Perspective Grid Part 1

Today I will show you how to make something similar as this but mostly likely this.

Materials: + Illustrator CS5  +Perspective Tool +Stock Photos +Blend Tool

 

Info: You might have noticed the part 1 in the title, that is because I broke it apart into 2 segments where 1 will get you as far the colored grid while 2 gets you as far as textures and shadows. This tutorial will also teach you a thing or two about the perspective that you’ve probably have never had experience with.

 

Steps:

1. Make a new document. Let’s have a 1000 by 1000 art board so we don’t make things too complicated.

2. Let’s choose the perspective tool from the Toolbar. If you don’t which one it is, just click the shortcut Shift+P to easily bring it up.

3. You’ll see that a 2-point perspective grid shows up. I don’t know about you but I want a 1-point perspective. So go to View>Perspective Grid>One Point Perspective>[1-p Normal View].

 

 

4. Let’s draw a long/thin, brown rectangle on the right side of the art board. Afterwards, drag-copy the same rectangle on the opposite side of the artboard.

5. Let’s select the blend tool (W).  Click one rectangle then the other. Double click the blend-tool in the Toolbar to get the option box. SelectSpacing>Specified Steps and write 10.

6. Select this blend if it isn’t select, then choose the rotate tool. Hold Alt/Option to copy while rotating. Make this copied blend perpendicular to the original.

 

 

7. Select both blends then go to Object>Blend>Expand to make them separate, editable objects.

8. Select everything, Ctrl+A/Cmd+A.

9. Now go to Window>Pathfinder. Then click the unite button under Shape Modes. Now make the united shape, light brown.

 

 

10. Select the rectangle tool. Do you notice the little perspective bubble near the top-left corner, click the left side of the cube that’s in the bubble. Or you could just click 1 (Left Grid).

11. Start from “box 1″ that is inside our “grid.” The rectangle will automatically be drawn into perspective, Draw a rectangle where one side touches the left edge of  ”box 1″ and make this rectangle long. Also, make the rectangle dark brown. See the pictures for reference.

12. . Click and hold the Perspective Tool from the toolbar to bring up the Perspective Selection Tool. Or just click the shortcut Shift+V.

13. Using the perspective selection tool, select the dark brown rectangle. Holding Shift and Alt/Opt, drag copies of the rectangle towards the bottom. Make sure that each copy touches the left side of the grid boxes. Try to get to all the boxes in that column. Afterwards, group these brown rectangles. See pictures for reference.

14. Now this might be tricky but hold on. Select the rectangle group then hold 5+Shift+Alt/Opt to drag copies towards the right. Make sure that each copy touches the left side of the grid boxes.

15. Select all the brown rectangle groups, then click the rotate tool. Alt/Option click the exact middle of the artboard so it will know where to rotate from. So alt/opt+shift drag the rectangles 90°. Cmd+D to do the same thing again.

16. Change the colors for rectangles that are on the sides that are on the left, right, up and down. See the picture if you’re confused.

17. Now select all the rectangles and right-click and choose Arrange>Send to Back. Or click the shortcut PC: Shift+Ctrl+[ or Mac: Shift+Cmd+[.

18. Take time and adjust the positions of each rectangle so they fit precisely on the edges of the grid.

19. Take more time to see if everything is in place and every object is grouped with their similar counterparts.

20. Optional: Draw a square with a gradient, from one corner to another.

21. Optional: Close the bubble in the corner and the perspective grid will disappear. If your happy with this grid then just leave it as is here but if you want to make it look more realistic, proceed to Part 2 of this tutorial.

 

 

Part 2 coming soon.

 

Inner Glow Intro Tip

Today I will be introducing the Inner Glow effect, if you yourself haven’t been acquainted before that is. Inner Glow is perfect way to color around the edges or from the center of the object. In this tip, I will show you the benefits of Inner Glow.

Materials:

• Illustrator CS3/4/5
• Inner Glow

About: I love the gradient tool in Illustrator. I use it all the time for all kinds of thing*1s. But sometimes the Gradient Tool isn’t the best tool for the job. Let’s say I made a star shape and want to darken around the edges*2 but gradients do a a poor job. The Gradient Tool only has linear and radial effects. The radial effect isn’t good enough to do the job today so let’s use the Inner Glow effect.

