Transcripts
1. Introduction: What's the vibe? Happy? Happy vibe, happy vibe. I think Illustrator for me is like a creative playground. You start with a blank canvas and you just see where it takes you. I am Bert, I'm an illustrator. Today, I'm going to be showing you how to make a factor illustration in Adobe Illustrator. So my illustration style, I think it's really colorful, it's really bold, really heavy lines. There's also a lot of detail in my work, a crazy amount of textures which I'm going to be focusing on today. So today, I'm going to be teaching you how to make a factor illustration. So the first part is going to be the outlines. Next is going to be adding color. Once the color is in there, we're going to create some new layers and stuff like that, and then we're going to be adding texture. I'm going break down texture creation for you guys because this is basically the main part of the class. I am going to be going step by step showing you how to do it and then how to apply it on the illustration that we made. Thank you for watching the class. I'm really excited to show you my process. I think textures for me are like, how you say it, icing on the cake? Yeah.
2. Getting Started: So texture for me is something that really came out of a project that I did called Vector Cities, which is basically me drawing a city of 100 houses from people all over the world. I came up with this technique to create my own textures, create my own way to apply random colors, so there is no repetition. I think that's really important if you make an illustration, it needs to be fun. So today, I will be showing you how to illustrate a Volkswagen van. The classic one, everybody knows it. So once Illustrator is open, we're going to create a new documents which is basically "Create New". It's the button, hit it, and then, this window pops up. Size, I go with 1080 by 1080. It's really up to you because this is like Instagram friendly size. When I started in illustration, I remove the art boards which is basically Command, Shift H on the keyboard. As you can see, the art board disappears which for me is really handy because you're not restricted to that square. Then you can just create freely. Once you're done, you bring back the art boards, and then you can export it like any size you want. The workspace and Illustrator is something you can fully customize. I like to use the windows that I'm going to be using when I'm illustrating. So this workspace for me isn't really helpful. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to create my own one, which is really simple. You just hide the stuff that you don't need and go to window. So we'll be focusing on layers. So just window pops up and I just drag it and drop it somewhere. Another thing we are going to be using is the Stroke panel. So just drag it underneath the layers. I think gradients is also going to be a big part of the class. Once again, just go to window and drag it out here. I thinks swatches. So window, swatches, now you have all the colors. As you can see, it's really basic stuff. It's completely up to you what you want to be using. If you're workspace is messy, super cheesy to say, your illustrations are also going to be messy. So try to keep it clean. So what I do is I just go to Google, Volkswagen van. We're going to be focusing on the profile, the side view. Just go to images and pick any van you like. Maybe this one. This is a classic. What you can do right now is save the image, and then just save it to your desktop so you can find it easily. But you can also just right-click "Copy Image", go back to Illustrator and just paste it in there. Now the image is just on the art boards on this layer. So once the image is pasted in Illustrator, you just give it a name. "Reference image". Now I just scale it down using the scale tool like 50 percent because I'm not going to be tracing this. I like the image on the reference layer just to look at. There's nothing wrong with tracing something. But I feel like this technique, just looking at an image and trying to recreate it, gives you more. You need to look at the image, and deconstruct it, and see the basic shapes inside the object you want to recreate. So I think if you do this a lot the first time it's going to be difficult. But if you practice it, you're going to be better, and you're going to be much faster spotting the basic shapes that you need to recreate, the objects that you want to draw. Now that the workspace is setup, we're going to start with the first step, which is creating the outlines.
3. Sketching: So the first step is, like I said, creating the outlines which is basically going to be using the pen tool. So the pen tool is the P on your keyboard. I'm going to hide my art board because I find it's too restrictive at this point. So it's Command Shift H. As you can see the art board disappears. As you can see on my screen, every 10 minutes, Illustrator's autosaving my file. I'm actually using a free plug-in called Autosaviour which gives you the option to set an interval. I save every 10 minutes. So it's completely up to you. That's a really important step. Save the file. So I'm going to be naming its Van SkillShare and just hit Save. I'm going to be creating a new layer on top of the reference layer, and I'll name it outlines. I guess that's we will be creating. So this is basically a really simple step. I'm going to be applying an outline. So we don't really need the fill. So transparent fill and then pick any color you like, doesn't really matter. I'm going to go with this reddish color. Right now, I'm going to be looking at the image on my screen and try to recreate the outlines as close as possible to the image. Using the pen tool I just created first-line, and right now it doesn't really matter how the lines look. This is really small. The weights can be, it's up to you. I'll just add some weights so you can see what I'm doing. If you draw something in real life on paper, it's not going to be like this and this, you're going to be overlapping lines, so that's what I'm also going to be doing, like this. Something that's really fun, if you look at the image and you don't really seem to get the angle, you just take a pencil and try to measure the angle and hold it next to the illustration that you're making, so you can always get the angle right. So the pen tool it's a really simple tool, but it can be tricky in the beginning because what it does is it creates curved lines. If you hold it and drag it and drop it. In the beginning, I'm going to be focusing just on creating really simple lines. So basically, point A to point B. Then, I'm going to be a deselecting it by just clicking outside of the line that we just created. So now, I'm going to be selecting the pen tool once again, and I'm just going to be creating a new line. So as you can see, this is the front of the van. So this line should be little bit curved like this. So add a new point, hold down the mouse, and just drag until you get the right curve. At this point, it doesn't really matter how it looks, just try to get something that's close to the actual curve. Well, the workspace is too messy or you don't see enough, just hit the Tab key on your keyboard to hide all the windows, so you have more real estate on your screen. So basically once again, using the pen tool creating a new line, point A to point B like this, is just two points and then just keep it really simple. So just try to get it as close as possible, and then we'll see what happens later on. I'm just going to go ahead and create the rest of the basic outlines just doing the same thing all over again, adding points, and try to keep it as simple as possible. If you create a line with the pen tool and not really satisfied with how it looks, you can always use the selection tool or the Direct Selection tool. So the Direct Selection tool allows you to select one point of the line, and just with the arrow keys on the keyboard, you can just move it along like this, make it smaller like this. So moving along, looking at the image, constantly trying to. I mean, you shouldn't really focus too much on the image, because it's still an illustration, and you're free handing it, free styling it. So if it isn't the exact same like in the image, it doesn't really matter. It's completely up to you. You're actually free to create something new. As you can see, this part is maybe a little bit too short. So what I do is I use the Direct Selection tool once again, and I'm going to select this part completely. You just drag and drop it, and now you only select the best parts. Using the arrow keys on the keyboard, you can just move these parts like anywhere you like. I think it should be something like this. Same thing goes for this. Once again doing the exact same thing using the Direct Selection tool, just bring it back a little bit. This window over here, I can zoom in. This is a really basic shape. This is basically just a rectangle. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to create a rectangle shape right over here like this which is basically the M-tool on your keyboards. Just drag and drop something like this, zoom out a little bit. The back window is the same thing. Just a rectangle. But as you can see, it's little bit curved, the angle is like this. Zooming out again, I'm going to select this point using the Direct Selection tool once again, and I'm going to move it over using the arrow keys, something like this. So this front window once again, is a rectangle. Using the Direct Selection tool, just bring back the top left corner like this. As you can see, these are maybe 10 lines and you already see the resemblance with the image that we just downloaded from Google. The front window is basically also just like curved line like this. This van has a door. So maybe, the door should be something like this. Hold down the Alt key and the Shift key, and then it's a perfect circle. So basically, I'm going to select the circle that we just created and hit Command C, copy, and I'm going to be pasting it and the exact same location Command F. What I'm going to be doing right now is I'm going to go to the Scale tool which is basically right-click, Transform, Scale, and I'm going to scale it down, turn on a preview like this, and I think maybe 57 percent. Hit Okay. Now, we have two circles inside of each other. I'm going to be repeating this step. So I showed you the first method, you copy the circle and then you paste it in the exact same spot. But you can also just select circle, right-click, go to Transform, and use Scale. So, this window pops up and I'm going to be scaling it uniform, 90 percent like the preview is on, and if you hit Copy, you create another circle. Maybe, it should be a little bit smaller, so scale it down a little bit more. I'm just going to be placing this over here. But maybe, these angles or these corners are little bit too sharp, so what I do is I use the Direct Selection tool and select these two points. Now, these circles pop up and you can just drag and drop to make it more smooth. Now that I showed you guys all the basics, I'm going to be repeating these steps and finish all the outlines.
