Transcripts
1. Introduction : Hey, I'm Nina, even though most people know me by my artistic name, Di Ujdi. I'm an artist, illustrator, and textile designer. For a long time. I've been exploring many different art fields, from street art and graphic design, to starting my own fashion brand of arts curves, and falling in love with textile design. In this class I will cover all the basics on how to create a pattern design in Adobe Illustrator from start to finish. So if you ever wanted to design your own fabric, then this class would be perfect for you. Also, this class is targeted towards pattern design beginners and Adobe Illustrator beginners. So just the basic knowledge of the program will be enough. If you have designed patterns before in Adobe Illustrator, then this class may be a bit slow for you, but you might also pick up some of my tips and tricks, especially when it comes to speeding up your workflow. I will take you through my inspiration process, choosing a subject and trying to stay on track with your original idea. I will show you how to create elements in Adobe Illustrator with or without the drawing tablet, how to create your pattern template and useful shortcut actions that will help you work more efficiently, so that you don't have to worry about technicalities and you can have more time for your creativity. We'll talk about the logic of creating a seamless pattern and finally preparing it for printing. In the next video, I'll explain a project that we will be working on, so let's jump into it.
2. Your Project: For this project, you'll need a paper and pen and Adobe Illustrator. It is also helpful to have a drawing tablet, but if you don't have it, don't worry because I will show you how to create these elements in Adobe Illustrator without a drawing tablet and with the help of your paper sketches. You will be creating a seamless pattern inspired by spring. I think the topic is so vibrant and there are a lot of things that can inspire you. On the other hand, is most of the topics, it is very wide and it will be useful to practice how to find your focus. Here are a few suggestions for starting out. Think about what makes you excited when the spring comes. Is it a specific kind of flower, bird song, or maybe scenery that surrounds you? Write down everything that pops in your mind. Visually research about your topic on Pinterest and save your images that inspire you or find your inspiration outside. Snap some photos of the nature in your surroundings, or collect some flowers and greenery to use it later as a reference. However you start, save your inspiration images in a separate folder and let's start making a spring mode for it, so we can organize everything.
3. Mood Board: [MUSIC] Mood boards are super-helpful for finding that one main theme, main subject you want to work with, and staying on track with what you're doing later. All in all, mood boards are super helpful for staying organized and not getting lost, especially when it comes to doing bigger projects like for example, making a textile design collections. Here you can see a template that I'm going to use to organize the images I saved previously, and I also made this template available for you so you can download it and use it. You will find it in the class resources. Before we start organizing our images on this template, let me just explain how I started. When I thought about spring, the first thing I had in mind are wild flowers and my house on the mountain. I really enjoy spending my time there, especially during spring and summer when everything blooms. I love the wilderness, wildflower fields that surround my house but since I'm not there at the moment, I use Pinterest to find more inspiration for this project. I researched about wild flowers, wildflower fields, and found images that really inspire me and I collected them on my Pinterest board. One thing to keep in mind while you are researching and finding your inspiration, is to always have the final idea somewhere in your mind. Do you want to represent some specifical flowers? Do you want to represent their form? Or like me, you want to represent a field as a whole. I decided to go with the idea of a wildflower field and to show abundancy of vegetation and different flowers through different shapes and colors. Now let's get back to our mood board template in Adobe Illustrator, and I'll show you how we'll organize our images in it. I will select the images that I saved from Pinterest and dragged them to this mood board. Let's make them a bit bigger and to you see what we all have. The main thing that you need to know on how to use this template is that we will be working on this layer shapes and the other layer I left it locked. That's the outline. When we finish everything, we will have this white outline that will separate our images. Just drag an image and choose where you want to place it. Hold "Shift" to drag them, so they do not lose their shape, just hold "Shift. " When you find, highlight them in that shape, you need to put it in the back. For that you can go on to Right-click, Arrange, Sen To Back, or use this shortcut "Shift +Command + ]" on your keyboard. Let's use the shortcut. Now, while you have this shape in the back selected, you need to hold "Shift" and to also select the gray object, and you can see here that you have them both selected. Now again, Right-click and then select, Make Clipping Mask, and there you go. It's very easy. Now let's try again with this one. Again, hold "Shift" to change the size or you can hold "Shift+Alt" to change it. The size changes from the center. Let's leave it like this. Again, let's do our shortcut "Shift+Command+[. " Now our shape is in the back, shift to select the circle, Right-click "Make Clipping Mask." Basically you can arrange your mood board as you like and also do not worry, this doesn't have to be beautiful, designed or perfect. This is something that you will come back to see while you're making your pattern. I basically like to use this part, to add my working title and these three to add main colors that I like. I already made and chose some colors that I like to work with, and I save them. I will add them by going here, User-defined, and then these ones I call them green morning. To add the palette that you made, you can just click here and it will appear. If you do not have your palette, you can make a new color group here. This one is empty, but then you can select colors from here and add them to your pallete. Or you can also select your artwork, and add a color pallete from there. Anyways, we do not need this, so we can delete it. Some of the colors that I'm going to use is green, some red for the flowers and I also really love this yellow. I will now arrange this mood board. I'll speed up the process and I'll see you when I'm finished. I finished the mood board, and as you can see, I added a working title here, and later I also added keywords that I can associate with the images I saved. This part, you can see that I also added some secondary colors that I think will work very well in connection with the main colors. Regarding the keywords, I figured out that it really inspires me to have not only images, but also keywords and to be able to create a story in my mind while I'm making my art, or illustration, or textile patterns. Now that you have your mood board set, and you know what you want to illustrate, grab a pen and paper and start making some beautiful elements.
