08

Authors

Deke McClelland

Author, Educator, Image Editing and Graphic Design Expert

Course details

Discover how to be the best Adobe Illustrator user you know with industry expert Deke McClelland. In this final installment of his comprehensive three-part One-on-One series, Deke explains how Illustrator works in meticulous detail. He makes sense of even the most complex topics by linking them to clearly defined tasks. He shows you how to get around Illustrator more quickly with keyboard shortcuts and customizations, then demonstrates the power of blend modes, opacity masks, the Brushes panel, seamlessly repeating patterns, gradient mesh, and the Puppet Warp tool. Deke also covers graphs, pictographs, logos, and 3D effects. Each chapter leaves you with a sense of real accomplishment that you can apply to your own marketable, eye-popping artwork.

Skills covered

IllustrationIllustratorLimited SeriesAdobeAnimation and Illustration

Concepts

0. Introduction

01 - Welcome to this One-on-One course
02 - Previously on Illustrator One-on-One

31. Shortcuts and Customization

03 - Becoming a lean, mean illustration machine
04 - Installing custom dekeKeys shortcuts
05 - Loading and using dekeKeys
06 - Welcome to the dekeKeys PDF docs
07 - Three out of the hundred custom shortcuts
08 - Still more time-saving shortcuts
09 - Creating your own custom shortcuts
10 - Tool, transparency, and panel shortcuts
11 - Creating your own custom Toolbox

32. Blend Modes and Opacity Masks

12 - The many ways to blend colors
13 - Adjusting the opacity with shortcuts
14 - Blending modes - Multiply and Screen
15 - The other modes - Overlay thru Luminosity
16 - My dekeKeys blend mode shortcuts
17 - The effect of color space on blending modes
18 - A few advanced blending mode tricks
19 - Applying blending modes in the Appearance panel
20 - Creating auto-inverting type
21 - Carving dynamic holes with Knockout Group
22 - Knockout Group option and dynamic attributes
23 - Using the Isolate Blending option
24 - Introducing the opacity mask
25 - Putting an opacity mask into use
26 - Applying blending modes to entire layers
27 - Adding Photoshop pixels to an opacity mask
28 - Finishing up the tattooed face
29 - Exporting transparency to Photoshop

33. The Brushes Panel

30 - Painting with path outlines
31 - Introducing the Brushes panel
32 - Applying and editing a calligraphic brush
33 - Scaling and colorizing art brushes
34 - Applying and customizing scatter brushes
35 - Formatting and editing brushed type
36 - Designing your own custom art brushes
37 - Creating and testing your art brushes
38 - Refining a brush to fit ends and corners
39 - Expanding, filling, and stroking a brush
40 - Type On A Path tool vs. text as an art brush
41 - Distorting art type with the Width tool
42 - Infusing your artwork with a pattern
43 - Painting with bristle brushes

34. Seamlessly Repeating Patterns

44 - Patterns let you be free
45 - Creating a pattern
46 - Introducing the Pattern Editing mode
47 - Saving a copy and undoing a big mistake
48 - The better way to duplicate a pattern
49 - Moving a pattern inside its container
50 - The three tile types - Grid, brick, and hex
51 - Using the Pattern Tile tool
52 - Designing a real-world tessellation
53 - Measuring the exact size of a hex tile
54 - Creating complementary pattern elements
55 - Adding representational pattern elements
56 - Drawing a triangular cartoon eye
57 - Further developing pattern elements
58 - Creating a pattern with a keyboard shortcut
59 - Constructing a seamless denim pattern
60 - Making your denim pattern look like denim
61 - Creating a pattern brush with auto corners
62 - Creating custom start and end tiles

35. Gradient Mesh

63 - Photorealistic painting at its best
64 - Introduction to gradient meshes
65 - Using the dedicated Mesh tool
66 - Creating a basic gradient mesh
67 - Isolating a mesh object
68 - Deleting unwanted, invisible mesh points
69 - Releasing a gradient mesh
70 - Converting mesh points from cusp to smooth
71 - Sharpening or smoothing color transitions
72 - Assigning a mesh to a bendy shape
73 - Converting a linear gradient to a mesh
74 - Converting a radial gradient to a mesh
75 - Painting soft objects with a gradient mesh
76 - Combining a mesh with a compound path
77 - Expressing surface contours with a mesh
78 - Painting contoured highlights
79 - Blending multiple mesh objects
80 - Using gradient meshes to cast shadows

36. The Puppet Warp Tool

81 - Why redraw when you can reposition
82 - Introduction to the Puppet Warp tool
83 - Setting your own custom pins
84 - Hiding pins, path edges, and the mesh
85 - Warning - All changes are final
86 - Disabling content-aware pins
87 - Constraining and twisting pins
88 - Using the Expand Mesh value
89 - Using Puppet Warp for small, complex objects

37. Charts and Pictographs

90 - The pleasures and pitfalls of graphs
91 - Graphing numerical data
92 - Importing a tab-limited spreadsheet
93 - Modifying data to create a category axis
94 - Reformatting text and numerical values
95 - Adjusting the graph type settings
96 - Creating and applying a graph design
97 - Setting the column type to repeating
98 - Recreating a graph at the proper size
99 - Customizing your legend

38. Logos and Specialty Text

100 - Illustrator s logo-making features
101 - Making a logo from one character of type
102 - Creating a logo of interwoven rings
103 - Weaving your rings into a larger ring
104 - Whittling your paths with the Scissors tool
105 - Gradient type and dynamic strokes
106 - Using the Touch Type tool
107 - Two ways to warp type
108 - Creating letter-shaped gradients
109 - Painting reflections onto letterforms
110 - Multicolor fonts - Trajan Color Concept
111 - Using stylistic sets

39. Applying 3D Effects

112 - The five advantages to 3D in Illustrator
113 - Introduction to the three kinds of 3D in Illustrator
114 - Working in 3D space - Pitch, yaw, and roll
115 - Lighting and shading a 3D object
116 - Beveling the edges of a 3D extrusion
117 - Creating live, editable 3D type
118 - Adding cast shadows to 3D type
119 - Understanding the 3D Revolve effect
120 - Using 3D Revolve to create a soda can
121 - Mapping a logo or other art onto a 3D object
122 - Enhancing 3D artwork with faux 3D effects
123 - Combining a stroke with 3D Revolve

Conclusion

124 - Until next time