Profile for stubby43 - Adobe illustrator, alumni club your safe for now.

stubby43 aka Phil is a 25.42 year old boy, has been a member since December 22, 2006, has scored 3,809 submissions, giving an average score of 2.65, helping 191 designs get printed.

URL: http://www.travellingcameraclub.com/
AIM: stubbyloves

Mar 25 '08 by stubby43
50 Comments
Watch this
Share:

Adobe illustrator, alumni club your safe for now.

I just downloaded a 30 day trial of Adobe illustrator and it looks like its a really good program, but I'm struggling to get used to it.

I'm trying to turn this sketch into a logo but I'm having trouble getting used to the drawing tools.

Torakamikaze on Mar 25 '08 at 1:19pm

pen tool ftw!

zipperking on Mar 25 '08 at 1:20pm

pen tool! let me know if you can't figure it out and need help.

Melikochan on Mar 25 '08 at 1:21pm

Yeah, go for the pen tool -- the pencil and brush tools are much different than they are in photoshop, but the pen tool, after some playing around with, is pretty straight-forward.

Bramish on Mar 25 '08 at 1:21pm

Just put some practise in with the Pen tool.

I was Anti-Illustrator up until a few months ago just got it frustrated me so after being used to working in Photoshop.

Now I can't get enough of it.

stubby43 on Mar 25 '08 at 1:30pm

I'm having a really hard time with the pen tool, I seem to be pretty good at making patterns but not outlineing an image.

martiandrivein on Mar 25 '08 at 1:31pm

change the fill to be the outline. haha.

Bramish on Mar 25 '08 at 1:32pm

Yeah. Those two squares bottom left are the fill and stroke colours. Right now you have a black fill and no stroke selected. Stroke is outline.

Torakamikaze on Mar 25 '08 at 1:37pm

also, shift+click is your friend for making pretty straight lines... like in your logo

tracerbullet on Mar 25 '08 at 1:38pm

and if you just click from point to point you'll make straight lines instead of curves

Torakamikaze on Mar 25 '08 at 1:39pm

and if you're transitioning from a curved line to a straight, i.e. like when tracing the letter R, you alt+click the endpoint after you make the curve.

(its alt+click right?)

Bramish on Mar 25 '08 at 1:40pm

Illustrator's not a program you can just open up and use if you've never used anything similar. Get yoursen a tutorial and run through that I reckon.

zipperking on Mar 25 '08 at 1:40pm

and if you do draw a curve, if you click the last point you made before going on the the next one it will cut off the curve and let you create straight lines again.

mezo on Mar 25 '08 at 1:41pm

That's a hoot!

stubby43 on Mar 25 '08 at 1:42pm

Thanks for the help, i think I'm going to get a tutorial.

Bramish on Mar 25 '08 at 1:43pm

It might also be worth you doing a short course. I did a 2-day one to learn the basics and it was definitely useful to have someone there ~~sniggering at my ineptitude~~ watching over me.

Torakamikaze on Mar 25 '08 at 1:44pm

zipperking on Mar 25 '08 at 1:40pm

and if you do draw a curve, if you click the last point you made before going on the the next one it will cut off the curve and let you create straight lines again.

zipper makes things that i said a lot less confusing

zipperking on Mar 25 '08 at 1:44pm

the adobe classroom in a book series is pretty good. That's how I learned Illustrator.

zipperking on Mar 25 '08 at 1:45pm

haha tora, well when you have a simple mind to start with, i guess things just come out simple. :)

tracerbullet on Mar 25 '08 at 1:51pm

i learned just by reading through the help file *shrug*

tracerbullet on Mar 25 '08 at 1:51pm

although i must note that just because i know how to use illustrator, that doesn't mean i'm good at using illustrator

Torakamikaze on Mar 25 '08 at 1:55pm

i learned by starting in high school *twirl*

stubby43 on Mar 25 '08 at 5:27pm

Hey thanks guys, I'm getting better at it, I'm still struggling with the curves and keeping the lines perfectly straight but its better than it was.

Bramish on Mar 25 '08 at 5:31pm

Holding shift as you add a new point will constrain your lines to 45 angles. But keeping a line straight is easy.

