Illustrator CC 2015 One-on-One: Mastery

Learn advanced Illustrator techniques from industry expert Deke McClelland.

Sharpen your Adobe Illustrator skills by tackling more advanced techniques. In this course—the third in a comprehensive training series by industry expert Deke McClelland—learn essential Illustrator concepts, in a logical order, on a schedule that works best for you. In this installment, Deke helps you attain mastery at this powerful vector graphics editor by familiarizing you with some of its more advanced features. Learn new shortcuts, advanced blend mode tricks, how to customize the toolbox, and how to create gradient meshes. Plus, Deke explains how to create symbols and custom arrowheads, graph numerical data, apply cool 3D effects, and much more.

Introduction

• Welcome to Illustrator One-one-One: Mastery

31. Shortcuts and Customization

• Becoming a lean, mean, illustration machine
• Installing my dekeKeys shortcuts on the PC
• Installing my dekeKeys shortcuts on the Mac
• Welcome to the dekeKeys PDF docs
• Touring your new keyboard shortcuts
• Restoring or customizing shortcuts
• Tool, transparency, and panel shortcuts
• A few pro-level Preferences settings
• Selecting and editing with more control
• Customizing the Illustrator toolbox

32. Blend Modes and Opacity Masks

• The many forms of transparency
• Adjusting the opacity—now with shortcuts
• The A-list blend modes: Multiply and screen
• The other modes: Overlay through luminosity
• My dekeKeys blend mode shortcuts
• The effect of color space on blend modes
• A few advanced blend mode tricks
• Applying blend modes in the Appearance panel
• Creating auto-inverting type with Difference
• Carving dynamic holes with Knockout Group
• Knockout Group and dynamic attributes
• Using the Isolate Blending option
• Introducing the opacity mask
• Putting an opacity mask into use
• Applying blend modes to entire layers
• Adding Photoshop pixels to an opacity mask
• Finishing up the tattooed face
• Exporting transparency to Photoshop

33. The Brushes Panel

• Painting with path outlines
• Introducing the Brushes panel
• Applying and editing a calligraphic brush
• Scaling and colorizing art brushes
• Applying and customizing scatter brushes
• Formatting and editing brushed type
• Designing your own custom art brushes
• Creating and testing your art brushes
• Refining a brush to fit ends and corners
• Expanding, filling, and stroking a brush
• Type on a path vs. text as an art brush
• Distorting art type with the Width tool
• Infusing your artwork with a pattern
• Painting with bristle brushes

34. Seamlessly Repeating Patterns

• Patterns are for everyone
• Introducing the automated Pattern Editor
• The three tile types: Grid, Brick, and Hex
• Undoing and canceling unwanted edits
• Creating a new pattern from an existing one
• The better way to duplicate a pattern
• Planning out a more complex pattern
• Creating a single perfectly waving line
• Duplicating and blending your waves
• Cropping a tile inside a clipping mask
• Riffing off a complex pattern
• Constructing a seamless denim pattern
• Making your denim pattern look like denim
• Creating a pattern brush with Auto Corners
• Creating custom Start and End Tiles
• Putting a Hex pattern to good use

35. Gradient Mesh

• If only Photoshop had this feature
• Introducing gradient mesh
• Using the dedicated Mesh tool
• Creating a basic gradient mesh
• Isolating a mesh object
• Deleting unwanted, invisible mesh points
• Releasing a gradient mesh
• Converting mesh points from cusp to smooth
• Sharpening or smoothing color transitions
• Assigning a mesh to a bendy shape
• Converting a linear gradient to a mesh
• Converting a radial gradient to a mesh
• Painting soft objects with gradient mesh
• Combining a mesh with a compound path
• Expressing surface contours with a mesh
• Painting contoured highlights
• Blending multiple mesh objects
• Using gradient mesh to cast shadows

36. Symbols and Custom Arrowheads

• The benefits of using symbols
• Introducing symbols and instances
• Creating and naming symbols
• Creating and replacing instances
• Working with dynamic symbols
• Dynamic symbols and backward compatibility
• Dynamic symbols and dynamic effects
• Introducing 9-slice scaling
• Adjusting the guides for 9-slice scaling
• Acquiring, trading, and previewing symbols
• Using symbols as stand-ins for master pages
• Advanced symbol modifications
• Editing the top-secret Arrowheads.ai file
• Designing custom arrowheads
• Saving your arrowhead designs as symbols
• Designing tinted arrowheads
• Saving tinted arrowheads as symbols
• Editing an existing arrowhead

37. Charts and Pictographs

• The pleasures and pitfalls of graphs
• Graphing numerical data
• Importing a tab-limited spreadsheet
• Modifying data to create a category axis
• Reformatting text and numerical values
• Adjusting the Graph Type settings
• Creating and applying a Graph Design
• Setting the Column Type to Repeating
• Recreating a graph at the proper size
• Customizing your legend

38. Logos and Specialty Text

• Logo-making features in Illustrator
• Making a logo from one character of type
• Creating a logo of interwoven rings
• Weaving your rings into a larger ring
• Whittling your paths with the Scissors tool
• Gradient type and dynamic strokes
• Using the Touch Type tool
• Two ways to warp type
• Creating letter-shaped gradients
• Painting reflections onto letterforms

39. Libraries and Actions

• Save more time, be more creative
• Introducing the Libraries panel
• Managing, restoring, and sharing libraries
• Sharing character and paragraph styles
• Placing and editing library assets
• Updating a logo across multiple documents
• Sharing an asset with InDesign or Photoshop
• Creating and using color themes
• Introducing the Actions panel
• Recording a custom, multistep action
• Four ways to play back an action

40. Applying 3D Effects

• The five advantages to 3D in Illustrator
• Introducing the three kinds of 3D in Illustrator
• Working in 3D space: Pitch, yaw, and roll
• Lighting and shading a 3D object
• Beveling the edges of a 3D extrusion
• Creating live, editable 3D type
• Adding cast shadows to 3D type
• Understanding the 3D Revolve effect
• Using 3D Revolve to create a soda can
• Mapping a logo or other art onto a 3D object
• Enhancing 3D artwork with faux 3D effects
• Combining a stroke with 3D Revolve

Conclusion

• Next steps