4. Refining the Sketch: Now that I have the basic outlines down, we should focus on cutting away the stuff that we actually don't need. Like, as you can see, there are a lot of overlapping lines. So what you can do is select all outlines, just hit "Command A". As you can see, everything is selected, and go over to the Shape Builder, select it, and now, as you can see, there's a lot of stuff happening if you go over the illustration. But basically, what we're going to do is we're going to zoom in. If you hold down the Alt key with the Shape Builder selected, you see like this minus character popping up next to the arrow. So if you hold down the Alt key and you drag over, this part is going to be cut away. Same thing goes for this one. So that's what we're going to do with all these lines that we actually don't need. It's basically it. Like I said before, it shouldn't be like a 100 percent exactly the same, just play with it and see what you can get. So I feel comfortable using these outlines. So if you take a look at this part for instance, its messy. So what you can do is just create a new stroke on top of it, and then select the shapes. Go back to the Shape Builder, hold down the Alt key, and just cut away these lines like this. Now, if you remove this top stroke that we just created, it looks like it's way cleaner. So that's just like a little tip. Now, if you select these lines, like the ends of it using the Direct Selection Tool, just move it down like this. While you are moving along, you see stuff that doesn't really make sense. So like this angle for instance is too hard. So just select it using the Direct Selection Tool and use this little circle to smooth out the angle like this. Also, this curve is a little bit too sharp. So you can use the Smooth Tool, which is actually underneath the Pencil Tool. So the Pencil Tool is just N, on your keyboard, select it and hold down your mouse, and now this little menu pops up. Just expand it like this. Over here, you have the Smooth Tool, which is basically Shift plus N. So now, it's selected, and now we can smooth out lines like this. So I'll undo it and zoom in, and now you see the difference. Its a little detailed, but this will make the difference in the end. So if you take a look at this illustration right now, this strokes are all the same weights. For me, this is boring. So I believe that illustration has way more dynamic if you use different strokes and different profiles. So I will show you how to do that using the stroke panels. So its this window. So what I'm going to do right now is I close all the other stuff. I'm going to be selecting a few outlines like this, and maybe some lines should be thicker. So just add some weights. In the stroke panel, you also have these profiles. I'm just going to be applying some different profiles to different strokes to give the illustrations so more dynamics. I think if you make the lines less uniform, it makes the illustration, it looks more like hand-drawn. Like if you use a brush, you can't do the same line using a brush two times. If you use profiles, you can different look and feel, which is way more dynamic. You should just play around with it and see whatever you feel comfortable with. I also like really heavy strokes. So I'm going to make my lines a little bit thicker, and that's basically just using the Direct Selection Tool and adding more weight. So I'll be adding 10 points to each, a few strokes like this. This is is six, so I'll now make it 10. As you can see, the strokes are using a butt cap, but you can also use a round cap like this. I'm going to be using the round cap everywhere. So just hit "Command A", and select a round cap. So I'll just keep on adding variation to the lines using different weights and different profiles. Maybe last final detail that I can show you regarding the outlines, these windows. If you take a look at the image, if you zoom in there's two lines next to each other, but it's the exact same shape and an outer shape. So basically, that's an offset. So if you select these lines or these strokes, and you go to Object, Path, and select "Offset", this window will pop up. If you turn on the preview, as you can see now it is creating an offset using 10 pixels, but you can also go minus 10, or minus 11. I don't know, maybe minus 10 and just hit "Okay". Now, you created the exact same shape inside the shape that you just created. Maybe bring the weight down a little bit, because these lines are way too heavy. Maybe like four points. If you select strokes, like this for instance, and you want them to be the exact same weights as the different stroke that you just created, you can select them and use the Eyedropper. It's the I shortcut on your keyboard, and then just click on stroke, and then it has the exact same properties as the stroke that you created before, which is really handy. I think the basic outlines are done right now. The next step is adding more detail inside the wheels. So select the wheel. Once again using the Eyedropper to apply the same appearance to the strokes like this. So this is a fun part. You can create a new circle in the exact middle of the circle of the wheel, like this. Maybe the weight should go down a little bit. So let's say you want to create spokes, use the Pen Tool like this, and create it on the anchor point of the circle, like this. Just create a line, maybe the weights should be five. So what you do right now is you select line that you just created and we're going to rotate it around like pivot points, and the pivot point is going to be the middle of this circle. So the exact middle of the wheel. As you can see, the pivot point right now is in the middle of the line that we just created. So if you rotate it, it's going to be rotating like this. So we're going to hold down the Alt key and drag the pivot points to the center of the circle. As you can see, it snaps it to the center. Now, if you rotate it, it's going to rotate around that point. So maybe like 10 degrees, hit "Copy", and now we're going to repeat this step. So this is basically Command D, and hold it down. So that's the really fast way to create spokes. This looks like close enough. I mean it's a simple illustration, we're going to be focusing on the color and the texture. So we're going to keep it like this. Maybe we can delete this wheel because it's going to be the exact same wheel as the wheel on the front. So just delete it. Select this wheel that you just created, and for safety, we are going to go the Object and group it. So it's Command G. So if you select wheel right now, its going to be selecting everything. Hold down the Alt key and just drag it to the back, like this. Another cool thing you can do is make the lines more rough or rugged. So for instance, I'm not going to be doing it, applying it to every single line in the illustration, but maybe this wheel is a great candidate for making it more rugged. So you select the Outline, go to Effects, and then just start the roughen. So this window pops up, turn on the preview, so you can see what you're doing. So as you can see this value is way too big. So it should be something like 0.03. Then maybe some more details, and nothing is really happening. So 0.5. So this is maybe something like this. Just hit "Okay", and now as you can see, this line is not so smooth anymore, which is good. This car has two wheels. So we want to apply the exact same effect to the one in the back. So select the same stroke, but on the back wheel, and go to Effect and hit "Apply Roughen". So now, it's going to apply the exact same effects. You can also use the shortcut, which is Command Shift E. I won't be touching the outlines anymore right now. So the next step is going to be adding color to the illustration.