4. Drawing - Introduction: For me it's always easier to start with sketches and a paper and later add them to Illustrator and redraw them. Whenever I start drawing directly in Illustrator using my drawing tablet, I can never make it look exactly as they wanted. I just feel more natural and relaxed when working with pen and paper. Also doodling is very relaxing. You can use your mood board as a reference on your mobile phone and sketch wherever you are. It's also something that makes your mind free to explore many possibilities. You can come up with an expect shapes and elements or characters like this one. This was made totally unintentionally, so do not mind it. This character is not part of the pattern. Anyway starting from sketches. When it comes to textile design is also very useful because you can see which elements work good together. Which elements can fit with other elements. You can also have a bigger picture on how to create harmony with elements that you are drawing. For example, these elements, these flora heads, they will look like blocks of colors are great because they are so simple, but yet so effective and can fit nicely with anything. For example, these flower bushes also fit well together. You can fill the gaps with these circled flowers if you need to. Next step toward digitizing them is to draw the elements you chose on another paper. Here you need to be more precise. Also thinking in advance on how you're going to use them. My suggestion because we are going to later photograph this or you can also scan it to use an ink pen or something that will make this very clear and easy to work with later digitally. Also, as I will create blocks of elements, as you can see I'm creating effect of abundance. I want to draw at least three different shapes of the same object. This rule of making at least three different shapes of the same object is something I always follow when I create patterns. To make them different you can create them smaller, you can create them wider or for example these leaves in these flower bushes, can go on one side on another. Sketching is good because you will never make it exactly the same. Even the small changes like this, will really create a big difference on your final pattern. This is a photograph of my sketch that I took with my mobile phone. For the reasons that we are going to use it, we do not need a perfect quality. If you have a scanner you can scan in but even a photograph made with a mobile phone will be enough. You just need to make sure that you do not have any shades over your sketch. Also make sure that your sketch is made with an ink pen or something similar. It will be clearly visible from the paper surface. If you are using a drawing tablet, you can leave the photo as it is as a reference to redraw. But if you are not using a drawing tablet, you need to vectorize this photograph using an image trace. When you click on it, you will see that the option for image trace appears. But we are going to use more advanced options. We need to go on Window, and click on Image Trace. We will have this advanced may not be opened for you, so you just need to open it. I always put ignore white. Sometimes I dislike this, but it depends on the sketch. Let's see when we click Preview what happens. For what we are going to use it this looks very good. If it doesn't look good for you, you can play with these options here to bring them up or down. Then when you want to finish just click on Expand. Now let's turn this off. As you can see, we have our sketch vectorized. What we need to do because this is now a group. We need to ungroup it, and we need to hit Shift Command G to ungroup it. Then as you can see these are all separate. If you want to use this as one shape, you can group it by clicking Command G. I will show now different examples. I separated the image here for what we're going to use to the drawing tablet and how to use it without drawing tablet. These examples that I made, you can see that they look very much similar. I just wanted to show you that you can get a very similar effect with drawing tablet and without drawing tablet. Regarding the size that we are working on right now, since this is a vector program, size doesn't matter since it can be changed. But I like to start with an art board in the size of 2,000 by 2,000 pixels. When I'm drawing my elements, I also like to work in this white-space without boundaries. I will show you now how it looks without it. I will just hit Shift Command H to turn it off. You can see that you will see my art board that is 2,000 by 2,000 pixels. But when I'm drawing elements, I like to have this white-space without boundaries. To get that, you should just click Shift Command H. To turn it off again, Shift Command H. I also added a link to Adobe Illustrator shortcuts that will be very useful to use while you work. Make sure to check that out. You can write down the ones that you will use often and then practice using them. It will become so natural after some time and it will definitely speed up your workflow. Another important thing at this moment that you can also change later is to know in which color mode you are creating your elements. As you can see here, my color mode is RGB. That is something that you choose when you are making a new file. For example, I always start with this 2,000 by 2,000 pixels. Then in this advanced options, you can choose RGB or CMYK color mode. As you know these are two main color modes. General rule is that CMYK is for printing and RGB is for the web. But it's not always the case. Sometimes printing companies will tell you to prepare your print in RGB colors. When I'm printing my scarfs for example, I also prepare them in RGB, and also the pattern designs that I'm selling as a fabric or wrap paper on spoon flour I'm also preparing in RGB color mode. My suggestion is to always check with a printing company and then prepare your print accordingly. Now let's get back to drawing.
