Illustration ClipArt of a 3d webcrawler robot in flight.
I’m pretty sure when I say this — there are not many illustrators out there who have made an entire series of “bots” depicting online technologies, such as firewalls, webcrawlers, scutters, and so forth.
This has been a very fun subject to illustrate on, which I tend to improve with every batch just because I get used to the workflow.
As you can probably tell, this design was initially inspired on a webcam. This has evolved from a previous webcam design which I initially launched as a series on Istockphoto years ago. Read More (See the Illustration)…
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I tend to march to the beat of a different drummer when it comes to illustration–especially in the area of color. In this tutorial we will be shading this little drummer character. Download him here: http://www.jesterarts.net/drummer.zip
Vector work can be tedious. A lot of pointy-clickety and detail stuff…it can drive you crazy. “Actions” are like the medication built into Illustrator to stop you from going crazy (or at least crazier).
Achieving proper lighting and color in a character illustration is important. Duh. A proper use of Actions will make your color changes for lighting both easier and accurate.
I have an entire workflow built around this concept so I can crank out characters as fast as possible. See below screenshot:
When having to produce a lot of illustrations, proper use of actions will speed things up and reduce tedious vector work.
Follow the steps below:
1. Create a new CMYK document.
2. Create your character complete with flat colors. (Or simply use the one I included here).
3. Open up your Actions window (just to have it ready). Window/Actions.
4. Once that window is open you will see all of your Action defaults pre-organized in little sets. You should create a new set for this one. At the bottom of the window you can see some options. Click the little icon that looks like a folder to create a new set…
4. You will be prompted to name the set. Name it something close to your heart, such as the name of your hamster, “JesterArts Rocks”, or something. In this case, I’ve called the set “Shading: Light and Dark” because I lack imagination and hamsters. In this folder we will soon be creating our shading and lightening action.
5. Now lets take a little detour and do some actual vector editing in preparation for these magical new color tricks. Working in vector, many people have different ways of altering objects for color changes. I choose to cut out parts with other shapes since this seems to be the cleanest way of working. However you wish to do it, define an area that will be shaded. For this illustration, I’ve created a circle over the head which will “cut out” an area to be darkened. I call this empty path used for cutting “the cutting path”, strangely enough.
6a. Open up your “Pathfinder” window by selecting Window/Pathfinder. You will see this little pallet here:
6b. Now select the shapes you wish to cut along with the ingeniously termed “cutting path”. It’s the typical “shift click click” operation in selecting multiple things. When you’ve selected all of your objects/paths to be used, click the “divide” option in your pathfinder pallet.
6c. By this, your objects will become sliced and you will be able to select the newly created regions to be colored. See below:
7. Back to the Actions part. With your new areas selected, we are going to create a new action used in creating shaded/darkened areas. Go to your Actions pallet and click “Create New Action” as pictured below. Be sure the right “set” folder is selected!
8. Here’s the important part. You are now creating a new action. Duh. Call it something relevant, not having anything to do with hamsters. In this situation I’ve called it “Darker”.Once you click “Record” you will not be surprised to know that your actions are being recorded. At this time, I’d avoid doing anything embarrassing that you do not want posted to YouTube. I’m just kidding…its only recording your actions in Illustrator 
.
9. Now that you know you are being recorded (I know, it feels funny) go to Edit/Edit Colors/Adjust Color Balance.
10. A window will come up called, appropriately enough, “Adjust Colors“. Click the “Preview” button and adjust the sliders in such a way that shading/darkening occurs to the desired amount. In this case, I’ve kept all the sliders at ZERO and have simply added Black (13 percent).
11. Remember, you are still recording! Now that you’ve happy with that and have pressed “OK” that will have been recorded. For this action, that is all you will have to record, so you can push the “stop” button at the bottom of your actions window. That will, surprisingly enough, stop you from recording. 
The Circle can be pushed if you wish to start recording again, and the Triangle to the right is the “Play” button.
11a. Experimentally, select an object that you may want darker besides the one we just altered. With the object selected, press the “play” button and watch the object become darker (regardless of its color). (If nothing happens be sure your objects colors are not Grayscale or RGB.)
12. Now cut out an area (refer to step 6) that you will want lighter. Then create a new action as previously shown. This time we will move our sliders in the opposite direction, creating lighter areas.
With that done, here is the effect:
10. Now you have two actions: A lightening and darkening action. When you select multiple areas (even of different colors or gradients) playing the action on them will always uniformly darken or lighten the areas for a professional look. Go through your illustration and mess around with it. I did this one quickly and here was the result:
(yeah, I added some eyes. Isn’t he cute!)