5. Color Blocking: So now that we have the Outlines down, it's basically next step applying color. So the way I think about my color palette is actually really simple. I go to Window, select Color and now this window pops up, and if you click it then you see the sliders. So there's not like a go to color scheme that I always use. It's basically just like a gut feeling, and then if it feels right, it feels right, and I'm going to select the Outlines. I'm going to give it this bluish color, like this. I usually don't use black Outlines because I feel like the contrast between black Outlines and the actual color in the illustration's way too heavy. The first thing I do is I select all the Outlines and I'm going to copy it and create a new layer called Back up. I'm just going to paste all the Outlines inside that layer and hide it and just drag it to the bottom. The reason why I do this is it's always a good thing to have a backup of the actual strokes because if you're working with paths, it's going to be way more difficult to actually adjust them later on. So now, I select all the Outlines, and I'm going to go to Object and I'm going to use the Expand Appearance Tool because we applied a lot of profiles to different strokes, and we want to expand those. So just like that, and next step is going to be selecting all the Outlines and paths that we just created. Go to Objects, Live Paints, Make. Expand Appearance, what that does is if you apply a profile to a stroke and you want to do a Live Paint, it's impossible because the Live Paint will destroy all the profiles. So you need to expand the appearance. So if you have a line with a profile applied to it, just hit Expand Appearance and the stroke is transformed into a path. As you can see, if you create a Live Paints, there's going to be the rectangles and the bounding box are going to be different. It's going to be like white squares. So that's the way you can see that the Live Paint is actually active. This is a Tool a lot of people don't really use. I don't know why because it's a really simple way to add color to the illustration. So I'm going to go to Window, Swatches, and I'm going to be using the basic Swatches in Adobe Illustrator. So I don't really need an outline. So just make that one transparent and select the Fill. Because we just made a Live Paint. We can use the Paint Bucket Tool to add color. The Paint Bucket Tool is K on keyboard. So now, you can easily add color to the illustration. So if you hover over the illustration, you see these red highlights popping up. So like this. Just click, and as you can see there's something wrong over here because there's no red highlights popping up if you hover over it. So there's something wrong with the Live Paint. I think it's not closed somewhere. It's open, so it can't really add color. We added a lot of weight to the stroke. So it looks like they're connected. But if you hit command Y, you see that the strokes aren't really connected. We have a bunch of options. The easiest way is to select the points and just drag it like this, so that the paths are closed, and maybe we can check some different places. I think everything looks okay. Just hit command Y once again to exit the outline view. So if you select all the strokes once again, go to Live Paints and hit Make. It should be working right now. So let's just check using the Paint Bucket Tool. As you can see, since we closed the holes, now you can use the paint bucket Tool to apply a color. Maybe this color should be a little bit darker. We're not going to use the exact same color in the illustration because maybe this is a little bit more in the back or it's more dark. This is just playing around with color, and this is a fun way to add different colors to the illustration. If you want to have a grayish tones, use the Arrow keys to browse through the swatches. This one could be a little bit darker, this lighter. Just using the arrow keys, you're browsing through the gray tones like this. This one should be way darker. This is basically just using the arrow keys and clicking inside the illustration. This one can be pretty light, like this. Maybe we can use the exact same color as the Outlines. So if you select the Eyedropper Tool and hit stroke, it's going to be creating a stroke over here. But we don't really need a stroke, you want to Fill the color. So just hit shift X. As you can see, if you use that shortcut, it's going to be switching back and forth between Stroke and Fill. So just drag and drop this in the Swatches panel. So now, you can use it inside the Live Paints Tool. So now, we'll go ahead and just add color to the rest of the illustration. So yeah, I think that's basically it for the Live Paint Tool. The next step is, that's what I always do, is I'm going to separate the Outlines from the color. So what you do is you go to Object and you go to Live Paints and Expand. So now, it's just basically an illustration with color and strokes. So Live Paint isn't active anymore. What I do next is I go to Expand and I hit Okay, and now every stroke is a path. The next part is going to be super simple. You're going to select the Magic Wands Tool, which is Y on your keyboards and hit Enter. So the Magic Wand Tool is basically the same thing as a Photoshop. You can select color. As you can see, you have a bunch of different options. We're going to select the Fill Color, and we're going to set the tolerance to zero. So now, it's only going to select the specific color. I'm going to select purple and just click on it. So now, as you can see, we only selected everything with a purple Fill. I'm going to cut it away. So now, we only have the color left. I'm going to create a new layer called Outlines, and I'm going to hit command alt shift V. So now, I pasted it in the exact same location, but on a different layer, and I'm going to rename this one to Color because we don't have any Outlines in that layer anymore. So if you hide the Color layer, you only have the Outlines, and if you hide the Outlines you only have the color. So the only reason why I do this, the separation, is because we're going to add texture. If you keep a Live Paint active, you can do the separation. So you can't really add texture. You can, but it's going to be more difficult. I think this is the easiest way. So right now because we separated these two, we can add layers in between, and the texture is always going to be below the Outlines and on top of the color. So that's basically the only reason. So the next step is we're going to add some final refinements before we actually going to add texture.
