Wizard Bock

These are a couple of mock beer brands I had to create and get out of my head. Even though I’m not a drinker, I do enjoy looking at the label designs. Aside from the initial hand drawn cartoon portions which were turned into vector art, these were created entirely in Illustrator.

Fish ‘n’ Chips

Here is a commissioned Illustrator cartoon that will be put on a dark blue background, on the stern of a boat named “Fish and Chips”. I’m sometimes surprised and often honored by being chosen as the artist for many of my client’s projects. Some of the more unique uses that have been found for my cartoons are on orthodontic devices, children’s prosthesis implants, enameled pins, cake decorating software, quilt designs and vending machine graphics.

Gumball Falls

Here is a vending machine graphic I created long ago. A photo of the machine can be seen here.

Illustrator Quick Tip

If you do any production work at all, you will need bursts. Lots of ‘em. Here’s one easy way to make a quick burst in Illustrator. First, create a number of overlapping circles or other shapes.

Then select Pathfinder > Merge to create a single object. Then Effect > Distort & Transform > Pucker & Bloat. Choose Pucker and be sure to check the Preview button. When you’re satisfied with your burst, hit OK. Select Object > Expand Appearance.

Adjust the Fill and Stroke to your liking and voila. Don’t forget to play with different shapes to see what works best for you.

Illustrator Brushes

Here are a couple of quick Illustrator brushes for you to use in any way you like. Click on the image below to download.

Illustrator Quick Tip

Toon in progress

Here is a vector toon in progress, just about ready for color.

Edit: The color version.

iPhone Toons

This is a set of cartoons for an iPhone game currently in progress. They were sketched out in pencil for approval, and then created in Illustrator in order to allow for editable and moveable elements like propellers and wheels. A few other sets were created and a few others are planned for different versions of the game based on the same general concept.

Vector Maps

As a graphic artist, one day you will be required to create a map, either for a website, employer or client, and without a doubt, your best choice to create that map is with a vector based program like Illustrator. Illustrator allows layers to separate the various elements, customizable brushes, symbol libraries, and the ability to re-size up or down, without worries about resolution. With a little planning, your map creation can be greatly streamlined.

To get started, go to your favorite mapping website and take a screenshot of the area that you want to map.

Create a new document in Illustrator, place the screenshot file, then make it template layer.

Important! Create a layer for each class of elements contained in your map: • water • land • highways • surface roads • railroad lines • signs • labels and names • land textures, etc.

Organization is the key to keeping your map files manageable, and has the added benefit of speeding up their creation, not to mention making them much easier for you to edit later on. The more maps you create, the more pieces you can drag and drop between files, building a convenient library.

You can see by the animated map below, I’ve added a few stroked lines around the island to soften the transition from land to water, and given the water a circular, graduated fill and used the inner glow filter to darkens the edges a bit.

Roads can be created a few different ways, depending on your needs:

The simple and quick method is to:
1. Draw a thick stroked path for the roadway base
2. Copy/paste roadway path in front, stroke slightly smaller and lighter color for asphalt
3. If needed, copy/paste in front a thin stroked, dashed line.
Keep the thick stroked lines on one layer, and the thinner stroked lines on a higher layer so they blend together to give the appearance of continuous road surface.

The second method is to:
1. Create a new style. Draw a path, stroking with a thick line, then in Appearance palette, add a second stroke above and a couple of points smaller, and a third stroke above them stroked at 1 point and dashed using the stroke palette. Then drag the square icon at the top of the Appearance palette to the Styles palette.
2. Draw your roads.
3. After all of the roads that you want to apply this style to are drawn, group them and apply the style. The intersections of the road paths will merge and give the continuous roadway look, instead of overlapping.

Label the road names on paths that approximate the twists and turns, add a north arrow and any highway designations.

If you find yourself making a large map with a lot of repetitive symbols, brushes created from those icons, i.e., schools, parks, airports and churches, can also go toward making your workflow move along much faster.

Of course, you’ll be adding landmarks and points of interest as needed, but you don’t always have to create those elements from scratch. Uncle Sam has thoughtfully provided a few elements to get you started. The National Park Service has map files available for download here that contains the standard cartographic symbols and patterns used on National Park Service maps and much more.

One of the most interesting places I’ve found for mapping symbols can be found here. A lot of the files are geological map textures that could easily find uses in other projects unrelated to mapping.

Creating Vector Gears

Creating a complex vector gear with Illustrator is actually fairly simple and quick. The steps involved in dividing and cutting apart the various elements required to make the gear, create additional elements that can be added back into the basic gear to make an even more interesting design.

Step 1.

Draw a solid star shape. If you would like the gear to have 13 teeth, the star will need 13 points. If you would like the gear teeth to be bloated or pinched, rather than flat sided, now is the time to use the Distort filter.

Step 2.

Draw a solid circle that will cover the inside points of the star. Our objective is to make the root circle of the gear. Align the circle and star on center both vertically and horizontally.

Step 3.

Merge the two shapes into one with the Pathfinder tool.

Step 4.

Draw a second, un-stroked and unfilled circle, a bit larger than the root circle we drew in step 2. The size of this circle will determine the size of the gear teeth. A bigger circle = bigger teeth.
Select both elements and center align them both vertically and horizontally.

Step 5.

Divide the two shapes with the Pathfinder tool.

Step 6.

After the filter does it’s thing, ungroup the result. While the center portion is the gear we were after, don’t delete the remaining elements just yet.

Step 7.

Draw a small solid circle and center align with the gear both vertically and horizontally. Subtract the circle with Pathfinder tool to create the hub of the gear.

We could stop here and be done with the gear, move on and maybe extrude a 3D gear, but why let all those perfectly good leftover bits and pieces go to waste?

Step 8.

Fill the leftover triangles and wedges with a solid color. Then, with the techniques we just used, group, resize, and add them back into the gear using the Align and Pathfinder tools to create all sorts of designs. The more gears you create, the more leftover element groups you have to mix and match. You can even use the leftovers as starting points to create completely new gears.