What I tend to do when tracing stuff with the pen tool is just use straight lines to begin with. Just put p[oints on all the key places, corners etc. Then you can curve the lines where needed later, and also add and subtract points if you have to.

tesco on Mar 25 '08 at 5:34pm

I'll redo it for twenty quid in my bargain basement

zipperking on Mar 25 '08 at 5:34pm

oh and another tip. I like to set up a couple of guidlines (view rulers then click and drag a line out from the ruler and release where you want it) just so I can keep everything nice and even.

martiandrivein on Mar 25 '08 at 5:37pm

As far as books go. The visual quickstart guide is a whole lot more helpful than the classroom in a book (for me at least)

stubby43 on Mar 25 '08 at 5:37pm

Dan the offers nice but money is stupidly tight and it is about time I learnt how to do these things, I've been hanging around a design forum way to long not nowing how to design.

thanks for the tips, I new designing a tee shirt was hard but I had no idea something as simple as outlining a logo would be difficult.

mezo on Mar 25 '08 at 5:38pm

I dunno why you have not live traced the shit, yet.

stubby43 on Mar 25 '08 at 5:39pm

I used live trace but because of the ink blotches it looks imperfect, which is kind of annoying when I spent for ever drawing the logo out to an exact scale.

zipperking on Mar 25 '08 at 5:41pm

well if it gets to the point of you pulling your hair out, I can trace it for you. I'll even beat tesco's price and do it for free.

martiandrivein on Mar 25 '08 at 5:43pm

lol's @ tesco comment. He'd make that so effing rad it'd blow your mind.

mezo on Mar 25 '08 at 5:44pm

Live trace.

Then use the pen tool with the - (subtract) attached to it to delete the stray points.

Then use the WHITE selection arrow to move around other points to get the lines how you want em.

stubby43 on Mar 25 '08 at 5:45pm

This is how it looks with live trace.

Zipper king your a super generous guy, I might take you up on the offer, but for now I'm going to stick with it.

stubby43 on Mar 25 '08 at 5:48pm

Oh I know Rolf, Dan drew me an amazing camera for �20 similar to his engine design its absolutly amazing but the only use for it I've found is my desktop, it was supposed to be graphics for a website but I was getting way, way ahead of my abilities and as per usual I didnt stick at it.

Perudoesitbetterthanu on Mar 25 '08 at 5:51pm

just use the pen tool, but it has to be the outline, not fill. you have to click the square that has a hole in it. haha.

i still use CS i dont like using live trace becauseyou dont have much control.

zipperking on Mar 25 '08 at 5:52pm

Right on, i'm all for you trying to do it yourself, it's the only way you'll get better. but my email is jon.barthell@gmail.com if you want a back up plan :) good luck!

anushka on Mar 25 '08 at 5:54pm

Sod the Pen tool, go straight to the Pathfinder options - it's far easier to make a box and some circles and join them together than fart arsing around making curves with the pen tool.

Bramish on Mar 25 '08 at 5:54pm

I'll beat zipperking's offer. I'll do it, and I'll pay you!

zipperking on Mar 25 '08 at 5:57pm

haha

Steve The Great on Mar 25 '08 at 5:58pm

I'll pay double what bramish pays

tesco on Mar 25 '08 at 5:58pm

martiandrivein on Mar 25 '08 at 5:43pm

lol's @ tesco comment. He'd make that so effing rad it'd blow your mind.

haha well give me a week and �500 then maybe I'll squeeze out something mind blowing

martiandrivein on Mar 25 '08 at 6:05pm

The pen tool is your friend

mezo on Mar 25 '08 at 6:07pm

You can change variations on live trace to vary control.

martiandrivein on Mar 25 '08 at 6:07pm

woops @ line over the "r" but it's fixed if you want it

fatheed on Mar 25 '08 at 6:26pm

Stubby - make sure you persist with this! I look forward to seeing the final product.

If I were you, I would consider rendering each of the letters individually, then linking them later on. The kerning and letter widths are really not pretty at the moment - but this is a learning curve.

I also have zero experience on Illustrator, so I'm interested to see how you get along.

martiandrivein on Mar 25 '08 at 6:29pm

@ fatheed. If he's just tracing that handdrawn logo, rendering each letter alone would be a pain. I created it all using the pathfinder and pen tool, in about 3 minutes

zipperking on Mar 25 '08 at 6:33pm

I don't know, rendering each letter could help the final product and it wouldn't be that much more work. Instead of 3 minutes it would take like 10 or 15.

martiandrivein on Mar 25 '08 at 6:35pm

you are right fo sho, it would unlock a whole lot of potential (being able to manipulate the individual characters). but it does create more difficulties.

2 days later

stubby43 on Mar 27 '08 at 7:10pm

Dont worry, your safe for now I dont think I'll be getting printed any time soon.

tesco on Mar 27 '08 at 7:50pm

I think the moral here is: don't run before you can walk. Have you tried simply typing out Mackey Fresh and seeing what it looks like in different fonts?

You must be logged in to leave a comment.

My gallery photos

→ All of my 2 photos

All about me

Too Many Choices - Threadless, Best T-shirts Ever

Login to Threadless!

My gallery photos

All about me