Cool Tools » Brian Denham

DASHED LINE TOOL

Jul 082008

Illustrator improved upon one of the greatest assests in Illustrator with the new CS3, the Dashed Line Tool.

I use the dash line tool so much it appears on almost every one of my pages, especially those with tech, or set in a sci-fi setting. Whenever I need to make interesting computer displays or GUI (Graphic User Interface) I make a bunch of random lines in the horizontal and the vertical way, and then I apply the dash line tool to some of these, randoming the settings in the Dash Line box. I make lines with small gaps and long lines, and long gaps and small lines, and all sorts of random goodness.

When I have something extremely cool looking with dashes and gaps, I go in on a Layer above that and create a few more random dashed lines in white to break up the randomness even more.

Once I have all that foolishness in hand, I ground it and then draw a box around it like a computer screen and place it on whatever open computer wall I have drawn on my page, and i use the Free Transform tool to stretch that yummy goodness into perspective to line-up with the “monitor” I have drawn.

NOW-this problem has come up before, ( I talked to Adobe about fixing this, and they finally did in CS3), the dash lines will not look right in perspective because they keep the horizontal and vertical line around the dashes that were right when I made them. AND THERE IS NO WAY AROUND THIS IN ANY VERSION PRIOR TO ILLUSTRATOR CS3! You can’t fix it by expanding or making outlines or nothin’!

But IN CS3 you select your dash line and presto, hit OBJECT>EXPAND and through the magic of little pixels Illustrator makes each dash you have created their very own individual item. You can now UNGROUP them if you wish, and delete one or two, or make some bigger, or smaller, OR THE BEST THING OF ALL, you can now use the FREE TRANSFORM tool to distort these items into perspective and it will look correct!!!

I’ll post another entry tomorrow with a bunch of examples of where I did this in Iron Man and it was wrong, and how I got around it in Illustrator 10. I’ll put up some version done in CS3 so you can see how cool this tool really is.

Try it on your own right now, and I’ll see you tomorrow!

Double Vision

Cool Tools, Pro Tips 10 Responses »

Dec 112007

When I’m drawing close-up on the page and I’ve zoomed in really far to see close-up, I lose the ability to see the full page at the same time.

I need to see how what I am drawing affects the entire composition. Without having to zoom out and then back in to finish what I am doing I use this time-saving little tip…

I open the file I am working on and draw from afar with the whole page in my sight. When I need to zoom in I open the file again and reduce both documents on my screen so I can see them at the same time.

With one image close-up and the other image zoomed out I can draw looking at the zoomed out and checking my line quality on the close-up or vice-versa.

It works great and saves time by not zooming in and out.

ISO la-me-O! ISOMETRIC PLUG-IN

Cool Tools, Pro Tips 3 Responses »

Jun 092006

I got this great new Plug-In for Illustrator 10. It’s called ISOMETRIC LINE TOOL and it’s available at the link below.

The programmer who designed it used it for building train track plans. I downloaded it along with everything on his site. I didn’t think I would use it SO I made myself play around with it so I knew WHY I wouldn’t.

Well, that did not work out because after the first 10 lines my brilliant strategic mind told me to design building facades with it and them use the FREE TRANSFORM tool to shape the buildings into perspective.

The top picture is black and white is how the Iso plug-in drew straight lines at right angles wherever I laid them down.

The light blue is on a layer below my buildings and it’s used to block out the background. On the page I would color it white to blend with the page.

The darker blue color is on a layer below where I drew out the backsides of the buildings after I stretched them into perspective.

What a dream come true this is because I really love adding detailed realistic backgrounds but I hate making grids and then erasing them and all of that. Now I don’t have to.

Why is anyone using PAPER?! This plug-in is fantastic as well as everything on this site… http://rj-graffix.com/software/plugins.html#IsoLineTool
I also spent last weekend (my Birthday) downloading a ton of Plug-INs for Illustrator. One dream Plug-In allows me to quickly make speedlines and more. That Plug-in alone is worth all the money I spent on every single plug-in I bought.

I can’t wait to show you what I have been up to. I’m leaving notes on all my Iron Man pages so after the books come out I can show you waht I was doing…and so I can remember. LOL

I’ll get to that promised COMPUTER TERMINAL tutorial as soon as I can.

KEEPING IT IN PERSPECTIVE

Cool Tools, Pro Tips, Special FX 10 Responses »

May 052006

ta-Da! A new tutorial entry. yeah!

The picture to the left is a way to make bricks in perspective, but if you just need grid lines follow along…

PERSPECTIVE GRID LINES

1.-Draw one line. Make a copy on that line directly under it by Holding ALT (on a PC) and pulling it down.

2.-Keep it selected and hold CTRL+D and everytime you hit “D” it will duplicate the line as many times as you need.

3.-After you have as many lines as needed select all of them with the BLACK ARROW (Direct Selection Tool) , PRESS THE “E” KEY, and hold CTRL and pull them anyway you need perspective lines.

4.-Duplicate steps 1-3 and make new lines in perspective going the opposite direction. You will then have a criss-crossed, “x” shape pattern great for using for perspective guidelines in the background.

Pro artists don’t always draw perspective lines all the way to the horizon line. You need only have some criss-cross for your panel.

Here is a shot of how to make a picture out of some bricks. This spacewalk shot took less than 10 minutes. The squares were WHITE FILL and BLACK STROKE. The background was a black square on a lower layer. The lines in the back were created with my new buddy; the DASHED LINE.

Next time, I will show you how to make some crazy computer terminals with that little gem!