6. Adding Depth: So the next step is adding the final refineries and small little details. So what I'm going to do right now is I'm going to create a new layer called back wheels, because we have some perspective. We want to give the illusion of the wheels being in the back, and being a little visible. So once again I'm just going to create a circle, hold down the Alt key, Shift key, create a circle from the center, drop it, and just reposition it like this, maybe a little bit up, maybe scale it down a little bit like 90 percent. Hold down the Alt key, drag and drop over here, since we are working on a new layer that's laying below the color and below outlines doesn't really matter how the shape looks. So as you can see these wheels are like positions on the vanishing points, so just place them like this, doesn't need to be correct, just create an illusion of wheels in the back. Next, you can just drag and drop like a rectangle shape like this. Maybe add some more details so jump over to the pen tool and make a shape like this, can be anything. The main goal is basically to start adding some more depth, bringing the illustration to life because if you hide this layer, it's really flat and you want more dimension to it, so like this. What we're going to do right now is we're going to select the windows using the Magic Wand tool like I showed you guys before, so hit Y on the keyboard and hit Enter, Magic Wand pops up. Select Fill Color, Tolerance zero like this, and we're going to cut them, so it's command X, and I'm going to create a new layer called Windows on top of color, and just command Alt, Shift V, and just paste them on to the new layer. What I'm going to do right now is every layer is locked except the Windows, and I'm going to hit command A to select everything, and the Opacity over here, I'm going to bring it down to 70 percent. So right now these windows are a little bit transparent. I'm going to lock the Windows, and I'm going to create a new layer below the color layer, and name it, inside of van. Now, I'm going to be using the pen tool to add the driver seats to really simple shape like this. I'm going to apply the same color as the strokes that we created before or you can just use the eyedropper and just take the color from the shapes that we just created before. As you can see now, this is a really simple shape and now it has the illusion of being a driver seats, maybe there's a little bit of the inside visible. As you can see, I'm just basically creating really simple shapes and thinking about stuff that might be right because I'm just creating this on the go. This looks right. If you're not really satisfied with the shape, just go do the direct selection tool which is A on the keyboard, and select the points that you want to adjust like this, and bring it down using the arrow keys on the keyboard. As you can see, I'm actually creating inside in the back of the car giving the illusion that you see actually through the windows, and see what's happening inside of the car, and his is really basic really simple stuff. Maybe there's a little bit of the back window visible if we go like this. You shouldn't really worry about perspective as long as it looks okay, it's all good. We can add the final details, like maybe there should be some little details on the window, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to create a fill, which is gray, I'm going to hit X, and now I'm going to select this swatch color for the outline, the stroke we created swatch before, so I'm just going to apply it. Maybe add some more weights like four points, hold down the Alt key and just drag it down and drop it to copy, something like this. So I'm creating these details on a new layer on top, so I'm going to call it, details on top, select the layer, bring it up a little bit. What's also really handy is you can go to object and you can group these objects, so ow if you select one, it's going to select every one of them. The last thing I'm going to add to this is something like this. Select the points, move it over like this, and because we added in the front, we're also going to be adding it in the back, so just select this shape, copy it, and go to the inside layer that we just created and command Alt, Shift V, and just reposition it. You don't really need a fill, definitely not a gray fill so you can remove that one, and now hit Shift plus X to bring this stroke to the fill, so basically just switching over between them, so now it looks like this. I think the last two things this van is missing is door handles, and maybe a mirror to look to the back. On the details on top layer, I'm going to just create a shape like this using the pencil. Okay, last thing I'm going to show you guys is, because these windows are supposed to be glass, we're going to create the illusion of a reflection, which is actually really simple. So before, we created a new layer containing only the windows, so I'm going select that one. As you can see, only the windows are selected, so if I delete it windows are gone, so I'm going to hit command C to copy it, and I'm going create a new layer on top of it called, highlights window, command Alt, Shift V to paste in the exact same spots, so if you give it a different color just like this, is going to be laying exactly on top. So what I'm going to do right now is I'm going to select the layer I just created, and go to Object, Paths, Offsets, and I'm going to maybe give it a value of minus five pixels, maybe a little bit more, minus 10 pixels, just hit Okay. So we just created an Offset of minus 10 pixels. What I'm going to do right now is I'm going to hit commands X, and actually delete the blue and windows, just we don't need them. I'm going to hit command Alt, Shift key to paste in the Offset that we just created. The next step is really simple, you take the pen tool and inside the same layer, you're going to create a stroke, so we don't need to fill, and give it a different color, something red maybe, doesn't really matter because we are going to cut it away. Holding down the Shift key, you're going to create new lines. If you hold down the Shift key is going to be 45 degree angle like this. Create a random shape really fast just at some points, maybe a little bit less distance between some of them like this. Now, we're going to go to Window, Stroke, give it some more weight. If you hold down the Shift key, is going to add weight by 10 points, so maybe 50 points, close the Stroke Window because we don't need it anymore, go to Window, Pathfinder, just leave it open. But before we go to use the Pathfinder, we're going to go to Object and expand the red stroke that we just created. Just hit, "Okay", now the Stroke is a Path. This is the front part, so you select everything inside this layer, so just hit this little circle, and go to the Pathfinder and hit "Divide". So now, if you use the Magic Wand tool and the Tolerance is set to zero, and you hit the red shape, is going to be selecting the red shape and just hit Backspace, and now you're left with only the reflection of the window. Just give it a different color maybe something white like this. If you select the shape, you see there is lot of information over here. So these are actually transparent shapes, so you don't really need them. If you add color, is going to be adding the color also to the transparent shapes, that is something that we don't need. So what you do is you go to Objects, and you're going to delete every transparent shapes, so it's just Object, Flattened, Transparency, and just hit Okay, and every transparent shape is now deleted, so that's how you do the reflection. If you select the reflection like the shapes that we just created, just go to Opacity and just bring it down a little bit, so it's less hertz, something like this. Since we are looking at it, it's weird, the van is floating, so it's really easy fix for that, it's just like create a new layer underneath everything, and call it shadow. With the ellipse tool selected, just drag and drop an ellipse, like this, give it the exact same color as the outlines using the eyedropper, bring it down a little bit. Now it looks really heavy, so if there's an easy fix for that, just select the shape that you created, and just go to Opacity once again, bring it down a little bit, and now it looks like shadow. Yeah, that's the way to do it.
7. Creating Vector Textures: So now that the illustration is finished, I'm going to be showing you the core of this class which is textures. So just lock every single layer that you just created and create a new one. I'm just going to be calling it Texture Demo. I'm going to scroll up. An important thing to remember before you start using the textures is that your document should be a setup as CMYK, right now is RGB and I'm going to show you why. So if you create a circle, like this, the whole idea behind the shading and texture is that it's based on gray and black. The more black there is in your shape or in your color the more intense the effect is going to be. So basically, that's why your shape, and color, and your documents should be set up as CMYK, so you can only manipulate the key color. So right now we only have RGB, so you can't really use the key color. If you apply the effect right now Effect, Pixelate, Color Halftone, just hit OK. You'll see that it creates a duo tone or it's based on three colors, RGB. Since you only need the black, you need to put the file in CMYK, so just go to File, Document Color Mode, and hit CMYK. If your color sliders are an RGB just go to Window, Color this window pops up and select CMYK over here, and now you have the cyan, magenta yellow, and key color. So what we're going to do right now is going to set everything to zero, which is basically white, and I'm going to create a circle. So right now this is a circle with a white fill. Now I'm going to add some bigger value to the key color, so maybe 50 percent. I'm going to copy this ellipse. The first effect that I'm going to show you is select the circle, go to Effect, Pixelate, and select Color Halftone. So this window pops up, and the only value that you actually do play with is the Max Radius. So I'm going to be setting this to 20 pixels, hit OK. Now we get an effect that looks like this. This is the exact same effect that we did before but using CMYK. Now you can see it's only black, so you don't have different colors going on in there, which is really important for this step. The next part is go to Window, select Gradient. First one we created is basically just using the key color, it's a solid color so it's going to be a solid texture, like this. But you can also use gradients, which is based on the same principle. I'm just going to use this basic gradient. So now you see it fading from black to white, the more black the more intense the dots are going to be. So if I just select the shape and I'm going to hit command shift E to repeat the last effect, is going to be like this so now the effect is faded. The last option is we're going to be using the mesh tool so that U on the keyboards. If you hover over the shape you get this icon with a little plus. So if you just hit your mouse, you're going to add a point. So now using the color slider you can add a different color to that specific point, and it's going to be creating a gradient. So maybe add a different point over here I make it lighter like white. Important thing is you need to select the whole shape once again using the selection tool, which is V on the keyboard, so just hit the shape. Now we can see all