5. Drawing - With a Tablet: I will start with a drawing tablet option and explain the use of different brushes. If you do not have it, feel free to skip to the next part of this video. Since we are not going to use these photographs directly, we will just use them as a reference we can lock the layer where they are and then just open a new layer that will be on top so we can draw our elements. Let me take you quickly through the brushes that I'm using and these are the brushes that I made. It's very easy to make any brush you like and then when you start experimenting and creating different brushes, you will see which ones fit nicely in the situation you are using it. For example, when we're working with these very easy sketches, I'm using my 5pt brush without the pressure and then also 5pt round pressure brush. Let me just show you how the settings for this brush look and you can also create your own. You have the option to change the angle, to change roundness, and then to change size. Always leave these two fixed. If I want the size to change with the pressure, I just go to Pressure and I put it till the end. When you draw on your tablet and put the most pressure, it will go up to the size that you specified here. Let me show you how you can create your own. You just need to go here, click on "New Brush", select Calligraphic Brush, and then play with these options as you like. Name it, click "Okay", and it will appear here. When you create brushes that you like, you can just go here and then save them. To add them, it will appear here. Just go to User Defined. I have my set of my brushes. You just need to select the ones you want to add here, click here, and then "Add To Brushes", and they will all appear here so you can easily use them. Also before starting to draw, let me explain what I use. I mostly use the blob brush tool, so it might be hidden here. The first one you'll see is a paintbrush tool and then you need to click it to get here or you have this Shift B command to access it or just B to access paintbrush tool. The difference between a paintbrush tool, I will show you now how it looks. This is a paintbrush tool. Let's do it in a blob brush tool. They look the same, but it's not going to be the same later. It depends how you're going to use it. I mostly use this one and this creates a shape, and the paintbrush tool creates a line. Basically, for these shapes, I will use a blob brush tool to create them, but for the stems, I'm going to use a normal paintbrush tool. The reason why is that the shape that I am going to make here is not going to change but the stems might change later because I will need to fit them differently in my pattern. For example, when you create a line with a paintbrush tool, you can go to Direct Selection Tool here or click "A", and I will show you so you can change how the line looks. You can also just select it through the direct selection tool. You can change the size. But when it comes to a blob brush tool, let's also click on "Direct Selection Tool" or "A", you cannot change it like that because it's a shape and you can only change the way the shape looks. Now let's draw our examples. Before starting to draw with a blob brush tool, checkout the settings for the blob brush tool. You can just double-click here and you will see the settings. This part of the settings about fidelity, you can make it accurate or you can make it smooth. These settings will make your lines look different. I always keep it in the middle. If you put it to be more accurate, it will look exactly the same as your drawing. But since I'm not very comfortable with the drawing tablet, I like to keep it in the middle. I figured out that smooth option just doesn't work for me because it creates shapes that are not what I want him to be. I also keep this one, select that and this one deselected, but you can try it out and see what works for you. Now let's draw these flower heads. We have our blob brush tool selected. When I start drawing these, I never start from the corner here, but I start a bit down. Really this doesn't have to be perfect. You can fix it later, you can redraw it. You can just play around with it. When it comes to corner as you see, I just take it a bit down. These things can appear, so you can try again or you can later fix it with an eraser tool or a smooth tool, which I will show you. This looks fine for me, but I just do not like this corner. Let me show you what I can do. First of all, I want to fill this shape and it's very easy because I'm using a blog brush tool and this is already a shape and not a line. I'm going to hit "A" on my keyboard and it will select the direct selection tool. I will just click on the inside and click "Delete". I do not like this part. What I can do is I can click on the "Eraser Tool". But first of all, I need to select this object. I will hit "V" to select it, and then an eraser. I will just erase this part so it looks better. This is fine. If I'm still not liking it, or if I do this for example. Not like that. Let me show you. Like this, I can always use a smooth tool and I can fix it. I can also fix my shape with a smooth tool very easy. Do not worry, you can always redraw it, you can fix it later. When you like it, just leave it like that. Let me show you on another example. Here you can really see what I'm talking about when I say that you need to start with drawing not from this point but a bit down because you want these corners to be more sharp. Let's start. Then a bit down until you like it. Now press "A" pres the inside and then "Delete". For example, if you want to add a bit here and you don't need to really redraw it. You can again hit "V" for a direct selection tool to select it, and then hit the Blob Brush Tool. Because this is selected and in your options you have merge only with selection, you can just simply add more to this shape. For example, I'll show you now the options. If you hit it, keep selected, it will never deselect until you fix the shape as you like it. You can work on it as much as you like and it will be