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!

The newest change they have made is having the tool menu boxes on a side panel. Once you need a Stoke you click on a little icon on the right and the menu box opens. Once you make your new stroke change it releases and goes back to it’s side panel. You can customize the side panels with your favorite tools.

It sure saves a lot of screen territory to have these tools hidden away in the side panel. I can now utilize the portrait feature of my 24″ monitor. The monitor has been turned on it’s landscape feature so I can see all of my menu boxes. Now I can just collapse the menus down and concentrate on my art instead of moving menus so I can see the work under the boxes.

They also made it so the side panels rest outside of the image area so they don’t cover up your art. Genius~!

I am about to buy the full upgrade and I am happy to do so. I have still been using Illustrator 10 because of the pencil tool. Something was changed in CS so the pencil didn’t work so well. CS2 was cool but I haven’t been using that as much as Illustrator 10. It may have been because there wasn’t enough changes to the program for me to care enough to switch over. Plus I had a collection of cool plugins that I wasn’t ready to let go.

With CS3 that has all changed. I care more about the side panel tool boxes than I do about my plugins. I can still go back to 10 and use them there and then just send them over to CS3 if I really need them. I am so very happy using CS3.

I was ready to dump my computer all together but this program made me fall in love with my old ass PC all over again. Even though CS3 blew out my graphics card! I was happy to upgrade that as well.

I’m using a 4 year old Gateway 700XL with 512MB of memory. Not a powerhorse but it does what I need.

My first comics work with CS3 was for Nova #5 from Marvel Comics. It ships in August if you want to check it out.

I’ll post some more tutorials before summer is over!

Take care~!