the points are selected. Command shift E to repeat the last effect, and now you get something that looks like this. So you can basically use the same technique, but apply different effects to get different styles so that's what I'm going to show you right now. So maybe create a circle once again, and I'm going to copy it two times like this. Give it the key color 50 percent black. Select the shape, go-to effect. So the first effect that I showed you is like this Roy Lichtenstein feel the little dots halftone. But you can also do like go to Effect texture and select Grain. So if you use this for the first time, is going to be set to regular, but you don't really want this. So in this dropdown just select Stippled, and now you get something that looks like this. You can play with the Intensity and the Contrast, but I'm just going to hit OK. So the next part is going to be the same, going to apply it to gradient. So Cmd Shift E to repeat the effects. Get something like this. Once again using the mesh tool, add point over here. Make it light. Select the whole shape using the selection tool, command shift E, and then you get something like this. So this is the exact same principle, but using different methods to add texture. The third one I'm going to show you is once again I'm going to be creating three circles. So select them all. Using the key color once again 50 percent select the first shade, go to Effect, pick Sketch, and now we're going to use the graphic band which looks like this. Once again you can play around with the options, I'm just going to hit OK. You can do it Left Diagonal or Horizontal or Vertical. I'm going to do it like this, Right Diagonal. Just hit OK. Once again Gradient, command Shift E, Mesh tool, black, white. Select Shape command shift E. So this is actually just like the really basic principles of it. As you can see, it's all the same technique but different styles. But right now it's not really usable because if you zoom in you can see it's pixelated, and we're working in Adobe Illustrator so we don't really want the pixels. So the next step is we're going to live trace these effects. So it's actually really simple. Select the shape that you just created. I'm going to start with the first one and go to Object, and Rasterize it. This window will pop up. Just hit OK and now it's rasterized. What I'm going to do right now is I'm going to live trace its or image trace it. So select the shape and now in the top of the window as you can see like this menu pops up and I'm going to select this little arrow and select Sketched Arts. A really important step right now it's image traced, but you can't really do anything with it. You can really apply a color to it so the most important step is actually hitting Expand. So now if you zoom in and maybe it's a fun thing like if you jump to the outline view. So command y you see like every little shape inside the effect that we just created this now live traced, and it's actually like a vector shape. So you can apply Color. As you can see it's gray, and that's because the color is now set to grayscale. So just go back to color and select CMYK, and now you can add any color you like. So if you compare the one that we just live traced to the one that we didn't live trace next to it, as you can see this one is just basically circle even though there's a lot of circles inside of it, but it's pixelated, so there's no information. If you compare it to the one on the left it's live trace so every little shape inside that circle is now a path, and you can manipulate it. So that's the big difference, that's why we're doing this step. I showed you before. I can show it again. The information in this circle, the little dots inside of it are pretty big. If you rasterize it and you're going to live trace it using like Sketched Art which is a basic preset is going to get every little dot. But if you're going to do it and something like the grainy texture. So we go to Object, Rasterize, hit OK, and now we're going to use Sketched Art. You see a lot of information gets lost because the effect is so dense. I think it's best to create your own presets. So the way you do that is you select the shape, go to Window and you select Image Trace. Right now you can't do anything with image trace because it's not rasterized. So in order to trace something it needs to be a rasterized image. So that's what we're going to do right now. With the object selected, go to Object, Rasterize. As you can see now the window is active. So just hit this little arrow next to Advanced to expand the options. Now you have a bunch of sliders. What we're going to do is we're going to turn on the preview. Now you can see what you're actually live tracing. So if you turn up the thresholds you see a lot of stuff is moving, a lot of stuff is happening. So I honestly have no idea what these options actually do, I just play with the sliders and see what happens. So as you can see the more Noise you put in the more the effect is going to be solid. So we want less noise just do it like this, and now you can see it's a really clean live trace. The really important step that you should not forget is you should ignore the white because if you live trace it like this, there is going to be white in the illustration. If you want to remove the whites manually, it's going to take a life time, or you can do with the magic wand tool, but the easiest way is just to Ignore Whites. If you live trace it there is not going to be a single spot of white in there this preset is pretty good. So if you want to use it later on you can save it. So if you hit this little menu Save as New Presets, Skillshare, and just hit OK. Expand, close the image Trace window, select the shape next to it, Rasterize it first, and now if you use the Tracing Presets, if you click it you see the preset that we just created just use it, hit Expands, and that's the way to create a preset. This can be really time-consuming because you're basically going to be doing the exact same thing all over again. If you want to live trace it, I think there's an easy fix. You can just create an action. So if you select the shape, go to Window, Actions, and right now we're going to make a new folder called Skillshare. So an action is basically just a little tool that allows you to repeat the same sequence of steps all over again, which is really convenient. An action needs information, it needs specific steps to repeat. So what you're going to do is you're going to record the steps. I'm going to create a new action just like you create a new layer and call it Image trace. The fun thing about this is you can apply a Function Key to it. So a function key is like the F1 to F12 on you're keyboards on top. So I'm just going to be using F1 and just hit Record. So you start recording, you select the shape, but it's already selected, go to Object, and hit Rasterize, just hit Okay. Now we're going to go to live trace image trace and use the preset that we just created. It's doing its thing, expands, and now you stop recording. So basically, if you select this shape next to it and you hit F1 because that's the function key that we set for this action, it should be doing the exact same thing but really fast. So you don't really need to do all the steps all over again. A really important thing to remember is if you're working on a Apple computer, if you go to System Preferences, and you go to Keyboard. If you check this option, all the function keys will be used as Function Keys because if you use F1, and you don't have this option enabled, it's going to be triggering the options that Apple has set for those keys like brightness and stuff like that. So we don't really need that. So just go to Preferences and check this box. Now you can use all the function keys as function keys which is really important. So yeah, that's basically it, an action. We recorded it, and now we play it all over again using the function key that we apply to it to repeat all the steps.
8. Coloring Textures: So the next step is I have an important step. I showed you the basic techniques, but you're almost never going to be using it like this. This is a way to black. If you put it in an illustration like this, this is going to be taking up too much attention. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to apply some colors to it. So basically, you have different options. If you select the shape and go to Window and bring the color sliders back, you can apply color to the complete shape, and make sure it's in CMYK. So if you select the shape and have a blue edge like this. But now, every single dot as the exact same color, and I think it's way more fun if you can add a bunch of different colors inside the texture pretty random. So if you want to do it manually, it's definitely possible, but it's going to take a lot of time and a lot of work. So you can use a script to do it for you. If you want to apply the same color, it's pretty easy. But if you want all these little grainy pads a different color, it's going to be way too much work to do it manually. So that's why we use a script. So a script is actually something you can integrate and Illustrators. So go to Google and search for random color swatches illustrator. So just download it. We'll have link in the resources that you can download, so you can skip this step. So I'm basically downloading the file right now. If you jump over to downloads, it's a zip file, so just unzip it. So now, you have the random color swatches fill. If you open it, nothing will really happen. So it's basically just a JavaScript file. Go to applications, and you find the Adobe Illustrator folder. You going to go ahead and go to presets, and just select this folder, and go to scripts. What you're going to do right now is you're going to drag it from the downloads, and do this folder, and just drop it. So the next step is you're going to close Illustrator, and you're going to restart it. Save here. So if you open up Illustrator again, and you go to file scripts. Now, you see that the random swatches fill is in the drop-down or in the menu. So now, we can start using it. The fun thing with this effect is I'm going to apply it to this one. So if you select this shape, it's going to be selecting all the little pads inside of it. So once again, go to objects. This is really important and ungroup it. So now, you can select every single shape inside of the effect that we created. Next, we're going to open up the swatches, and we're going to select a bunch of colors. So first, select the shape that you just ungrouped, and go to the swatches panel, and hold down the command key, and select multiple colors, like green, and yellow, and orange. So as you can see in swatches, I've selected a bunch of colors. With the shapes selected, go to file, scripts, and just select random color swatches. Now, all the switches that we just selected are going to be randomly applies to the effect that we just created. So this is a really cool way to add color to every single little pads that we just traced. This is a fun way to make it look more unique or handmade, I don't know. But it's also really fast and time-efficient way because like I showed you before, using this shape, if you add color to every little pads inside of that effect that we created, it's going to take a lot of time. So this is the way to do it really fast. So what we're going to do right now is we're going to apply the textures that I just showed you, do the illustration using colors that actually match the illustration that we just created.
