Today we had our first ever Illustrator lesson and i can happily say, being a Photoshop only user, that it is completely different and really difficult! In College we were taught how to use Photoshop for everything so we never needed to use the other programs, this didn't do me any favours.We got given a file to base our own creation on and then slowly taken step my step through the process of making Marilyn.
We started off with a photograph of her, made it slightly transparent and traced all the way around her face (not including her hair). We then coloured the face with a nice pale skin tone and hid the layer, ready to focus on the next part, the hair.
We then had to roughly trace the outline of her face again where her hair line was and then trace the outside of her hair. This was the hard bit as i had no idea how to even use the Pen Tool let alone curve the line! It took me twice as long as everyone else to work out but i got there in the end. We then has to colour her hair with a bright yellow/orange fake cheese colour which i found hilarious as that was far from the colour that her hair actually was.
After finishing the hair, we moved onto the neck and shadow of the chin. This was challenging as at this point i still didn't know how to use the Pen Tool and was struggling to fix the curves i didn't intend to make. The neck was quite simply just a rhombus placed under the face, closely matching the original picture. The shadow outline was traced from the original picture too and didn't go too badly until the left hand side decided to bulge out, this was an absolute nightmare.
Moving onto the eyes was slightly easier as it was fairly straight forward. We had to curve the lines, two for the outside and two for the inside, then we filled them to make it look like she had eyeliner on. We gave her some bright blue eyes and then attempted to do the eyelashes. They weren't too hard either, it was the realisation that Marilyn was squinting that ruined the whole thing and, as i said earlier, i didn't know how to fix it! So i decided to leave it as it was.
Using the original picture, i started on her eyebrows. This got a bit confusing because we got an option to change the style of the end of the line but i managed. We could make it into a point or a curve, larger or smaller, etc. I moved onto the nose as i now knew how to change the style of the line. I wasn't sure what parts of the nose to draw so i just did the darkest parts and it seemed to work quite well.
The lips weren't too hard, it was the teeth that i struggled with. Every time i tried to make the teeth they looked wrong or wonky which they were not. After about six attempts i got them looking respectable and moved onto the lips. Still not being a pro at using the Pen Tool, my lips were a little bit wobbly but i was happy with them, they looked like lips and that was all that mattered.
That was my Marilyn finished and my Illustrator lesson at an end! I did learn a few things but i would most definitely still struggle if i had to do something else.
My notes:
- Do not insert an image my dragging it into Illustrator. You can do it two ways - File > Place > Find your image OR Shift+Command+P
- BEFORE you insert your image, look at the check boxes at the bottom. If you check the linked box, you have to make sure that the image that you are inserting and the Illustrator file are both present wherever you take them. If the image file is not present (on the computer/memory stick/hard drive you are using) then the file will not open. If you do not check the box then the image file will be written/embedded into the Illustrator file (so you do not need to carry around the separate image too), the only problem with this is that once it is placed into Illustrator, you cannot edit the image.
- Pen Tool - Click once to create first anchor, click again somewhere else to create second anchor BUT hold down your second click and drag to curve the line.
- To curve sharp edges, select the Direct Selection tool, click on the edge you'd like to curve and more the little red target around until you are happy.
