Learning Illustrator: The Basics

Although it's not directly related to my focus on stop-motion animation, this tutorial was an integral part of my learning journey as an illustrator as well as an animator. Although I' am a little apprehensive about producing work that is solely digital, this lesson taught me how such simplistic manoeuvres using the "Pen" tool could easily recreate complex curves. I really enjoyed tracing existing images and becoming more familiar with how the "Pen" tool works, as this is something I' am completely new too. As you can see, below is an example of my experiments with tracing existing images in a bid to familiarise with the "Pen" tool and the "Live Paint" tool, as well as the "Width Adjustment".

Progress of tracing an image of Scott Pilgrim:

This is a copy of the original image that I' am
tracing. I chose it because it's obviously a cartoon,
but includes challenging line that I can attempt to

recreate in Illustrator. I've decided to only focus on

the central sword-wielding character for now.














This is an example of me using the background on
a 50% transparency to trace over all the line work.

This is a screenshot of my nearly traced Scott 

Pilgrim. I've added a few coloured lines to his 

chest area to test using coloured line as I wasn't 

sure how to adjust the colour of a line.

I still need to play with the width adjustment to get

the lines completely right and wide round certain

areas of the character.

For now I' am going to skip the width adjustment

for now and just focus on applying colour using 

the "Live Paint" tool.

I' am currently using the "Live Paint" tool to fill in

areas of colour. Once the character is entirely

coloured, I can think about referring back to the 

original image to create gradients and correct much

of the colour.

This is my fully coloured version of the Scott

Pilgrim image. As planned, I' am now going to 

play around with adjusting the line width to match

the original.

As I can't find my notes taken from the Illustrator

tutorial last week, I' am having to refer to an 

online tutorial on using the "Width Tool" as I 

can't recall how I first did it. Nevermind!

I intend to take the basic skills I've learnt here
further when I come across a live brief or have a
bit of spare time to explore Illustrator and further
my knowledge.

It's honestly opened my eyes and proved to me
that using computer programs to produce
illustration doesn't have to be daunting, and is
actually a lot easier than I had first anticipated.