How to Create a Halftone Pattern in Adobe Illustrator

Creating Halftone Effects

It used to be a time consuming process to create a halftone pattern. First, I would open a picture in Photoshop, convert it to grayscale, apply a halftone pattern effect, open it up in illustrator, trace it, and if didn’t get messed up somewhere in the process, I would use the halftone pattern in Illustrator. In Illustrator CS3 it is quite a bit easier to create halftone patterns without leaving Illustrator.

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Create a Wacom Bamboo Tablet Pen – Part II

previewThis is the second edition in a two-part series on how to Create a Wacom Bamboo Tablet and Pen. In case you missed it, here’s part I of this series where we learned how to make the Wacom tablet in this illustration.

In part II, you will learn how to create a realistic Wacom Bamboo Tablet Pen in Adobe Illustrator. You will find out how to add shadows and highlights to your Wacom Tablet Pen using different Blending Modes, how to use the Round Any Corner Script and Gradient Mesh. Let’s begin!

 

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Create a Wacom Bamboo Tablet – Part I of II

preview In this tutorial you will learn how to create a realistic Wacom Bamboo Tablet in Adobe Illustrator. You will find out how to add shadows and highlights to your Wacom Tablet using different Blending Modes, how to use the Round Any Corner Script and finally, how to create a nice textured background. Let’s begin!     Continue reading

How to Apply Color and Gradients to Illustrations

previewThis is part 3 of a three-part video tutorial series “How to Draw a Vector Cartoon Illustration”

In this final installment of our 3-part series, we use the custom brush we created in part 1 of this series, How to Create a Custom Brush in Illustrator, as well as the character drawn in part 2 of this series, Vector Drawing and Inking in Adobe Illustrator, to illustrate how you can bring your character to life through color. We’ll walk you through applying color to your character using a complementary color palette and unique gradient and overlay options that will add advanced texture and depth to your illustrations. Enjoy!
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Create Non-Raster Drop Shadows

Drop Shadow Thumbnail

Illustrator has the ability to add raster effects to elements like outer glows, inner glows, and drop shadows. Vector art is great because you can scale them to any size. That is why I try not to use the raster effects in final output. One area this creates a problem, is drop shadows, but there are a couple of easy ways to add drop shadows using blends and gradients rather than raster effects.

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