I have been using a 6×8 Wacom Intuos3 for the past 4 months, and can’t live without it. It has become a important tool in my Illustrator work. Not only is it more natural using the Wacom compared to a mouse, Illustrator has some tool features you can only use with a pen tablet. With some tools you can set how the tool responds to the Pressure, Stylus Wheel, Tilt, Bearing, and Rotation of the pen. Continue Reading

This is a quick tip, but anything that helps productivity is worth mentioning. With the Pathfinder Panel you can create different compound shapes by pressing the desired button. You expand the shape by pressing the Expand button in the panel. Instead of pressing the expand button, hold Alt /Option when pressing the button to combine these two step!

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Illustrator has many great selection features, as I talked about in a previous post Save Time With Save Selection. Another selection option that I use regularly is the Magic Wand Tool (Y). With the Magic Wand Tool (Y), you select an object and the tool will select every object with similar attributes. The real benefit of using the Magic Wand Tool (Y) comes when setting the tolerance levels.

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There are a number of great tutorials, freebies, and articles related to vectors coming out on the web daily. Starting each month, I’m is going to 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!

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Lately, I’ve been using my Sketch-Style Brushes in illustrations and tutorials. In, some of these illustrations, the brush strokes needed to be expanded to editable paths. When expanding, you also get a bunch of unfilled paths. To clean up, simply go Object > Path > Clean Up and check the Unpainted Objects check box. You can also use this feature to get rid of Empty Text Boxes and Stray Points!

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When creating the previous Create Sketchy-Style Vectors tutorial, I created a number of brushes. I started playing around with the brushes and was happy with the results. I ended up create more of the brushes so I can distribute them. These brushes are great for creating sketchy or grungy vectors. Just apply the brushes to any path or object!

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Illustrator is great for creating clean and precise illustrations, but some of the time you don’t want clean and precise. There are many illustrations that call for a sketchy or hand-drawn feel. Creating these effects are relatively easy with Illustrator’s Live Trace, Live Paint, Brushes and the ability to create you own brushes. Check out some of my sketchy illustrations on iStock for more inspiration.

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