9. Applying Textures: So now that I showed you my basic principles, we're going to apply it to the actual illustration that we made. An important step in this part is like we want to be aware of the colors and that they match the illustration, or the colors that we use inside the illustration. For instance, if I create a new layer called texture. So on top of the color layer because the texture is going to be on top of it. So you basically need the swatches panel for this and the color sliders. Also the magic wand tool because we are going to be selecting the color and using them to apply the texture too. So I'm going to be selecting fill color and set the tolerance to zero. So [inaudible] basically the only tools that you need and maybe also the gradient tool. So basically using the magic wand tool going to be selecting all the yellow. So I'm just click inside the yellow Command C, lock the color layer and create a new layer on top called texture. Now we're going to copy the yellow pads that we just copied and a new layer so it commands all shift V. So if we hide all the layers except the texture layer looks like this. I'll use like this for a minute. So if you, like you can see these are two different paths. So if we apply a gradient to this it's going to be looking like this because the gradient is starting from the absolute right of this path and the absolute right of this path. So it looks like this. What you can do is you can, if you don't like this effect you want like one gradient going through all the different paths laying on top of each other you can go, you select them, objects and you make it compounds path like this. So now it's just one gradient. Select the shape, go to effects and I'm going to be using the graphic pen, so sketch graphic pen and this is going to pop up this window just hit okay. Now it looks like this. The fun thing at this moment the effect is still active. So if you think this black is way too intense you can just double-click and give it like smaller value like 50 percent maybe, the effect is going to reload. Apply new effects. Now it looks like this. Same steps all over again, rasterize it, hit okay and then use a preset that we made before and light trace it and if you hit expands, it looks like this. Going to bring back all the layers that we just hide it. So this is the texture inside of the illustration. As you can see it's way too black, it takes up way too much of the attention. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to make it yellow. So select it as you can see we didn't ungroup so it selects every little path inside of the texture and maybe give it like an orange look and now you have like a gradient but it's actually used if you zoom in. It's like a texture gradients. So if you go into the outline view looks like this. There's a lot of information, doesn't really matter but like if you want to apply like random color to this like we did before, you just select the eyedropper tool and use the yellow as the base color. Now we're going to create new circles like this. So this is like the part where you're going to be selecting swatches just keep one yellow and then with the color slider just pick some colors that like the same like a little bit off. So now you're going to select these circles, go to the swatches panel and create a new color group like this and just hit okay. As you can see like all the different swatches that we just created are now in the swatches panel. So just delete these circles because we don't really need them anymore. Go to the texture that you just created, go to objects ungroup, hold down the command key, hold down the shift key and select all swatches. Go to file scripts, random swatches fill and now the texture has like all the different swatches that we just created. Right now this little part is maybe a little bit weird so you can select it and just give it a different color like this or go to the color slider like this. It's completely up to you. Can also delete it, like maybe you just want this parts like kind of distressed look and feel. So just playing around with it and just like if you don't really like this color inside the texture, you can just use the Magic Wand tool, make sure that the fill color is set to zero tolerance and now you just use the Magic Wand tool to single out this color and just give it a different color. Now slip, it looks like this. So the technique I just showed you is like a combination of the stuff I showed you before with the combination with the scripts. I'm going to delete this effect because right now we're going to be thinking about the shape of the van and maybe like the van isn't flat. So maybe some stuff is laying in the back, maybe some stuff is laying in front. So we are going to apply this shading and a really specific way to bring it more to life. I'm going to unlock the color layer and create a new layer on top of it called Texture 1. Once again select the yellow, copy it, and paste it into the new layer. Lock the color layer just so we don't work in the wrong layer on accident. This part of the illustration should be like kind of bandit. So I'm going to select this shapes or triple-click and then go to gradients and apply a gradient. So it should be something like this. If you hold down the Alt key and you drag, you can create a new points in the gradients like this. So if you select the shape, go to Effect, Sketch, Graphic pen as you can see like the effect is still active. So if you want to move like this gradient a little bit you can just move it inside the gradients panel and just drag it and drop it and then the effect will recalculate, looks like this. It's basically just moving stuff until you get something that looks right. This should be a little bit darker. This one is maybe a little bit too dark, so maybe a little bit lighter color like this. So this looks okay. Object, rasterize, hit okay. You could definitely see what happens if you use the sketched arts presets. So if you rasterize it there, for some reason, illustrators putting like a white box around it, like the shape that we created. I don't know why but it just happens. So don't freak out because we're going to life trace it, and it's going to be gone. So it's completely up to you, do you want to use the preset that we just created, which is going to be a lot of information, but you can also use sketched arts. Then, if you hit okay, it's going to be looking like this, which I think is also working. It's live tracing a lot less stuff, so maybe we should just use this one, expanded, and now apply color to it like this. So as you can see this part is giving the illusion of bending to the back, so that's exactly what we want. This part, I don't know, it looks good. So what you also can do is if you triple-click, you isolates the effect. If you use the Lasso tool which is Q on the keyboard, you can draw a shape around this and it's going to select only that shape. So maybe this should be a little bit darker. So just select different presets like this triple-click. Now, it looks like this. What's really convenient right now, is really handy right now is if you ungroup the color layer, so you can select each part and the layer. What you do is use the shortcut to ungroup because you're going to need to ungroup it five times or something like that. So if you use command shift G, it's ungrouping. So you've going to hear your computer make a sounds. If it makes a sound, everything is ungrouped. So now, you can select every single pots inside the color layer. So next, I'm going to be using this one. Make sure to copy it and create a new layer, texture too, and just paste it, command alt, shift, V, lock the color layer. Just keep the texture to layer unlocked. So select it and now we're going to apply a gradient like this, flip it over to the different sides. If you drag this little thing, the gradient slider, you can actually slide the gradient like this. You can see the gradient changing. Maybe the black is little bit to black, so do it like this. Now, command shift E to repeat the last effect that we used, objects, rasterize, okay. Now, image trace, sketched arts, and expand it, and just give it any color you like, like this. This is looking like gradient but it's not because it's like a texture that's fading out. You can also use a gradient but it's a different technique, it's a different thing. Basically, the rest of the illustrations is going to be repeating these steps. So maybe we can record a new action that we can actually use to life trace everything. I'm going to lock the layer that we just created, unlock the color layer, and select the gray roof, copy it once again, create a new layer, texture three, lock the color layer, now, paste the color pad that we just copy into the new layer, like this. So anything that you want to have like custom made. The gradient is not going to be the same gradients in the illustration, it's going to be custom for each shape, so you're going to need to do that manually but the rest of it is going to be automated. So we apply the gradients, go to Window, Actions, and we're going to record a new action. So basically, what this does is this window pops up. So let's delete the action that we made before and create a new one. So just create a new folder action. Now, creating a new layer, just create a new action. So now we're going to name it, Texture and we're going to apply a function key to it, so F1, and now hit record. Like before now, every step is going to be recorded. So