IllustrationFriday has a weekly topic to illustrate for fun. This week’s topic was Flawed. When I think of flaws, I think of the Greek tragic hero. You know the guy that has this one tragic flaw that causes his ultimate downfall. With that said, I decided to draw my favorite tragic hero, Humpty Dumpty. Apparently, Humpty’s drinking was getting out of control and he was setting himself up for his big fall. At least, that’s how I remember the story. I could be wrong.

I did this in Adobe Illustrator. I have a few Illustrator tutorials on this site, so feel free to check those out.

This is the fourth tutroial in the Illustrator Beginner’s series. We’ve already covered placing sketches, using the Pen tool and tracing sketches with the Pen tool. This lesson is about making symmetrical vector files. The best way to make sure your file is symmetrical is to draw half of it and flip it.

In the last tutorial, I traced over my placed sketch with the Pen Tool. Since the stem isn’t symmetrical, I’ll draw that later.

Next, I want to use the Reflect Tool. It usually hides under the Rotate Tool, so click and hold the Rotate Tool to see it.

With your leaf half selected, double click on the Reflect Tool. A dialogue box will pop up. Set the Axis to Vertical and click copy.

This will make a copy of your leaf facing the opposite way.

Next, you’ll want to make sure your Smart Guides are on. Go to View > Smart Guides or use the keyboard shortcut Command/Control U. If you’d like to know more about Smart Guides you can see a brief tutorial about it here.

With your Smart Guides on, you can roll over your lines and they light up and say things like path or anchor. Now, you’ll need to line up the two edges of your leaf halves. Roll over straight edge of one of your leaf halves. When it says path, click on the line and drag it towards the other half’s straight edge. You’ll want to hold down Shift while dragging the half. Holding down Shift constrains your object to moving on only one axis. In this case, you want your object to move right and left, but not up and down. When the leaf half line that you’re dragging hits the other leaf half’s line, the line will light up and it will say intersect. That means they are lined up and you can stop dragging.

If for some reason your two halves aren’t top aligned, you can use the Align palette to align them at the top. Open the Align palette by going to Window > Align.

Now that your leaf halves are lined up, you’ll need to join them.

You can use the Pathfinder palette to join them. If you don’t have your pathfinder palette open, go to Window > Pathfinder. Select both halves using the Selection tool in the Toolbar. To select a second object, hold down Shift and click on the second object.

With the two halves selected, use the Add to shape area on the palette. It is the first button on the top row. Click Expand to finish joining the objects. Now, you have a symmetrical object.

As with any time your working in Illustrator, if you make a mistake use the Undo. Go to Edit > Undo or Command/Control Z.

Since your leaf shape is complete, we’ll move onto the eyes in the next tutorial.

This is the third part in my Adobe Illustrator Beginner’s series. This tutorial is about tracing over your pencil sketches with the Pen tool. The first part of this series was about getting your sketches into Illustrator and the second part was about using the Pen tool. If you missed the either part, you can check out the first one here and the second one here.

Here’s my placed sketch.

Select the Pen Tool and the color you want to draw in from the Toolbar. I like to draw in a bright color like red, so I can see the lines over my sketch.

Start by clicking on the bottom of the leaf in the middle. Next, click on the top in the middle. Hold down the Shift key when you click. Holding down the Shift key will make your line straight.

Now, you want your line to curve to follow the shape of the leaf. Make your next point, at the end of the curve, but don’t release the mouse button. Instead, slowly move your mouse down. Notice it is making a curved line. When you get the curve correct release the mouse button.

After making a curved line, you’ll want to click off your line to avoid the recipricol curve like in the last tutorial. Hold down the Command/Control key to get either the Direct Select or the Selection tool and click off the line on the empty artboard. Then, release the Command/Control key and continue drawing with the Pen tool.

Now you want to continue drawing with your line. With the Pen tool selected, hover your mouse over the end of the line. A small black slash mark will appear next to pen tool tip (or the part where your pen meets paper). This means that you are over the end point of the line. Click on it. If you miss just undo. Go to Edit > Undo or Command/Control Z.

Next, click on the next point you want your line to continue to. This line is a straight line, so you won’t have to click off of it to draw the next one.

Continue following the contour of the leaf by making the line curve and go straight. When you come to the end, you’ll want close the shape. If you remember from the last lesson, to close a shape hover over the first point you made. You’ll know you’re over the point when a small circle appears next to your pen tool, then click on the point. Your line or path is closed.

You have just drawn half the leaf shape. The next lesson will show you how to flip the shape and join it, so you have a symmetrical object.

This is the second part in my Adobe Illustrator Beginner’s series. This tutorial is about drawing with the Pen tool. The Pen tool is Illustrator’s workhorse. It takes time to learn how to use, but is one of the key drawing tools in Illustrator. Once you master the pen tool you will be able to use it in projects you send to online printing services. The best way to learn the Pen Tool is to trace over sketches. Before we get to that, this is a basic overview of the pen tool.

