2D Polyart Masterclass

1. TrailerIntroduction: Hi, welcome to my poly art masterclass. I'm Derek K, my Itchy Finger. I have been a Singaporean artist for over a decade. But I wanted to do something unique, something that represented technology and art. After brainstorming and thinking about many different art styles, I realized that polygons were the perfect representation of what I wanted to achieve. I got into the NFT space where I've sold up to 58 poly artworks to date in the web tree space. My poly artworks and featured in both physical and online at three museums and articles. I've also collaborated with renowned photographers and actors to create some stunning art pieces. In this course, you will learn how to create your own minutely crafted poly art piece from start to finish in Adobe Illustrator. Learn the techniques to outline as well as color your masterpiece. I hope to inspire you to create your own masterpiece based on the skills I'm about to share with you. And there is no better way than to go through my art process while creating the artwork together with you. Come on it, let's get it. 2. Section1 GettingStarted: There are many websites where you can find inspiration and resources. Some of the ones are used more often, Pinterest and Unsplash. Pinterest has many interesting ideas to help in your brainstorming process. Unsplash has copyright free images with a large database of quality images you could consider. Be sure to read the licenses tag to your selected images before proceeding to use them. Choosing a subject matter is important at this stage of creation. It helps to narrow down your search and decision. For me, I love animals, so it's an easy choice for me. In this exercise, I will be using an image of a care. I chose this image because it has good color contrast. The size and composition of the image is good too. Most importantly, it's intense eye sends a powerful message. Before I start working on this image, I would like to enhance it further by making a few tweaks in Photoshop. If you don't have Photoshop on hand, simply skip to the next section, setting up an Artboard in Illustrator. 3. Section2 PreparingImageInPhotoshop: First, let us set up the canvas size for our artwork in Photoshop. Create a new document, and on the right panel, change the unit type to 1,000 width and 1,000 high pixels. We can change the resolution to 72 DPI and the rest of the settings stays. Click on Create to proceed. Now we need to import the image that you want by simply dragging the image into Photoshop. Select the image and drag it into your blank canvas from your desktop. Drag the image into Photoshop. Make sure to resize your image according to how you want the final image to look like. I would always duplicate the image layer so that I can always revert the changes. If I want rename your layers with a suitable name, I am readjusting the brightness and contrast of the image to my liking. To do that on the top bar, select image adjustments, brightness, contrast. Feel free to play around with other adjustment settings until you're satisfied and make sure the image is to your liking. 4. Section3 SettingUpArtboardIllustrator: Now that we have our image ready, let's set up our art board and Illustrator on the right panel, change the unit type to 1,000 width and height. The color mode should be RGB. As we're creating a digital art piece, set the rested effects to 150, though this shouldn't really matter as we're creating a digital and factor artwork can be resized later on. Once you click on Create, a blank artboard will appear. Let us import the image we had in mind. To do that, simply drag the image from your desktop folder into Illustrator. Drag the image onto your artboard, and it should fit nicely as it has the same dimensions as your artboard. First, let's rename your image layer as reference. This is a good habit to have especially. 5. Section4 FamiliarizeTheTools: New anti layer and leave it there for now. The first tool that you will need to be familiar with is the Pen Two. This is used to create your outlines. Another two we need is a live pane to, if you do not see in the pen two drop down option, simply click on the three dot ellipses at the bottom of the two bar. A drawer with full options will appear under Pain section. Select Live Pin icon and drag it into your pen to drop down to pin it. Let's head back to the reference layer and select the circle dot. Doing this selects the whole image. Click on the Properties tab located on the left of the layers tab. Let's change the opacity of the image to about 60% Head back to the layers tab to lock the reference layer. Test out the pen to try to get yourself familiar with it as we will be using it a lot. Select a color that is suiting to your eye and practice outlining the eye of the cap. If you notice the color fills the shape, when it's connected, simply click on the outline icon to convert it to an outline. Instead, if you want a thicker or thinner outline, simply head to the Properties tab and under the stroke section, change the line weight to your liking. 6. Section5 TheLineworksBegins: All set, we are ready to start the linework. I generally start my line work from the eyes because they are the main focus of the image. Mean your artwork or art board with the option key. Start outlining the overall shape. Proceed with the inner outline and always start with an overall shape before getting into further details. There is no need to be overly, as this is the beauty of poly art, where the magic happens when the artwork is completed. Do keep in mind that all point to point are a straight line. There should be no curves involved at all. Let's finish up the outline of the outer. Now we can outline the inner parts of both eyes. Continue to outline any other details in the eye area. Keeping in mind that the eye is the main focus of this image. Therefore, we should pay extra attention to capture all its details the best we can. Details like the Eris highlights eye reflection, or any other shapes that you may discover in the eyes. The outlines may look messy now, but don't worry, we can easily adjust parts that we don't like later on. For now, let's focus on outlining as much as we can. Now I'm proceeding to the nose outline. Try to visualize this image in parts. First, the eyes, the nose, the cheeks, forehead, and the mouth. This will help you to map out the outlines head and the mouth. This will help you to map out the outlines. Next, I'm selecting areas that are obvious in terms of its shape to outline. For example, the eye, the white eyes spot above the eyes or the dark brown stripes on the body. Next I'm drawing rich out lines to portray that the nose is not flat, it is curved, Lines are drawn downwards too. These can act as guidelines for your horizontal ridge outlines. Let's do the same for the eyeball when I'm drawing out lines that are not straight. To show that the eyeball is indeed round and not just a flat plane. Imagine that you're