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Tips for Pencil Sketch

Lesson 7 from: Adobe Illustrator: From Shapes to Complex & Beautiful Illustrations

Junichi Tsuneoka

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Lesson Info

7. Tips for Pencil Sketch

Next Lesson: Shape Tool Basics

Lessons

Class Trailer

Course Introduction

1

Introduction

01:44
2

Basic Concept of the Course

00:58
3

Examples and Applications

00:39
4

Process Overview

01:44
5

Quiz - Introduction

Getting Started

6

Concept Development

09:12
7

Tips for Pencil Sketch

18:12
8

Shape Tool Basics

06:58
9

Shape Tool Advance

08:36
10

How to Control Shapes by Different Movements

04:49
11

How to Control Shapes By Reflect Skew and Rotate Tools to Create Complex Shapes

05:45
12

Combine Multiple Shapes with Pathfinder Tool

04:19
13

Create Complex Shapes with Pathfinder Tool

06:51
14

Quiz - Getting Started

Case Study 1: Stand Alone Graphic

15

Case Study 1 Overview (Stand Alone Design)

02:04
16

Creating an Environment for Converting the Pencil Sketch into Editable Vector Graphic

03:29
17

Create a Group of Shapes to be Used as a Base of the Illustration

13:03
18

How to Introduce Large Medium and Small Design Elements to the Overall Design to Achieve Depth and More Detailed Result

05:43
19

Adding Colors

11:12
20

How to Fine Tune the Design and Finalize It

03:27
21

Exercise

00:51
22

Quiz - Case Study 1: Stand Alone Graphic

Case Study 2: Illustrative Pattern

23

Case Study 2 Overview (Illustrative Pattern)

01:41
24

Creating an Environment for Converting the Pencil Sketch into Editable Vector Graphic

01:37
25

Create a Small Unit of Complex Shapes to Use as a Base of the Whole Illustration

14:01
26

How to Introduce Large Medium and Small Design Elements to the Overall Design to Achieve Depth and More Detailed Result

01:48
27

How to Introduce Foreground Middle and Background Elements to the Overall Design to Achieve More Depth

09:56
28

Adding Colors

07:27
29

How to Fine Tune the Design and Finalize It

06:38
30

Quiz - Case Study 2: Illustrative Pattern

Conclusion

31

Conclusion

00:59

Final Quiz

32

Final Quiz

Lesson Info

Tips for Pencil Sketch

Okay, so these are the series of images I came up with based on the keywords based on the subject, reptile concert poster. So these are the image inspiration. Now we want to figure out which idea is more effective to move forward to develop for finished design. Now, one thing I noticed right away is these two are somewhat similar because they are both dinosaur character and for that reason maybe we only need to look at one of the idea and I will just choose this one because this one seems to work with the type a little better than the other. So as far as the elimination, I will probably take this out of the group to consider for the next step. Now, once the elimination is done, I will think about which idea is more effective in this case more effective will communicate more the concept of the image. So I will look at this one for example, this robot drawing inspired by the name of the band, which is the character approach and also because of its robert, it talks about electronic aspect...