go to Effect, Apply Graphic Pen, so that's the effect that we're going to use. So as you can see if you zoom in, it's applied. No, we're not going to touch this because it's going to be recorded. So Object, Rasterize, Okay and now, we're going to live trace it maybe just using Sketched Art once again, live tracing it. Now, we're going to hit Expand, and now we're going to stop the recording, apply color like this. So if we do this again, so once again, using this shape I'm going to be pasting this in the layer that we just created, apply gradients. We want to apply the same effects to this shape but we want to flip it over. So if you go to the gradient window, you can hit this little button reverse gradients, so it's going to reverse it. So now, I'm going to apply the effects. Now, I'm just going to hit F1 because that's the action that we just recorded. If we hit F1, yeah, do not show again, just okay. It's going to be live tracing it, and rasterizing it, and expanding it automatically. So this is going to be really saving us a lot of time. So for instance, if you create a shape like this, just a rectangle and using the mesh tool, maybe we want add a point here because there's going to be a lot of shading. Just use the key color like this, select the shape, command shift E to apply the effect, and then just F1, and it's going to do all the steps for you. So you basically, just need to apply a new color like this and this is going to be a really fast way to do it. So right now, I will start applying the effect to the rest of the van.
10. Stylizing Textures: I think next, maybe we can go a little bit more crazy with textures and show you how you can really make it pop, and really make it look really crazy. So, important thing to remember is, it's basically going to be the same technique all over again, but I'm basically going to be using different shapes and different swatches to make it come to life a little bit more. So basically, what we're going to do is you're going to go to window. We're going to open up some basic swatches. Go to Swatch Libraries, and then patterns, basic, graphic dots. So, this window opens up. As you can see if you create a shape and you apply basic dots, it looks like this. You can also use the arrow keys to browse different libraries. So, maybe we can use lines. We're going to scale it up a little bit like this. So, like a bunch of different lines. But, I think the fun starts over here. If you have the basic graphic textures, which are basically the fault in any Adobe Illustrator package. So, as you can see if you browse through them looks like this. Maybe scale it up a little bit, like really fun little textures that you can use in your projects. So, what I'm going to do right now is, I'm going to lock all the texture layers that we just created, and we're basically just going to be focusing on the color layer once again to use as a base, to apply the effects or the textures. So, I'm going to be adding a swatch or a texture to the wheels. So, I'm just going to be copying these two pads. So, Command C, create a new layer texture wheels and just copy and paste it in the exact same spot. So, once again like this, and just like all the other layers. So, right now I'm going to select a basic graphic texture, maybe this one looks like fun. So, if it's too small, what you do is you just hit S on the keyboard, hit Enter and then the scale option pops up. If you select this transform the objects, it's also going to be scaling the objects, but we don't want this check so un-check it. So, now if you have transformed patterns selected only because of the scaling the texture that you have selected. So, just do it like this and it's okay. Once again, go to objects. Going to rasterize it so we can play around with it. So now, it's resterized. Life trace it. Sketched arts. Once again hit expense. So, it's basically the same steps that we did we before. So, once again, going to in-group these. Command shift G, hit a few times so everything is in groups. So, you can select every single shape. What we're going to do right now is going to create these circles again. I'm going to be using the purple of the wheel as a base color. So, like this. Copy it a few times. We are going to need swatches tool after all. So, window swatches. I'm going to create a new color group. Just hit okay. So, as you can see, we have all these colors selected in the swatches panel. We don't need these circles anymore, so just delete them. Now, I'm going to select the texture layer that we just created. Hold time commands. Hold down shift and then go to File scripts and random color swatches. Now, you can see there is a lot of stuff happening inside the wheel, which is a little detail, but it's going to make your illustration way more fun. So, you can go really crazy with stuff like this. If you select specific parts of your illustration, going to make this a little bit bigger. So, once again, go back to the color layer and select these parts for instance, copy, new layer and paste it in there. Going to use a different effect. As you can see, it's really tiny really small, so maybe we should scale it up a little bit. So, once again, as under and then make sure transform objects isn't checked. Now, we're going to scale it 350 percents. So, what you can also do is you can rotate it. So, if you hit alt and enter, you can rotate it. Same principle. So, maybe 45 degrees. Hit okay. Once again resterize it. Live trace it. Maybe we should use a different pre-set. Maybe silhouettes and see what happens. Also works. So yes. Once again ungroup everything. This is going to be like gray scale. So, just select some gray scale stuff like this. Maybe some blue, go to files scripts and random color swatches. Now, you have something like this. The blue is like a really fun accent. If you don't really like the blue after all, just go with the magic ones. Tool, select it and then just give it a different color. It's up to you. Maybe something yellow could be fine. So, nobody will maybe noticed it, but it's like a really fun little detail. What you can do if you want to go really crazy, because this wasn't so crazy after all. If you select the texture that we created before like for instance this one. So, just selected it. Now, we're going to copy this one and just paste it on top of it. You don't really need to make a new layer. So, if you go to maybe this library and select lines like this, it's going to be looking like this. So, what you do right now is you rasterize this. Now, it looks like this and you're going to be tracing it. Sketched arts, everything works, expand it. Now, we're going to apply a gradient to this one. Window gradients like this. Flip it over, and as you can see, if you zoom in, this is going to be creating light, because it's not a compound, but it's going to be creating gradients starting from that point which is good, because you're going to add like a fun little details. So, once again, just apply the last effects and live trace it. So, I'm just going to hit F1, because we recorded that action. It's going to speed up the process a little bit. So, now it looks like this. Just select this color as a base color, and then maybe make it more orange like this. If you do this again, just select it, copy, paste on the exact same spots and do gradients. As you can see there's a lot of new stuff happening over here. So, just apply the effects all over again. F1 to rasterize it, then live trace it and give it like a darker color like this. Now, it starts to look like this. So, it's like really distressed and you can keep on doing this. Basically, you're creating a gradient using textures. So, now you have something that looks like this. It's maybe a little bit too heavy. It looks how it looks over here, but maybe this is too much. So, once again, just triple-click with the Lasso Tool which is Q. Select these parts, just delete it. Now, looks like this. So, maybe we can do a random color fill in the yellow parts. So, what I'm going to do is just go back to the color, because that's the base of everything, and make sure every texture on top of it is locked. So, we only need that color. Copy it and make a new texture layer like this. Just texture, random color. So, paste it inside the new layer like this. As you can see, if I apply a different color to this, it could be that you need to rearrange it, because it needs to be underneath the textures. So, drag it and drop it until you get something that looks right. So, I think I'm going to drop it over here. So, what I'm going to do right now is, I'm going to go back to the basic graphic textures. I'm going to select this one, scale it up a little bit. So, as you can see it's transforming the object, so we don't want that. So, disable this option, and maybe this is a little bit too big, so 200 percent. Hit okay. Once again, rasterize it and live trace it using the action, just F1. This is going to be covering the whole yellow parts. So, it's going to be adding a little bit more dimension and more depth. Once again, what's really important is you need to regroup the effect that we just made. So, it's command shift G. Just hit it a few times. Now, we still have these yellows that we created before. So, commands, and then shift to select them all file, scripts, random swatches scholar. Now, this is happening inside of the yellow. But, you can still adjust the color. So, if you use the magic one two and you use the yellow as a base, you can use the color slider to change it.
