Illustration Tutorial Blog

March 10, 2011

Welcome to the first edition of my Illustration Blog. This page will follow the progress of my thesis project for Miami International University of Art & Design. Digital Illustration is my real passion and I have taught courses in Adobe Illustrator for several years so I am writing an instructional classroom book for traditional Illustrators who want to learn to express themselves digitally. I am tentatively calling it Adobe Illustrator for Illustrators and I am releasing it online in serial form.

To the left you will see Chapter 1 coverpage. Clicking it will open an interactive flipbook of the chapter with embedded video tutorials or you can download the .PDF below if you prefer. In the near future, I will be adding downloadable source files.

In this first installment, you'll learn to use the brushes and the basic proportions and features of the face in Adobe Illustrator.

DOWNLOAD THE TUTORIAL.PDF

March 17, 2011

it's time to start looking at how we can add some character and personal style to our illustrations. We're going to look at several different styles to give you an idea of how diverse Adobe Illustrator can be. Specifically, we'll interpret one photo portrait fin three different stlyes: Photo realism, watercolor transparency, and sketchy doodle. Then we'll take a look at how these can be combined to our step by step excercise as we build a real world poster project. I should note that there is no finite number
of styles you can achieve with Illustrator and no book could attempt to cover every conceivable one. The idea instead is to expose you to a sampling and let your exploration begin. We'll begin with a review of how the mesh
fuctions and a tip on how to make the most successful meshes.

March 24, 2011

Now that we've tackled drawing the head, we're going to make the big move you've been waiting for: drawing the entire figure. We'll take it step by step, turning the figure and moving front front pose to side pose for both men and women. And we'll look at a variety of poses simplified to their basic constructions so you can learn how to set up a solid foundation for your figures. Then we'll look at some Step-By-Step Exercises and in a supplement, examine how these proportions and poses are used in fashion illustration.