The Inner Glow effect is located in Effect> Stylize >Inner Glow*3. The Inner Glow effect is good when gradients aren’t enough. If you click the Inner Glow effect, a box will show up*4.  Always, always, always click the preview check box so you can see what you’re doing. The box to the right of the Mode option is your color, click it and choose whatever you want. Depending on what color your using for the effect, for the mode, choose screen if your using light colors(white) and choose multiply for darker colors (black). If you choose the wrong mode, the color (you picked) might not show. Opacity is just how transparent you want it to be. Depending on the size of the object, you may need to adjust the blur so it doesn’t cover too much or too little of the object. Inner Glow is only used to color inside an object from its edges to center or vice versa. If you cut holes inside an object*5, it will color around that area too which gradients can’t do. Plus, this effect sometimes gives a plastic appearance to an object.

Be sure to use this effect whenever you can.

Examples: Left to Right (1-5)

Make an Easy iTunes Icon Tutorial

Announcement: FJ STUDIOS HAS BEEN UPDATED.

An easy 5/10 minute tutorial to recreate the iTunes icon into vectors using Adobe Illustrator. As before, I’ve included a demo file. Download it via box.net if you want to use it/work on it. There are lots of pictures so don’t figure to click them all or you might get lost and skip a step or two.

Preview:

Prerequisite: Adobe Illustrator CS5 Prior knowledge/use of Illustrator

Steps:

• Start out by creating a simple box, preferably not exactly square. Color it anything so you can see it.
• 
• Go to Effect>Stylize>Round Corners and then a window should pop out. Write anything for “radius” but make sure the corners are very round. I used 53 for my radius.
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• I recommend having smart guides on for the next series of steps (Cmd+U). Now, hold option/alt and drag out a perfect circle and color it. Now click Shift+D to switch to the draw-behind mode. Now hold option and drag out another circle that is fairly bigger than the original. As you can see, you’ve drawn behind the original circle.
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• Select the two circles. Now click Shift+M to activate the Shape Builder tool. Hold option to make a minus appear and hover over the inside of the two circles and click the inner circle to cut out that part.
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• Now make the circular object have a white color. Now draw inside the empty space, a big music note.
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• Now draw several small white circles around the edges of the black rounded box.
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• Select all the white circles or use the magic wand to select all of them easily. WARNING: MAKE SURE TO GROUP THEM AFTER YOU SELECT THEM OR NOTHING WILL HAPPEN. Now go to Effect>Blur>Radial Blur.  A window should pop out. Make the amount 100, set the blur method to zoom, and set the quality to Good. If set to best, it will really slow down your program. Now add the same effect again to make the streak longer.
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• Click the black rounded box and go to Object>Expand. Copy the box and paste in front and click Shift+Cmd+] to send it to the very front. Make sure the box is selected and click “/” on your keyboard which will make it have no fill/no stroke whatever be the case. Now select the no fill box and click the steaks and right-click then choose Make Clipping Mask.
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• Draw an elongated ellipse that covers about half of the box. Switch to draw-behind mode and Cmd+F to paste in front the previous black box we had copied before. Make the black box into a  blue box. Select the blue box and the ellipse and activate the Shape Builder (Shift+M). Delete the excess area, we only want the box shape. See the picture.
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• Select the red part and give it a nice gradient that goes from very light-pink to normal light-pink. Now select the bottom part and give it a gradient as well that goes from dark-pink to light-pink. Then send these boxes to the very back so click Shift+Cmd+[.
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• Make the music note and the circular object a group. You should know by now that groups are important. Now go to Effect>Stylize>Drop Shadow. A window should pop out. Leave the opacity to 75 but you can change it if you want. I set the X and Y offset to zero and left the blur on five.
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• Make sure the pink gradient segments are a group. Now go to Effect>Blur>Gaussian Blur. A window should pop out. Set the blur to about 15.
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• Paste in front the very same black box. Select the box and click “/” to make it have no fill.  Guess what we’ll do now. You got it? Well, if you guessed a Clipping Mask then you following along nicely. So make sure to select the gradient group and the box(that is in the front) then right-click and choose Make Clipping Mask.
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• Select all of your vectors then switch to the draw behind mode and Cmd+F two times to paste in front(or same position) two black boxes. In the picture, they are made red so you can see there are two of them whose outlines intersect one another. Make the top box have a highlight-like gradient. make the bottom box have a shadow-like gradient.
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I hope this tutorial helped you to develop skills in some features you have never utilized or try. Thank you for anyone who has followed along this tutorial. Be sure to suggest anything you would like to see in the next tutorial through the suggestion page.

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