illustrator.

[mopinko]

hot damn. just starting to figure this one out. trying to get good enough to take a class and not have to start from zero. so, trudging through tutorials.
but, again i say, hot damn.

[Call Me Wesley]

1. Check out Adobe InDesign!

Send suicidal PMs to graywarrior. ;)

[mopinko]

2. we commiserated about the pen tool.

still clueless about that.
i have bloodied my forehead on indesign already. but it is jack shit compared to live paint ALONE.

[graywarrior]

3. I just finished a semester in Illustrator

I love that program.

[mopinko]

4. and i thought photoshop was cool.

multiple fills and strokes!
i think i might take it over the summer. it is a handful. but it is pretty damn powerful.

[graywarrior]

5. I did all the color in illustrator in these drawings.

all done in pen & ink, then scanned into illustrator and used the pen tool with gradients for color

http://graywarriorart.blogspot.com/

[mopinko]

6. cool

how is school going? i am enjoying taking continuing ed classes. no pressure, no kids.

[graywarrior]

7. I love it.

Between my job and school, I'm happy.

[Frosty1]

8. Wow

You are really talented.

[keroro gunsou]

9. not to brag or anything

but i'm pretty good with the pen tool:



and yes, it is frustrating as hell when you start using it.

[unpossibles]

10. it's tough to learn but once you do, you will LOVE this program

Two things I did which helped me understand the curves/pen tool better:

1 - make simple shapes and deform them; just play around without trying to make something. For instance, make a simple circle with the circle tool, then use the white arrow tool to select a point, stretch it out of shape, turn the bezier curves, and manipulate it. Add points to the line and play with them, and just watch how it affects the shapes.

2 - After doing this a few times, try tracing something with the pen tool. Paste a jpg or something into Illustrator, and try to go over it with the pen tool by placing points where you think they make sense, such as on corners and at curves. When using the pen tool, if you drag it a bit while placing a point, that makes a curve, and if you just click a point it makes a hard corner.

Again, play around with it and have fun without trying to make something at first, then start making some simple things. Play with the other tools - combine shapes, convert text into points and deform the letters, etc. I think it's the best way to understand how the tools work and what they do.

And if you get stuck, feel free to PM me - I've been using Adobe Photoshop since before there were layers (2 I think?) and Illustrator for over a decade. I love both. It's Quark that frustrates me to no end and which I've given up on.

[keroro gunsou]

11. quark

killed themselves. i learned quark my first semester in design at school. next semester, they had dumped it for indesign. wise move in my opinion.

[unpossibles]

12. agreed - Adobe's GUI is just so much more intuitive and better

or seems that way, although it may be because I am so used to it. I still see Quark listed in job listings - I work in book publishing, and I am pretty sure it's still being used, although I have no idea why.

[mopinko]

13. how many version- 7? 8? and still

nothing much new. adobe blew their doors off. if they are holding on at all, it is their proprietary file formats that are keeping them breathing. crap program. indesign just keeps getting smarter and smarter.

[mopinko]

14. turn off the fill. that is what i learned.

freaks you out at first the way it fills the shape in ways you didn't mean. to the point where you forget where you are going.
yeah, i am starting to have fun. those paintbrushes. man.
i am not bad at photoshop. been using it since 6, although not 5/8 or anything. but i can do what i want to do. all by banging my head on it, and trying to do things that seemed like a good idea. i think i am on my way. but i think i am going to take the class this summer.
one thing i learned about photoshop is that different people can teach you different things, because they use it for different things. i am sure i only know 5% of what it can really do.
crazy shit.

[velvet]

15. you might wanna check out

Creative Techs - I took an online Illustrator course with them earlier this year and they had a great teacher, Steve Laskevitch.

When I say took ... it was a series of 10 weekly classes live out of Seattle, one hour instruction + one hour question and answer, and it was free to participate online. In Seattle the class started at 11am, where I live that's 4am. I have a slow connection so though I could hear the dialogue okay the video was limping badly, one new frame every 30 minutes.

So all in all it was a fizzer for me, but I'd had a taste of the quality of the instruction and I was impressed, so instead I paid them some $$ to download all the classes. I just checked their site and I see it's cheaper now. Story of my effin life ... but I won't bore you with that. Here's the link, they're selling other classes too :

http://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=af872ba88a454e16a24cbee2d&id=5f4f5e89eb&e=2dbcb53bc7