selected. We do not need this. Let's just make it nice. Again, we can use an eraser and we can use smooth tool. This looks good and we can move on. Now let's make the other shape. This one is a bit complex because it will be made out of four shapes. Let me show you also some tricks that I use. For example, because I know all of this will be in one color. I do not need to worry about the endings and the corners of these leaves. I will just start from down here. Also when you work with a blob brush tool, you need to make all these shapes end so the endings need to fit here so you can hit "A" and delete the inside, because if they're not connected, it's not going to work. Let's make another one. We also starts from here. Hit "A". Now we can make this part with the same brush, or we can select a brush that is a bit bigger so we can make it in one move. I'm going to make it like this. Connect it and then A to click inside, and there you have it. Now this is one part we can group it, just hit "Shift" and select three different shapes. Hit "Command G" to group it. Now we have a group, as you can see here. Now click anywhere to get out of there. Let's select a blob brush to make the flower. Now, I will choose another color. Let's go with this one. Since this part will be hidden, the only thing that matters is how it looks up here. Let's starts from here and this part really doesn't matter. Now you have basically two shapes, this one and this one. Now we need to take this to the back. What you need to do is give it a right-click and then Arrange and Send to Back. Here you can see also there are super nice shortcuts that will really help you out and this is something that I'm using all the time, send to back and bring to front. The command is shift command and then left and bracket to send it to back. Now let's do it. That's it, looks great. Now let's see this example. I'm not going to draw these leaves. You will also use the same technique as I showed you, but I just wanted to show you an example with these circles. For the elements that I made for this button I used the blob brush with a 5pt round without the pressure to really draw every single circle. If you do not want to maybe waste your time like that, even though I do not consider that a waste of time I'm really enjoying redrawing these things in a digital form. But if you are not so keen on keeping it so organical and in your sketch they look very much the same, what you can do is just select a brush that is bigger and has a pressure difference. For example, for these kind of circles, this pressure brush with a 20pt will be perfect because depending on how much pressure you apply, you can make it look different. Let me show you that. It just depends on the pressure you're using. If this looks totally fine for you and it matches the style you want to get, this is really something that will speed up your workflow.
6. Drawing - Without a Tablet: Now let's talk about the second option of drawing without tablet. I think this is interesting and important to know even though you have a drawing tablet is something that you can use also later for in different things. So what we're going to use for this is a very nice tool in Adobe Illustrator called Shape Builder Tool. The first thing we need to do is to unlock the layer that we're going to use, and then we need to image trace all these examples that I made. So as I showed you before, you just go to Window, Image Trace, and then choose ignore white, this select "Snap Crystalline", and then Preview or just Trace. If you're happy with it, just expand it, and then hit "Shift Command" to ungroup it. I will do this for every image. Now we have all our images vectorized and let me show you just an example of how a shape builder tool works before we actually start using it for these vectorized sketches, to make our shapes for the patterns. So let's just make a few different shapes. Let me just changed the color. For example, just click on a "Direct Selection Tool" and select them all, and then you can access the shape builder through here, or you can just hit the shortcuts "Shift M". You will see that these shapes will be now like this, and you will have a plus or a minus if you click on "Alt" on the keyboard. For example, Alt and Minus would mean that you want to delete these shapes. For example, if you leave it on a plus and click and then drag, it will mean that these shapes will be connected. So this is a very quick example and now we'll seen more details on how we will use it for our sketches. So when it comes to using shape builder tool in connection with your sketches, this is how you're going to do, and you're going to also think about a few things. A shape builder will only make shapes for the objects that are close to. But for example, I made this one as an example of the object that it's open. So for example, when you start using a shape builder tool, you will first make a normal rectangle. Let's put it in this red color and send it to back. So when we select everything and hit "Shift M" to access a shape builder tool, you will see that when you select the background, this shape that is not closed will not be made. So what you want to do, let's get out of here, click on "Direct Selection Tool", the leader background so I can show you. so you need to basically just get in here and close this. You need to click on it, click on "Blog Brush Tool" and just close this part, and now it's fine. I will also group this because I want to make more shapes. Let's make a rectangle in red color. Bring it to back, Shift Command left bracket, V, and then select everything and hit "Shift M" for the shape builder tool. Now what we want to do is we want to raise the background, so we are left with these flowers. Hit out for the minus and delete the background. Now hit "V" to exit and the next thing you'll do, you'll just click on the black ones. As you can see, these are just selected and delete them. Now, these shapes look very rough in comparison to the shapes that I made with a brush. As you can see, this one is very