, digital aspect. So it also talks about these are general of the music, the feel of the music. If I compared to this idea for example, this idea only communicates the name of the band and which doesn't communicate too much about their music. So that's why I think this idea probably more effective because it communicates more aspects about this concert event. So for my selection process, I would consider this to be the idea that I'd like to push forward and develop further to the finished piece. But when I look at the rest of the ideas, I don't have to ignore everything else because for example, this particular idea originally inspired by going for more typography heavy approach, but it does capture the aspect of digital sound so I can see this to work with the the main idea as a typography approach, I can see this idea to work with this main image to make a better composition. So for this particular process, I decided to take this idea as the main idea to develop and I decided to this idea to develop as a supporting element to the poster design. And then going forward. I will take these two to develop further and more applicable to a poster design. Once you have a few ideas that have some potential, Now it's time to move on to a more developed sketch that could be scanned and used as a base of victor tracing. So now we have the basic direction, we'll take this idea into more developed sketch. And now I will look at the composition 1st. 1st I'm gonna look at where the center line is and I want this character to be the main design element. So that will be the focal point of the design. So I will make sure that the character will be more than half of the surface of the design. So I'll just mark the rough area to indicate which item goes to where and this would be the type area and this would be the character to fit in. And then now I look at the character, not so much of the obvious look for it, but I really like the section different section of shapes. One image is divided into the shapes, so I will really emphasize that to develop as a clear design direction. And again I will look at the oval shape and position of the important element Of the drawing one which is the face area and then start adding the other elements. Mm hmm. From here, the eyes are just one circle. But since I'm emphasizing on separating into different shapes, I would push that so that I will translate the the shape into rather complex shape or complex group of shapes. So when I see the big chunk of shape I try to break is somehow one way to do is to divide the shape. and one way to do is to take the section out of the shape. And of course you can add smaller shape to the drawing. And again working on the big picture before getting into too much details. And I also look at how I divide the shape and come up with additional shape that match with the division of the shape. In this case a triangle shape fits a little better. So I interpret my idea into more concrete visuals. Mhm. And whenever I see areas to add more division of the shape, that's where I additional shape. And if you see one single shape, then that can be divided into multiple smaller shape. So the process of what I'm going for is I create one shape. I make the cut and add a different shape that match with the cut that I just created and the shapes that I'm coming up with these are the shapes that will match again with the digital electronic field of the music. So for the supportive element, I created the section for that. So make sure I keep looking at the overall balance between the main image, main drawing versus the supportive design element. And here since I have this composition, uh this particular um pausing doesn't fit well with the composition, then that's when I can change the design of it so that it will fit a little bit better here, you can start adding more details, but again, you want to keep it to a minimum and it's okay to keep it somewhat rough for this process. Now, you have the idea, you will start looking at some of the aesthetic aspect of the image, such as composition and overall balance of the image because of that, it will be good to use a bigger piece of paper to sketch on. I personally walk on letter size or similar size. The other thing I found very convenient is to use grid paper because of the grid, even if you are sketching geometric shapes. freehand, it is very easy to make consistent angles and the overall sketch will be less confusing. Also, a grid system is a very basic way of thinking about effective design. The grid paper is very helpful, appealing composition. Again, this is still a sketch. Overall rough composition is the most important things to work on here. The details are just there to indicate, so that you know when you start victor tracing and to figure out the overall balance and consistency. This is also where you want to make stylization decisions in your sketch after the overall competition is somewhat working depending on the direction. This could be one of the research results. The atmosphere that your client wants to create will determine the stylization in general. For serious subject, I would choose a representational style for humorous fun subject. I would choose a rather exaggerated stylization. So here I spend a little more time and you can see the sketch is start developing more and more and you can see the shapes rather clear. And as you can see, I try to utilize the negative space which is any area that connects to the background, so any shape or any area contained within the shape. This is the positive space and everything else is negative space. Negative space is the space that that you can see between different shapes that connects all the way to the background so that so what it does is that it will bring the background into part of your design which makes even more interesting and more effective as a design tool. In other words, you're looking at the interaction between the background into the actual design space. So playing with negative space is also an interesting approach to coming up with interesting composition and now you start adding more details. You want to keep somewhat still rough on the quality because you will end up cleaning up with your victor tool. But I will add in these details. In this case, I am breaking down bigger chunk of shapes into smaller chunk and the only reason why I'm adding this details is that I am looking at the overall balance of how much smaller shape I have versus how much bigger shape that I have. I do not want to have too many big shapes in the composition because big shape because more bigger shape you have. Then your design will get more confusing. The smaller shapes. On the other hand, you can fit more smaller shape into smaller area, it will be less confusing. But again, you want to look at the big shape versus smaller shape balance if you have too much smaller shape, then the big shape doesn't stand out or the design itself doesn't have a strong impact to it. Or it will create the the busy impression. So you want to add a certain amount of details but you want to watch how much or how small you want to do in this particular process and here I would start work with the type looking at this and same as your main character approach. 1st I will look at the bigger shape and I will break the bigger shape into smaller shaped elements. And again keep looking at overall design, overall composition and adjust how much detail you want to add without losing the balance of overall design composition. Sometimes if you work too much on one area then one area gets too busy. So that's why you want to really look at the entire design when you're adding smaller details. Again, details are adding to just to see the balance of overall picture, not to actually figure out how the detail could look the details you can still add later on in the victor converting process.

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