There are a number of great tutorials, freebies, and articles related to vectors coming out on the web daily. Each month, I roundup some of the best posts that I have found useful. I can’t include everything I’ve seen throughout the month, but you can follow my Twitter feed to get all the daily links. Post comments with links that I have missed so everyone can see them!

Tutorials

Illustrator Tutorial – 3D lighted text effect

Transfuchsian shows us how to create a vibrant lighting effect in Illustrator by using some 3d effects, brushes, and meshes.

Illustrator Tutorial: Gradient Mesh Flower

Vectordiary created a great tutorial for using the Mesh tool, a sometimes challenging tool master.

How to create a paisley seamless vector pattern

This Indian inspired paisley pattern tutorial is a great way to brush up on your pattern making skills.

Learn a Professional Workflow for Illustrating a Comic-Style Header Image

This tutorial by Maurizio Russo uses great techniques and workflow tips for creating an illustrative header image for a website.

Design a Clean Corporate Website With Illustrator

I use Illustrator almost exclusively for designing for the web. If you are a little hesitate about using Illustrator for the web, this is a great tutorial to check out.

Other Tutorial Links For April

Simple flower and decorative curl shape in Illustrator

How to Create a Retro Vector Illustration with Stylized Lines

OWL DiNG Tutorial

Twitter Background using Adobe Illustrator

How to Illustrate a LeBron James Cartoon Character

Vector tut:- How to Create a Pop Design Element

Vectips Tutorials

How to Create an Alarm Clock Icon

Tips and Tricks

10 Awesome features in illustrator CS4 that increase creativity to MAX!

A great list of techniques to boost your Illustrator CS4 productivity.

[Ask BB] Saving Patterns in Illy, Pixelated Fonts, and more

In response to some readers questions, Bittbox answers some common Illustrator questions.

Mysteries of the Eraser Tool — Revealed!

The Inside Adobe Illustrator blog breaks down the intricacies of the Eraser tool. You can’t go wrong with tips from the people that created Illustrator

How to Create a Vector Texture From Scratch

Jesse Hora Dot Com breaks down the simplicity of creating custom vector textures.

Other Tips and Tricks Links For April

Speed Up Adobe Illustrator Performance

Creating a Custom Scatter Brush

Illustrator Tip #14: Converging Points Together Using Average Function

Vectoraster 3 – Vector Halftones in a Snap

Vector Freebies

“Size By Luminance” a.k.a. Halftones!!!

You might recognize John Wundes name from the numerous scripts in the 10 Free and Extremely Useful Illustrator Scripts. Wundes adds another amazing script to his library with this halftone script.

Painting meadow

Originally, this image by LimKis appeared in the Weekly Vector Inspiration #11 post and now it is available to download! You can quickly get lost in exploring how LimKis creates her illustrations.

REDmillion Dotted Pattern

I always love a fun pattern and Red Million never disappoints.

Free Vectors – 15 Grunge Vectors

If you are to lazy to create you own grunge vector from the tutorial above, just download this set of 15 grunge vectors.

24 Free Exclusive Vector Icons: ‘Handy’

Social icons always come in handy (sorry for the pun, I had to do it), and there are a lot of icons in this set.

Other Vector Freebie Links For April

Colored Pattern Background Vector

apple

Twitter Badge

Betty Page Icon FREE vector Ai svg

Vector Inspiration and Articles

Lets Get Started : A Guide to Learning Illustrator

This AiVault post list some of  their past articles to help you get started in Illustrator or brush up on some of you Illustrator knowledge.

What’s the deal with open paths?

This article from Cheryl Graham addresses some of the “Open Path” problems that are common when contributing to various stock vector sites.

App pillows

This post is not really an article or vector inspiration, but buy one of the Illustrator pillows, and it might spark some vector inspiration!

Design Battle: Vector vs. Raster

This article breaks down the differences, benefits, file types, and more between vector and raster art.

Alternative To Illustrator

Not everyone can afford or wants to work with Illustrator. Check out this continuously updated list from Alternative To, to find other vector editing programs.

Other Vector Inspiration and Article Links For March

30 Text Effect Tutorials for Adobe Illustrator