smooth, and I want the same effect on these ones. So the very easy way to do it is to select it and then select "Smooth Tool" and just smooth it out. Also smooth tool, with it you do not need to be precise. You just need to point it out where you want to smooth your shapes. So smooth it out as you like, if you do not like it just hit "Command Z" to go back, and then start again. You can also use an eraser for some parts for example. I very much like this shape and the only thing I want to smooth out is this part and this part. So I'm going to smooth out the whole shape, a bit here and a bit here, and it looks great. So I'm going to do that for all the shapes. So it might seem that you will need more time with this tool and with smoothing out, but I think it's very similar to just work it out until you like to shapes. Let's move to another example. Now let's make these shapes just to remember the technique or make a rectangle. Put it maybe in green, send it to back, Shift Command Left Bracket, V for the selection tool, and then select everything, and hit "Shift M" to access shape a builder tool. Click "Alt" to delete the background and click on the background. So the process with smoothing out these shapes is the same as I showed you on the first example. You just select it, grabs smooth tool, and smooth out as you like, or use an eraser just to get the shape that you want. You can also draw on it by keeping its selected and then grabbing a blob brush tool. I'm now working on my touch pad. I do not have mouse. So let me now show you an example with these drawing, because this is a bit more complicated, because this shape is basically created from three different shapes, and if we do the same technique we'll end up with one shape, and we want to end up with two shapes. So when you're using shape builder, you'll also need to consider that. So for this, I'm going to copy it and paste in front, and the one that is in front, I'm going to put it with Shift Command Right Bracket on top, and I'm going to lock it. So access the one that is in the back. With the one that is in the back, I want to create just the leaves. So I'm going to select an "Eraser Tool" and to change the size of your eraser just click on the "Right Bracket" to make it bigger, or the left bracket to make it smaller. So all I want to do is to delete this, and now as you can see, the shape that is in front is showing so I will just click this, so I do not see it. Then I will do the same thing here. So now we have the leaves, and you can just go on the select tool, erase this, and you have this shape. So now let's do the same technique. Send to back, select "Shift M" and delete the background, selection tool, and delete just the black part, and then you have the leaves which we'll smooth out and fix later. Now, let's see what happens with the other part. We will now show it. Click to see the eye here in the layers and we will unlock it. Now select it to do the same, but for the opposite. So what do I know, if I click on the green one, and bring it to front with Shift Command, Right Bracket, I know that I just need this part, and this will not show. So let's select this one, the black one, and let's just delete this part like this, and this part like this. Now, I don't want to see this one. I will lock it and click"The Eye", so it's not visible, and I will continue working with the eraser. I'll just erase it here and now you can see when I delete this part, I'm left with this. So let's make again. Rectangular, put it in this baby pink, send it to back. Click to select everything, "Shift M" to access shape builder tool and Alt to delete background. Now click again on "The Selection Tool", click somewhere else to exit, click on the "Black Part", delete it, and you're left with this. Now let us see. We can see again, the green leaves, we'll click it to see it, and unlock it. Now we have this shape and it's created from two shapes that we created by erasing parts of it and basically separating it. Now you can smooth this out and make it look as you like. In the end, it will also look very similar to the shape that we created with a brush. I also like this shape builder for these easy objects, because it will just somehow leave it even more doodly than, as you can create them with a brush. Let me show you another thing that can happen with your sketches. In the first example, I talked about, if the objects are open, then you will have a hard time creating them, unless you close them. So sometimes it happens when you're drawing, that your objects are connected and now you can just grab an eraser tool, to raise this part between them. Now you basically prepared your sketch to be used with a shape builder. Also, for example here, you need to do the same thing. Don't worry about being precise, because later you will smooth out. The thing about the shape builder and your sketches is that shape builder is a great tool to recreate your sketches, but these sketches need to be more simple. So also when you're drawing and you know that you're going to use a shape builder for your digital elements, you need to think about it while you're drawing, so you do not draw your circles too close to each other. So you're left later with less things to add it. Also you need to have in mind what kind of things that shape builder can do. Also, shape builder is great to use in connection with brushes. So for example, when building an element, I will for example use this flower, that I made with a brush, and I want it to have a little thing here. So basically I will just grab a brush, and I wanted to be like this. So you don't have to draw anything very accurate. I just need to create a shape, do the thing we did, put it in a position I think I will like, and then I need to just select these two, hit "Shift M" and basically delete this part, because I'm not going to need it. So draw your elements however you like using a tablet, using a shape builder tool, try out two techniques. Try them out together for building your elements and let's continue building our pattern.
