Sharon Milne - Adobe Master Class Illustrator: Inspiring Artwork and Tutorials by Established and Emerging Artists

Inspiring Artwork and Tutorials by Established and Emerging Artists

Adobe Press

ADOBE MASTER CLASS: ILLUSTRATOR

Inspiring artwork and tutorials by established and emerging artists

Curated by Sharon Milne

This Adobe Press book is published by Peachpit, a division of Pearson Education.

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Copyright 2013 by Sharon Milne

Individual items in this book may be copyrighted by their owners and are used with their permission.

Acquisitions and Project Editor: Rebecca Gulick
Developmental Editors: Rebecca Gulick and Liz Welch
Copy Editor: Liz Welch
Production Coordinator: Becky Winter
Cover Design: Charlene Charles-Will
Interior Design and Compositing: Charlene Charles-Will and Kim Scott, Bumpy Design
Cover Images: Nabhan Abdullatif, Justin Currie, Ekaterina Dedova, Maria Goubar, Grelin Machin,
Svetlana Makarova, Sharon Milne, Michelle Romo

Notice of Rights

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information on getting permission for reprints and excerpts, contact .

Notice of Liability

The information in this book is distributed on an As Is basis without warranty. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of the book, neither the author nor Peachpit shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the instructions contained in this book or by the computer software and hardware products described in it.

Trademarks

Adobe, Illustrator, and Photoshop are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and Peachpit was aware of a trademark claim, the designations appear as requested by the owner of the trademark. All other product names and services identified throughout this book are used in editorial fashion only and for the benefit of such companies with no intention of infringement of the trademark. No such use, or the use of any trade name, is intended to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this book.

ISBN-13: 978-0-321-88640-8
ISBN-10: 0-321-88640-2

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed and bound in the United States of America

For Paul and the girls: Sam, Shelley, and Super Harls. You keep me sane and always loved.

For some artists and designers, facing the blank canvas of a new Adobe Illustrator document is an intimidating challenge. But viewing the astonishing and inspiring work that Sharon Milne has curated for this Adobe Press Master Class book on Illustrator, its clear to me that others relish and revel in the creative freedom offered by that open, white canvas and the creative tools at their disposal in Illustrator.

Its such a pleasure for me to write this foreword. Sharon Milne is a true friend of the Illustrator and vector graphics communities. Sharon, whose own creativity and considerable Illustrator skills are matched by her generosity in sharing her techniques and insights with others, has brought together artists from around the world whose work exudes energy, imagination, and passion, along with an impressive mastery of technique. Colorful and happy, elegant and pure, or dark and expressive, each artist is sure to inspire and delight you with his or her remarkable creative vision.

Its my hope that this inspiration continues as these artists share their Illustrator workflows in the detailed tutorials in this book. Learn new ways to capture your own creative vision with the intricate shapes, expressive color, complex effects, and rich typography that are waiting for you to explore in Illustrator.

So embrace that wide-open canvas in Illustrator and the creative freedom it represents. Remember, with vector, youre always on a path thats going somewhere.

Terry Hemphill
Senior Product Marketing Manager
Adobe Illustrator

When Adobe launched Illustrator in 1987, the key factor was that designers could create crisp illustrations and logos using vectors. Illustrator creates graphics based on mathematical paths and points, so artwork is infinitely scalable. Imagine that! A logo that can literally be printed the size of a billboard without any pixilationthe edges remain the same high quality just as if it were sized at 100%!

Now I confess, when all of this started, I didnt even know what a computer was. I was still messing with pencils and rolls of wallpaper on my mothers carpet. It wasnt until about 10 years ago I discovered vector art and what it was capable of. At the time, I thought of vector art as being something similar to a cartoon-styled graphic, similar to cel shading.

When I ventured into digital art, I wrestled with what size to have my digital canvas. I wanted to make it large so I could have a high-quality piece to print, but it took up so much space on my hard drive and rendered so slowly. So when I learned about the scalable properties of vector art created in Illustrator, my mind was truly blown. When vector came along in my life, I realized size was something I no longer had to worry about. This is one of the things that make vector such an appealing medium.

With each new version of Adobe Illustrator, great new tools and options are introduced, advancing artists from basic color vector graphics in 1987 to creating digital painted artwork, with the advent of Bristle Brush in Illustrator CS5 and Gradients and Strokes in Illustrator CS6. Tools such as Gradient Mesh give the skilled graphic designer the ability to create smooth vector graphics that look like an airbrushed digital painting! With the introduction of Live Trace, which later was replaced in Illustrator CS6 by Image Trace, you can push the medium even further and trace a photograph, color for color, and create a scalable image with realistic detail.

The benefits of Illustrator are not only infinite scalability, but also versatility that cant be matched with raster graphics. What may take hours in a raster image can be done in Adobe Illustrator with a few clicks. That means your client could request color or shape changes at the eleventh hour, and you could effortlessly modify the graphic to their new specifications.

However, there is some trade-off to all these benefits of the medium. As its all based on mathematical points and paths, if you want to create awesome vector-based paintings, it takes skill, creativity, and a lot of planning! It can be much easier to create that appearance in a raster-based program, if youre willing to sacrifice the versatility of vector. So whos willing to go through all of that? Youll be happy to know there are phenomenal vector artists out there who continually test the boundaries of the vector medium and Illustrator, proving that creative challenges can make for some very beautiful artwork.

Its my privilege to introduce you to some of these artists.

Adobe Master Class: Illustrator presents 31 artists who use Illustrator to create stylish, innovative, and inspiring illustration work, taking the humble paths and points beyond the logo and mascot to full-fledged works of art. As an active member of the online vector community, Ive encountered many talented vector artists. They are part of the amazing art communities of deviantArt and Vectortuts+, as well as Adobes own Illustrator blog.