outlining a three D object. It has that and it has shaped. The outlines are meant to wrap around them, conforming to its shape, conforming to its shape. Once an overall shape is outlined, you may start outlining any additional details that are obvious. Take a step back and zoom out using the option minus key on your keyboard. Look at your outboard occasionally to check the overall outline done so far. How does it look? Does it make sense? If it looks awkward to you, don't be afraid to correct it. Now let's work on the nostril and cheeks. Once again, try to imagine it as a three D object. We want it to have contours, hence the shape is curved. The bottom of the cat's mouth has a lot of fur, so we can represent it with spiked edges. Seeing for the forehead, we can try to outline the dark brown parts by adding some spike variations to it to give it the illusion of fur and texture. It may not look like much now, but trust me, keep at it and the results will show. 7. Section6 ConnectingWithTrianglePolygons: Start connecting some of our shapes with triangles. Our aim here is to fill in the shapes with triangles and only triangles. How you map the triangles is not important as long as it fills up the shape. Let us map the eyeball now with triangles. Do it in a sequential manner, from one corner to the opposite. In a pattern, so that it becomes uniform, your zigzag pattern forms a diamond shape. You are doing it right. This takes practice, so don't be afraid to make mistakes. If it's wrong, simply delete and redo. Let's proceed to the cheeks mapping the horizontal and vertical outlines. Make sure to curve your vertical lines slightly to show that the cheeks are round. I have added a darker layer by drawing a square shape and filling it black, turning the opacity to 30% Place the darker layer between a reference and outline layer. This step is optional, but it helps me to see my line work better. Be sure to lock the layer. Proceed to outline the area below the mouth. This is a tricky section because of the fur like before. Simply outline more sharp edges represent the texture. The nearer it is to the mouth, the smaller the edges, the further it is, the bigger the edges. We will now try to fill in all the remaining empty gaps with triangles. Our aim is to make sure the artwork is fully covered with polychords. Zoom in or out as needed, to make sure everything is covered. 8. Section7 PreparingForColor: We are now ready to color the art piece from the layers tab. Select the white circle on the right of the Outline layer. This selects the whole outline that we have done so far. It to object live pain, make. This converts everything in the Outline layer to a live Pin layer. Do note that drawing any additional outlines after converting to live pane will automatically be placed on a separate layer from your Outline layer. You would need to manually drag these new layers into the Outline layer for the live pane to work. 9. Section8 AddingColors: On the reference layer. Turn up the opacity to 100% via the Properties tab. Turn off the dark layer. If you created one earlier, we won't be needing it now. Zoom in to the eye. We shall start coloring from there. From the left two panel, Select the live pane icon. Point your cursor at the area where you want to color. Now press the key option, and you will notice your cursor changes into an eye dropper. Click on an area within the polygon to select a color while holding the option key. Now release the option key and fill the color in the polygon. How do you choose what color to pick? You may ask, I would recommend choosing the mid color between the and the lightest color in that polygon. Using this color pick technique, proceed to color the other parts of the artwork. It is okay to make color mistakes now, we can easily rectify it at a later stage and fine tuning. For now, let's concentrate on coloring every single polygon. 10. Section9 RemovingTheOutlines: You're done. Zoom out of your image and select the outline layer. You should see the entire artwork being highlighted from the left to panel. Select the no outline icon. It is a white box with a red diagonal line inside. You will notice your outlines have disappeared, leaving you your colorful masterpiece. Great job. If you have reached this stage, you have successfully. 11. Section10 IcingOnTheCake: But it doesn't end here. You have come this far. Let's make it even better by fine tuning and adding details to enhance the artwork. Look at the art piece. Which areas do you feel out of place? Keep in mind that a good poly artwork is not the number of triangles you added. It's about choosing the right amount of polygons to represent different parts of the image. Poly artworks are not meant to be too. 12. Section11 CorrectingTheMisfits: Now let's correct the misfits, identify those polyicons, and correct them with another color. A good place to start is to choose another color that is close to the surrounding area. For example, if the left eye has a spot that is not right color, pick from a similar spot from the right eye. This creates balance and helps you determine a better replacement color. This is a crucial step as it helps to balance out your image, to improve its color overall and to make it more visually pleasing. 13. Section12 AddingWhiskers: If you noticed our feline is missing its whiskers, Let's go ahead and create some for him. Now, turn off the outline layer by clicking on the icon on the left. You should only see the original reference image. Now lock the outline layer. Create a new layer called whiskers. Select the pen too, and start drawing the whiskers. It should close back up to form a diamond skid shape. Do note that we are using the field color mode, not the outline mode on the left panel. You may choose to change the color of the whiskers temporarily so that it is easier to see your drawn shapes. Now it is just a matter of placing your whiskers, duplicating them, and resizing them according to your liking. In my case, I've added some eyelashes to the cat's eye as well. When you're done, randomly select some of the whiskers and adjust the opacity for them Randomly, this will create a subtle illusion of depth where some whiskers could be overlapping the other. 14. Section13 AllDone: Save your art work as an image by going to file Export PNG, select Artboard. And Save. That's it. I hope you are happy with your created masterpiece. Be proud that you have come this far in this poly art journey. Remember, never settle until it looks perfect in your eyes. If you have to redo a certain part, do it feel free to share or tag me your artworks on your social media? I would love to check them out. My social media handle is on the screen at my itchy finger. I hope you enjoyed this course and look out for more upcoming courses where I will cover more interesting topics like how to enhance your poly artworks with animations or even convert them to NFTs non fungible token, so that they can be monetized. Till then, cheers.