Now, on to the Pen tool. This is the pen tool on the Toolbar.

The pen tool works by placing anchor points down and drawing lines in between them. Click on the artboard (the area of the file you draw on) with the pen tool selected. You’ll notice a point appears.

Now click on another place on the artboard. Another point appears and a line is drawn between the two points.

Next, make a third point.

Finally, conect the third point to the first. To do this you’ll need to click on the original point. Hover your tool tip or mouse pointer over the original point. You’ll know you’re over the point when a small circle appears next to your pen tool, then click on the point. Your line or path is closed.

Congratulations, you have just made a shape with the Pen tool. Look out Picasso! You’ve created a lopsided triangle.

Let’s make a curved line now. Make your first point. Then, make your second point, but don’t release the mouse. Instead, drag the mouse downward or upward slowly. You’ll notice the line starts to curve. When you get the curve you want, release the mouse button.

Now make another point. You’ll notice Illustrator makes a reciprocal curve.

Let’s say you aren’t happy with that curve. You can go to Edit > Undo Pen to delete the last step. Or maybe you change your mind, go to Edit > Redo Pen and it is back.

That curve still doesn’t look right to you, so let’s manually adjust it. Go to Toolbar and select the Direct Selection tool (it’s the white arrow).

You’ll notice that whenever you make a curved line it has a little blue handle (or other layer color) that comes off of it. You can use this to adjust the curve. Click and grab the point at the end of the handle and move your mouse around to adjust the curve. Once you get the curve right release the mouse button.

After all that, you still hate your curved line, so let’s delete it. Select the Selection tool, the black arrow on the Toolbar and click on your curved line. Then hit Delete on the keyboard. It should be gone. You can always Undo it if you want it back.

To make your life easier, I have a list of keyboard shortcuts for the Toolbar tools here.

Finally, let’s make a line that curves then goes straight. Make a curved line like you did before.

Instead of making another point, click on the Direct Selection or the Selection tool and deselect your line. To deselect your line, just click on a blank spot on the artboard using one of the Selection tools.

A good trick to switching between the Pen tool and your last used Selection tool is to hold down the Command (Apple) key on a Mac or the Control key on a PC. Try it out. Select the Pen tool on the Toolbar. Now hold down the Command/Control key. You’ll notice the tool tip change from the Pen to the Selection tool.

Back to your curved line. To restart drawing on the same line, hover your mouse over the end point like you did when you were closing a shape or path. This time instead of a circle beside the Pen tool tip, you’ll see a slash mark. This means you’re over the point. Click on it and then make your next point and your line will continue. You should have a line that curves then goes straight.

Well, that’s it for my Pen tool basics. There’s more to the Pen tool, but that’s enough to get you started. The next tutorial will be applying all of this to the leaf sketch from the first tutorial in the beginner’s series.

Many people have been asking for more basic tutorials, so guess what? The squeaky wheel gets the oil. This is the first in a series of beginner tutorials for people just starting out in Illustrator. This one covers the layer palette and placing your pencil sketches in Illustrator.

Next, you’ll want to place your pencil sketch. Go to File > Place. A dialogue box will pop up and just find your sketch file on your hard drive. I usually scan my sketches as grayscale jpegs at 72 dpi.

Here’s my leaf guy that I’m working on for the series.

Now you’ll need to open your Layers palette. Go to Window > Layers. If it has check mark by it on your drop down menu, that means it is already open.

Here’s what the Layers palette looks like.

On a side note, you’ll notice that the Links palette tab is also attached to the Layers palette. You can drag and drop the different tabs to different palettes to organize the palettes the way you want.

Double click on the Layer name. I think the default name is Layer 1. A dialogue box will pop up. Here you can change some of the Layer preferences like the name. This is my sketch layer, so I changed the name to sketch.

Next, I want to lock my sketch layer, so I don’t draw on it. To lock a layer, click on the area to the left of the layer name. A lock will appear. This isn’t permanent, so you can always unlock it by clicking it again.

FYI, to the left of the Lock is the Visibility. This makes the layer visible or invisible.

Finally, you want to create a second layer to draw on. Click on the icon at the bottom that looks like a sheet of paper. A new layer appears. You can click on the name to change the name or other preferences.

Now, you are ready to draw. Feel free to post any comments or questions below.

IllustrationFriday has a weekly topic to illustrate for fun. This week’s topic was Climbing. I went with a mountain goat on top of a mountain. Why? Because I think goats are funny and they climb or at least I think they climb. Even if they don’t, it’s too late to turn back now. I’m going with the goat.

I did this in Adobe Illustrator. I have a few Illustrator tutorials on this site, so feel free to check those out.

IllustrationFriday has a weekly topic to illustrate for fun. This week’s topic was Pale. I guess the kid is kind of fearful and pale. I don’t know if this entirely fits the theme, but I’m going with it. Also, it was done by a pale artist, me. Does that count? Alright, I’m done rambling.

I did this in Adobe Illustrator. I have a few Illustrator tutorials on this site, so feel free to check those out.