Here are some more examples of characters created using this method:
Do not underestimate the power of actions. Used in the right way, they can speed up and improve your work! I’ve set up my actions to produce LOTS of color versions of certain illustrations within minutes. See here: http://www.jesterartsillustrations.com/search/plans
This has been another JesterArts Micro-Tutorial. If you want to see more Tutorials, join me on Twitter or Facebook! For more of my work, see JesterArts Illustrations.
Hotkeys are a subtle yet huge advantage to designers.Saving effort and time is necessary. Here is a tutorial that shows you how to duplicate objects in illustrator FAST. There are pictorial examples below each step.
Copying and Pasting:
1. Before you can paste an object, you must first select and copy it. First select the object you wish to copy with the Direct Selection tool (V key). In this case, I’ve selected the orange man taped to the artboard.
2. Hold down CTRL key and push C. You’ve just copied it!
3. Hold down CTRL key and push V. As you can see, you’ve just pasted it! Example below.
OR while working in Adobe Illustrator you may wish to paste something directly above your object (CTRL F) or directly below your object (CTRL B). That is often necessary for making face-to-face duplictions in your workflow.
Duplicating:
Sometimes you may just want to have an instant duplicate that you are dragging to a separate location on your workspace. Simply hold down the ALT key and click/drag the object. How easy is that? I’m almost embarassed to call this a tutorial! Picture below for mental stimulation.
ALT + Click/Drag (In Action)
ALT + Click/Drag (Completed)
If you want to duplicate at exact horizontal, parallel, or 45 degree angles, hold down SHIFT. That is, ALT, CLICK/DRAG SHIFT. Hey, you wanted a challenge.
But if your at a party with your fellow computer design geeks, thats not going to impress them. If you want to be a real magician, push CTRL D afterward and watch the action you just performed become duplicated directly in line with your last duplicate!
Have fun duplicating! While your at it, duplicate yourself so you can take on multiple projects at once!
This has been another JesterArts Micro-Tutorial. If you want to see more Tutorials, join me on Twitter or Facebook! For more of my work, see JesterArts Illustrations.
I've been doing so much 3d work lately I've been dreaming in polygons. To get to sleep I count vertices, and when I wake up I'm subconsciously thinking of rigging strategies to get the best movement out of a character.
Its time for a vacation, I think. Today I stopped at a bike shop and checked out some Kawasaki Ninjas, and for once I actually found myself interested in the real thing, and not just wondering how I'd make a model of it.
But while I'm still locked in the 3d thing, exploring new horizons with concepts, here is a small breakdown of how this stuff is done! Are you a customer? This will be enjoyable to see what is done to get to the finished product.
No doubt you've seen enough behind-the-scenes extra features — heck, a twelve year old knows it by now — to know whats involved in the creation of a 3d character! But here's another one in case you haven't had enough!
Most 3d artists enjoy showing the rendered product, but many 3d artists want to see the wireframe where a true assessment of quality can be made. Its not enough to construct the 3d model to "look right" but the "Edge flow", that is, the arrangement of the geometry, must be properly created to allow the greatest and most natural range of movement.
The hardest part of the entire process, for me, is rendering and re-rendering to get the lighting and materials right. Thats because its so incredibly time consuming. But the end results are usually worth the time involved.
The ant series is probably going to be more practical to the needs of the market, and I'm glad I spent a little extra time on it. The textures were created in Zbrush, a program made specifically for adding detail onto the model as one might paint a sculpture. Here are the texture maps created for the ant:
The multicolored map on the left is responsible for adding the smaller geometric details in the texture. It "fakes" things like cracks and bumps in the texture. It uses the RGB values as coordinates instead of color, telling the renderer to simulate the effect of changes in surface qualities. This map is called a "normal map" because it has to do with the "normals" of the polygon faces, that is, the direction in which the polygons face.
The map on the right is a typical texture map, wrapping an image around the model itself. All 3d model textures are stored as flat images, assigned to "UV coordinates". UV coordinates are the same as XY, except with different letters, so that its not confused with XY coordinates of 3d space.
The end result is an ant of low geometric detail that looks realistic, due to a strategic use of textures.
Hope you enjoyed this brief walk-through of the JesterArts workflow! If you have any questions, let me know. These models are available on my website http://www.jesterartsillustrations.com/ if you'd like to use them!
Leo
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Announcing a New Line of Microstock Bots!
A lot went into the preperation of this highly optimal workflow. But now I can announce a new series of robots to make their entrance into the world of Microstock! Pictures below:
There will be more on the way! These were simply my test subjects to see if my ideas would work properly between Illustrator and Blender 3d. I also intend to do animations with this robot, which will be available on any microstock sites supporting video.
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