7. Pattern Making - Part 1: As you can see, I finished drawing all the elements from my sketches, I played a bit with colors. Even though at this time I do not consider these to be final colors, I like to see them in a pattern, so I can later see what works with what when I finish basically ordering my pattern and then I made also the stamps for these flowers. As I told you, I made them with a paintbrush tool, and now the blob brush tool because I can basically change them. Also, let me tell you one trick that I use for choosing the colors because now I really do not know how it's going to look all together. But I do set a limit of using basically 7-8 different colors. Because later when I make a pattern, I can easily change them. For example, these might be green or blue, but if I want to change them, I can just select it and the color I chose will appear and I can very easily change the color on every object that I used it for. So you go to select and then same, fill color, and then you can change everything that is in that fill color, for example, or like this I chose that this will be in the same color as this, or is these things inside? When I click on that color, I go to select, same fill color, and it will select basically everything in color and I can change it. This is I think a very good trick when you finish your pattern so you do not have to select one-by-one, you can select everything, but you need to think about it before starting. Now, let's open a new file where we're going to make our pattern. For making a pattern, I always use my pattern template. It's nothing special, is just a file with a specific dimension, but it's for me easier to access it like that. You just go to, "File", new from template. Then I have it here, pattern template in RGB color mode. You can make it like this. You just go to, "New File." They always create my patterns in a file which is 100 by 100 pixels. You can try it out like that because later, I will show you some shortcut actions that we'll have to do with these numbers and they really need to be round. It can be 2,000 by 2,000 but I like to keep it 1,000 when I'm working. Also, it's similar to B, so we can create it. Now you have a new file and if you want to make it as a template, you can just save it basically as a template and you can later access it all the time from there. For me, it's just something that is easier. Now let's talk about the logic of creating a pattern. To make it more easier, I will just start with some basic geometry shapes that I will create. Lets put them in whatever color. Alt to duplicate it and just do something like this. What I want to show you here is that when creating a pattern, you will always work with what's inside will stay inside, but what's under boundaries will need to repeat. Let's make them also down here. I can just explain. One action that you will be using constantly while creating a pattern is basically selecting objects from one side and then placing them on the other side and you need to move them accordingly with the size of your art boards. If this art board is 1,000 pixels, you need to move it by 1,000 pixels. This is something that really needs to be done with some math. It cannot be done by hand because when your pattern repeats, these objects need to be placed perfectly. As I said, this is an action that is going to be repeated all the time or creating a bad turn while testing it. For me, it's really easy to make this action as a shortcut which I will show to you. If you do not have a shortcut, basically you need to go to, Transform, Move. Then what you need to do is basically move it horizontally. You need to put to zero on vertical and horizontal, you need to put 100 pixels, and then you need to copy it. These objects, stay here the same, but you have a copy of the same objects on the right side. Click, "Copy" and you will have this. For example, for the objects that are down, you do the same go to, "Transform, move." Then for this, you need to put zero on horizontal and move them vertically, but not by 100 pixels because that will put them down. You need to put it by minus 1,000 pixels. As you can see for this action, because I use it so much. I just figured out that creating an action that I can access through my shortcuts will really speed up my workflow. My solution was to create just actions in Adobe Illustrator, as you can see them here, I have them move right, F2, and then move left, shift F2. Let me show you how this works. It basically creates the same thing I showed you before, but I just need to select it and then I have it here. If I need to move it right, I just hit, "Function F2." There I have it. If we need to move it up, I have shift and F3. I hit, Function, shift F3. Also I have them here. If I forget which one is which, I just can check it out, I can click these super easy commands and I can just work on what I like to work to be created to see what fits together and this technicality that took so much time before is really something easy now. Now let's move to making these actions and then we can start building our pattern. Basically, what you need to do, I can see it now because it's on the button mode, and you cannot create an actual while in button mode, so you need to deselect it if it's selected in the first place, and then you will see something like this. You can go here and say, "Create new action." But before we do that, let me just delete this and then delete this one. Let's start. It says create a new action, would click on it. Let's call it a skill share move. Because they already had this action created and I already used function keys 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, I think. I will just use F6 function key and it will be enough to create the section. Let's put it in red and then I need to basically record my action. What I'm going to do, I'm going to click, "Record". Now whatever I do will be basically recorded as an action, so be accurate here. You need to select it. Right-click, transform, move, and then you should do the same thing we did because we were going to put it on the right side. We need to put here 1,000 pixels, and we need to put zero here, and we need to copy it. You can also do the preview if you need it. Basically, click, "Copy". You have the action of moving your objects on the right. Basically, you just click, "Stop playing or stop recording." There you have it. Now let's see it in the button mode. Skillshare, move right, and just click F6. I'm on my MacBook and just clicking on F6 doesn't work. If I want to access these function keys, I need to press, Function and then F6. Let's try it out. Select Fn for function and then F6 and it works. Basically, you just do the same thing for everything. For example, if we want to make an action to move them on the left, we go again, we get out of button mode, we click to create new action, deselect everything, then go to create new action, Skillshare, move left. Function key you can leave it with F6, but use shift with it. Let's put it in yellow, and then let's record. We select this again, go to Transform, Move. Because we are moving it on the left, we have to put a minus and then copy. Click, "Stop", and there we have it. Let's test it out. Here it is, select, press Function, Shift, F6, and it works perfectly. What you need to do also is to make an action to place these objects up and then to place them down with the same logic as we did here. But you will only put 1,000 pixels in the vertical part I will show you. Basically, when you want to move them up or down, you need to put zero pixels in horizontal, and then put minus 1,000 pixels if you want to move it up or if you want to move it down, then just put 1,000 pixels. That's it. Also, if you make wrong actions, if you didn't do something correctly, just go here, not in the button mode, but you need the button mode to be disabled, and you will see these actions. You can also click here to see what is happening. We moved it horizontally and we also copied it. If you did something different and you do not like it, you can just delete the action. That's it. These actions really saved me a lot of time when I'm creating patterns. Basically, I do not need to think about math. I can just be creative in doing and in making a pattern. I can focus on things that are more creative and not technical. I really hope this actions will help you out a lot. The next thing we're going to do, we're going to lead this and we'll place our elements and start building a pattern.