HARD LIGHT, BIG CITY

Basics, Cool Tools, Pro Tips, Special FX 6 Responses »

Dec 162005

I’ve had to draw over some layouts lately that were scanned in the computer. Now drawing over my pencil line art from Illustrator is one thing. I know where my lines are and if I get confused I can simply place my sketch layers on top of my inking layers so I can see where I am supposed to ink. working with a full blown scan of a sketch is a bit trickier.

One simple solution is to just place the scan on the top layer and place the layer in MULTIPLY mode. After I did that some of the layouts were still hard to work from. Mainly because I had to ink an area black and then draw white computer panels on top of the black lines.

The solution for this, (I’m sure there are many, but this worked the best for me.) was to place the layer in HARD LIGHT mode. You see in Illustrator where it says NORMAL on your LAYER options, just click there and scroll down to HARD LIGHT. I still left this layer on top but it made it easy for me to ink in black on layers under it and still see what I was supposed to be inking. I could also see the areas that needed to be white! That was crucial for what I was doing.

If you want to practice drawing on a tablet or in Illustrator then scan in one of your drawings or someone else’s if you want, and do this trick. It sure helped me out a lot for the art I needed to finish.

MULTIPLY generally works well for the same thing. However with having to ink the white areas over black ones this sure helped me a lot. I also did another piece where I made my Perspective lines in red and turned that layer on HARD LIGHT so I could see them on all the layers under this one.

Let me know how it works for you. I’ll have some gray tone effect tips as soon as I figure out what I did that made stuff worked. I experimented and got some cool effects. Now I have to go back and try to redo what I did. Oops! I didn’t keep notes.

Be well!

SUBTRACT FRONT TOOL

Basics, Cool Tools, Pro Tips, Screenshots, Special FX 6 Responses »

Jul 252005

This is a really great way to create rain or power effects or some really cool speed-lines.

Step 1.) Grab a brush with a thick middle and thin edges and quickly touch the screen in a pattern that makes some cool lines like in the picture. Under the Step 1 title you can see what the brush looked like by itself.

Now SELECT them all with the BLACK ARROW(Area Selection Tool.) then go into the MENU bar at the top of the screen and select OBJECT>EXPAND APPEARANCE this converts the brush lines into solid objects that Superman can look through. While you are there in the OBJECT menu go ahead and GROUP the brush lines.

Step 2.) On a new LAYER above the speed lines you just made draw a MARQUEE like the one shown. What we will do here is chop off the top of the speed lines to place them inside a panel.

Step 3.) With the ol’ Black Arrow select the brush lines and the Marquee and go into the PATHFINDER menu and select SUBTRACT FRONT. This subtracts the shape of the Marquee we made from anything under it, hence the name SUBTRACT FRONT.

Now we have this really cool Speed Line look with a straight edge that we can place against the panels edge.

If you really want to add some sweetness to this effect you can grab the splatter looking default BRUSH and a WHITE STROKE and splatter some white over the tips of the lines. It really looks cool!

Here is a Close-Up of the SUBTRACT FRONT tool in the PATHFINDER PALLETTE. It’s the one with the handsome Red Circle surrounding it’s little picture.

This effect works really well in Illustrator 10 as well as Illustrator CS2.

COMPOUND SHAPE-Ta-Da!

Basics, Cool Tools 3 Responses »

Jul 142005

Ta-Da!

It’s our new COMPOUND SHAPE! I placed a red star on a lower layer so you can see the magic of the Compound Shape.

Once you create the compound shape the previous 2 seperate layers named PAGE and PANELS now merge into one single layer.

You can rename this layer something dramatic, something silly, or you can keep your stuff well organized and just give it the plain jane monicker GUTTERS.

Place this sucker on the TOP LAYER and don’t move it!

Draw everything in the panels on the layers below it. You can sperate your art into seperate panel layers if the mood strikes you.

If you are into a goth book, or want your stuff to look like Ultimates you can fill your GUTTER with a BLACK FILL and BLACK STROKE. To do this just touch the Compound Shape with your Area Selection Tool, the black arrow at the left corner of your TOOLBOX. The set the Fill and Stroke to black.

I have this Compound Shape set to a WHITE FILL and a 1point STROKE.

What’s that? You don’t know what the heck I am talking about? You are new to Illustrator you say? Allrighty then, next lesson–the Quickie Illustrator tutorial

CREATING PANELS

Basics, Cool Tools, Pro Tips, Screenshots Comments Off

Jul 142005

Once you have your document open and you are ready to start drawing comics you’ll need to decide on a panel layout that best serves your page and story.

Create a layer called PAGE and another layer on top of that one called panels. The PAGE frame should be as big as your page. (Remember the red outline from the previous step?) The layer named PANELS should contain the shapes of the panels you’ll want for your story.

Once the PANELS layer is on top of the PAGE layer you’ll need to go up to the MENU bar and select OBJECT>COMPOUND PATH>MAKE to create a compound path.

A Compound Path is basically a stencil shape that will overlap the artwork. Where the holes exist in the stencil we will create our art on underlying layers.

Once the Compound Path is created we will color it with a WHITE FILL and BLACK STROKE or a BLACK FILL and BLACK STROKE.

Now that we have our page setup we are ready to start drawing our comic art. If at any point you want to change your COMPOUND PATH you can go back up into OBJECT>COMPOUND PATH>RELEASE and this will turn it back into the panel frames. They will keep the same colors so you’ll need to select them carefully to change.

Another way you can change your COMPOUND SHAPE is to use the DIRECT SELECTION (The White Arrow tool at the top Right of your TOOLBOX.) and select specific points (Corners) to move that into the shapes you need.

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