11. Designing Custom Textures: So if you want to add texture to the windows, we created this separate layer for the windows, just unlock it, select everything inside the layer and then copy it and paste it on top of it add a new layer. So just lock the windows layer and name this texture windows. So maybe if you don't really like the basic textures, you can also create your own texture which is something I will show you right now. I'm going to be doing it in the same layer that we just created. So maybe we want something like this, like strokes in 45 degree angles, make sure it's like rectangle. So just select it, and as you can see if you selected there's this bounding box appearing next to it. As you can see in the right corner, there's not really anything happening. So maybe we can add a line inside of that corner like this, and maybe something like this, select it again and now you can see like the whole rectangle is actually filled with stuff. This is really simple. Just select everything, and drag it, and drop it in the swatches panel. So now if you create a shape or maybe a circle, and you jump over to the swatches panel and just select it, your texture is going to be applied to it which is really cool. So we're going to apply this one to the windows, so select this and now I just apply the texture that we just made. Once again same thing all over again rasterize it, live trace it using the action. Pretty sweet. So now it's just basic lines. What you can do is, you can apply a gradient to this to make it a little more crazy. So go back to window, open gradients, just apply it and maybe the angle should be 90 degrees. So it's going from the bottom to the top. So if you zoom in it looks like this. So each line has like the gradient applied. Maybe we can use a different effect this time. Go to Effects, Pixelate and use Colour Halftone and give it like 12 pixels radius. So if you zoom in you see this happening and because we didn't use CMYK, you need to go back to the color slider. Still open to the gradient, so back to the gradient window. As you can see there's way too much color so needs to be set to zero. So now looks like this. So if you zoom out f like this pixelated effects. So once again rasterize it using the action that we recorded before and now because the windows are purple or pinkish, we're going to apply a darker color on top of it, inside the texture and you get stuff like this. Also you can do when those in the back, maybe we can do something to bring them more to the back. So just lock this layer, like we created the inside of the car. So just create a new layer on top of that one, and just call it texture. Now just draw a shape using the pen tool. Like this, blocking out the actual back of the car. So what we are going to do right now is, we are going to add some dots, make them smaller a little bit so 75 percent like this, rasterize it. So basically what we did right now is we just once again applied a texture. As you can see here, we have many textural layer. So and why did I like these dots in the bag, is to bring the back way more to the back. So you can also do lines, you can do whatever you want, you can make your own texture, so it's completely up to you. So yeah, I think this looks like it's finished. Maybe we can add a small little detail. It should have an antenna. So this basically just using the pen tool like this. Now it's finished.
12. Final Adjustments: So I think finished with adding texture, you can go really crazy and at way more, but I think for the sake of keeping it simple, we're going to start over here, but you can see there's a lot of information going on. These are all different paths, it's intense. If I was this computer, I would definitely not like me. So the last step is like, in the beginning I was talking about the hard board not really having a purpose. So if you bring back the hard board using the shortcut, so Command Shift H, you can see like a little bit off. As you can see, the hard board still exist, now we're going to just resize the hardboard using Shift O, so now just drag and drop something like this, doesn't really matter. I think it going to be fun if we add a really simple backgrounds, could be a color, could be anything you like, so on the absolute bottom of the layers just creates a background and a shape, just a rectangle, just drag and drop. I think it should be a really light color, maybe start with the yellow that we used and then just make it a little bit lighter, maybe some little bit of cream-ish. We move the stroke because we don't really need it. But you can also do this with a pen tool to create like this crazy shape in the back. Close it and like I showed you guys before, now you can use the basic swatches or the basic patterns that we used before, maybe we should scale it up a little bit, so 200 or 150. Once again, just use the action that we created to life trace it. There's way too much paths going on like in this illustration, so if you want to see the actual paths just use like these shortcuts Commands H. So now it's still selected, but bounding boxes removed, so you can see all the little paths, select the color that we used in the backgrounds and then just like with the color slider maybe it should have like a bluish tone like this, scale it down a little bit. So maybe the background should be some kind of blue and these half-tones that we just put in front of the background should be like something light blue. All right. Now, if you take a look at this because the opacity is like 70 percent I think, like the drop shadow of the car, we shouldn't be able to see the dots, so you can do is you select it, it's actually 60 percent opacity. If you go to object and you just hit flattened transparency, it's going to make it a solid color and block out any transparency, so now it looks like this but it's kind of weird, so maybe it should be bluish also. So something like this and now it's finished. So what you can do right now is go to File, Export, Export as and now you get like a bunch of options like just select this one, so you want to be using the art boards, so just I'm going to be saving it as a jpeg and make sure this box is checked, so exports and now you can use like RGB, anything you like, 300 PPI, just hit "OK." So this is exporting, but you can also just save it for web which is Command Alt Shift S. So if I want to save it for Instagram, I just use JPEG, but the fun part about this is I know that the maximum size on Instagram is like 1350 pixels wide. So this is 2096, so just bring it down to 1350 and then it will automatically scale down. But respecting the proportions, just pretty quality at 100 percent safe and save it to desktop, just hit "Save" and now it's done.
13. Closing: I think that was it. I think I showed you a bunch of stuff. The most important thing to remember is like keep it simple, don't try to make it too complicated. I showed you how to create actions, textures, applying color, applying the scripts. When you actually finished watching this, if you made it up to this point, you should be able to make something really cool. So yeah, I'm looking forward to see the results. All the stuff that we use today, all the stuff that I showed you like source file of new van that we just created or the script file is in the resources or you can just download it and play around with it and use it. Feel free to use all the techniques that I showed you today to create different stuff. It doesn't need to be a van, and you can go crazy and just surprise me and upload it in the project gallery. I will be there watching and commenting and giving my feedback. So yeah, just share everything you make and I'm looking forward to see all the stuff. Thank you for taking the class. It was a pleasure and I'm super excited. See what you guys make.