8. Pattern Making - Part 2: Now that we've finished all the previous steps from finding our inspiration to sketching, digitalizing our sketches and creating these super-useful actions, we can finally start creating our pattern. What I did is I've placed these drawings and I grouped them, so I can use them and nothing will fall apart. I will not lose some elements. Everything is grouped and prepared, so I can start building the pattern. The way I'll start building it is basically from the border. Some people who like to start building it from the center and then figure out the borders but what happens with me is if I start from the center, then somehow my pattern in the end doesn't look like it has a flow. It just looks very robotic, I didn't know, so my way of doing it is basically starting from this corner and then working out from this corner and then connecting everything in the center. Let's start making it. Also whenever I start, if I start from the corner, I will instantly move of it on the other side so I know how much space I have left where I want to take this probably up and not down, so you do not have a line that is repeating in one point. I want to have a flow; I want everything to fit together. I will basically use my shortcut, hit FN function and then F2. Another suggestion before I speed up the whole process and show you in the end what I created is to always go in and then out, basically to see it as a whole. Then to see how things repeat and where you want to repeat them and where you want to leave space. For example, when I'm creating a pattern, I always create these little things that I can use to fill up the gaps, for example here. In that way my pattern in the end will be full and it will look really like a flower field that I want to show. Enjoy this process as much as you can and just also test it out and move things as you like. Create it again, start from the beginning. I think it's really about practice and how much you get the idea of the process of creating a pattern. It might not be perfect if it's your first time to create a pattern, but when you create one and then try and other thing on the second one, then you will have a better knowledge of what you want to have in the end as a result. I've finished my pattern and I'm really happy about how it looks. Basically, I did some color changes the way I showed you; I will do it. I left some of these changes so I can show you directly how it looks. For example, just wanted to explain why it is better for me to change my colors when they see everything like this, is that now I can see that this yellow, which is like honey-yellow, I'm not sure what's the name of the color in English. It just really looks a bit too much and it takes a lot of attention to it, so I want it to be a bit of softer and more light colors so we can blend better. I will basically just click on it to access it. I will get the color here as I explained to you, and then go to Select Same Fill Color and it will select all of these yellow shapes. I will turn them into some more translucent, soft yellow. But what I want, I want these flowers to pop, so I'm going to access the color then get out of there, select Same, Fill color. It will select all these flower hats, and I will change them to this red-orange color. Now I really like the flow because I want these flowers to pop. I also left a bit of negative space for it. The other things I filled with these little grass bushes, I just copy paste them and then arrange them so they can fit. What I'm going to show you now, I tested my pattern on every step while I was making it and I think that's super useful to know in which direction you're going. Are you happy with it if you experiment with other things and then to see if it works or if it doesn't. You do not have to basically finish everything until you see how it's going to look. Let me just show you an example of my steps. We're just going to make a shape here; it can be whatever shape you want. Then here I have these patterns saved. This was the first step, and then this was the second with more things and I was happy with the direction I was going, and this was basically the last step. I like to add a dark background, so I can see the errors if I made some, and again see what parts I need to fix. For example, in this example I saw that I do not have enough space down here, so later I came back to my pattern and I moved it a bit so this can breathe. It's really good to test out to get back to your pattern and then just to arrange it to look good as a whole. I will show you now the last task I made for the finished pattern and let's make it a bit bigger, it's this one. I'd like to make it big so I can see everything and to be happy with how everything looks as a big repeat and I can see that there is this flow that I like and I do not see the boundaries that I was working in, so I'm happy with the result. Now let me show you how to test out your pattern. These are just elements now, they're placed. Also one thing I didn't mention is to always check if these elements on this side are correctly placed on this side. Because when I'm working, I always add more elements and then I just move them and then sometimes I forget to move. What I do is basically I just select one part, I delete it and you see I didn't select this one. Let me just make it closer so I can grab everything until this border is good. I delete it and then I go on this side. Even though everything looks perfect, sometimes it's really tricky and you need to do it again just to be sure. I do this for each side til the end, even though I do not see any errors, but this really makes me sure that when this pattern is printed, there won't be some unexpected errors because I checked everything two or three times. We will just group this, and then we will make a background. Just select shape, click, and then add here 1,000 by 1,000 because that's how big is the art board we are working on. Click, Okay. This is now selecting the fill with a pattern. I want to select this color. I need to bring it to back, so we will use "Shift Command" left bracket, and then I will go to Align and then, align it to be on the center, but you need to also select it to align to art board. Click here and then click here. Now, you know that this is placed correctly. Also, what you need basically is to create another rectangle. You can use this one to basically copy paste it, just go "Command C" and then "Command F". It's placed in the same place as the other one. This one, you want to be totally in the back, so hit "Shift Command" left bracket, and you can see this one is in the back, but we do not need this one to be filled with any color, we need it to be without anything, basically. We made this so our pattern can work. Let me show you now. You need to select everything, group it, and then basically, click on it and drag it here. Now, let's see. Create shape, click on this and your pattern will appear. Now, let me show you just as an example what happens if you do not have this one, which is with no fill and with no line, let me just delete it. Let's group this again. Let's click on it and drag it here and as you can see, you already see that it's not working, so click on this. Without the object that is without a fill and without a line, you will not be able to create a pattern. In other words, Adobe Illustrator will not recognize it. So create your tests until you are satisfied with the results and in the end, create one big rectangular which you can use for testing. Then just zoom in and check everything to see if you have any mistakes, to see if there's some places where you want to work, and this basically it. Now, let's move to the other step and the final step on how to prepare this for printing. Since I'm not going to use this pattern just in a digital form, I want to use it to submit it to Spoonflower to print fabric with this pattern or a wrap paper and I need to submit it in a PNG file or as a JPEG file. I just need to get rid of all these things that are going out of the boundaries of this art board. The first thing, you need to do basically, as you saw, we create this rectangle again, I just can't pronounce this word, but this shape, we created it without any boundaries and we just do not need it so you can delete it and the second thing before preparing your print, is to basically save what you have in original because later, you might come back to it, or you might want to change the background, maybe, you have some errors that you can work with because later when you prepare it for print, nothing will be possible. What you need to do is click on it, drag it here, and you will see this plus, and it will basically duplicate it. You see it's layer 1 copy. Let's lock this one and let's click the visibility off so we do not see it and let's call this one print prepared. You can also save it in different files, but I think it's better organized when everything is in one file and you have it in layers if it's a simple thing like this. Another thing that you're going to do before basically, cutting these things that are outside the boundaries, for example, if you use the paint brush tool and you have lines, you need to basically select that, go to Object and Expand it so everything will be a shape and not a line. Now, let's start preparing it. We need to make one rectangle, pronounced it good now, and needs to cover everything so you can create it a bit bigger. Let's make it, for example, this red color or in some color that you didn't use, so it doesn't mess up with your design and let's create another one. Just click on here and put 1,000 by 1,000 pixels. This one needs to be another color that you didn't use. Let's use this one. Let's go to Align, the one we also used and I think, I didn't tell you how to access it. For example, if you do not have it here, all these things are in Window and then find it, like Align and later we will need a Pathfinder. When you click on it, it will appear. Let's move it to be in the center and to cover our art board area. Now, we need to select them both and to click on Pathfinder and say minus front. If the blue object is in front and the red object is in the back, you will see a hole, minus front. Here it is. Now, you can see this looks like a frame, and this is what we need, but we need to get rid of the red thing and we will do it like this. Just select everything, you will see you still have these shapes and then just click here Merge. It will merge everything. Double-click on the red, delete it. Basically, your pattern is now prepared. This is one group. Basically, if you click on it, you will see that everything is separated and cut it so you cannot access it to make any changes. This why it is important to have a backup layer where you have everything in the original form, how you made it. You can also grab this selection when it's grouped, drag it here and it will also make it as a pattern. Let's try it out. You can see when you get in, that works perfectly. Now, your pattern is ready to be saved as a PNG, JPEG file, and to submit it to Spoonflower or wherever you want to print it.
9. Thank you: I hope you enjoy this class and that my tips and tricks and instructions helped you out to create your own pattern. Please feel free to share your process from finding inspiration, making mood board, doodling during digital elements, to finally creating your pattern. I feel like this community is the best place to share your creative work and to connect with others, get inspired and learn, and remember there are no mistakes. Art should be a gain that you enjoy. In case I missed to say something in this class or I wasn't clear about something, ask me in the comments and I will be happy to explain. Also if you like this class, follow me on Skillshare to be notified when I publish another one. Thank you very much. I'm looking forward to seeing what you create.
Di Ujdi, Illustrator & Art Explorer
