From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)
833 Drawing an impossible trident in Illustrator
From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)
833 Drawing an impossible trident in Illustrator
Hey gang, this is Deke McClelland. Welcome to Deke's Techniques. Now, I don't know about you, but I've always been fascinated by this thing: the impossible trident, also known as the devil's tuning fork. This thing has a crazy awesome history. The guy who invented it in 1964, D.H. Schuster, called it the three-stick clevis. A year later, Mad Magazine called it the poiuyt. I don't know how you pronounce that. P-O-I-U-Y-T, which is the QWERTY keyboard, Q-W-E-R-T-Y, inverted. Look at an American keyboard and you'll see what I mean. Anyway, this thing, it's such a head-scratcher in Adobe Illustrator, by the way. Here, let me show you exactly how it can't possibly work. All right, so here's our impossible trident. Let's get to drawing it here inside Illustrator. First thing I'm going to do is target this trident layer here inside the Layers panel by clicking on its circular so-called meatball, and then I'll go up to the Opacity value here in the control panel, and I'll reduce it to something like 30% so that we can at least kind of see it, and then I'm going to lock that layer down so I don't mess it up. All right, so step number one is to select the Ellipse Tool, and it's easier if you start with these feet down here, just because that way you can make sure everything aligns properly. I'm not going to be able to work on the trident layer, however, because it's locked down, so I'm going to go ahead and rename that layer template, let's say, and then I'll create a new layer by dropping down to the little page icon at the bottom of the Layers panel, and I'll Alt or Option + Click on it in order to force the display of the Layer Options dialog box, and I'll call this new guy trident, and then I'll change its color to light red, and then I'll click OK. All right, now, armed with the Ellipse Tool, I'll just go ahead and click in order to bring up the Ellipse dialog box, and these are the values that I came up with, a width of 74 points and a height of 92 points, after which I will click OK, and then I went ahead and switched to the Rotate Tool, which you can get by pressing the R key, and then I'll just press the Enter key, or the Return key on the Mac, and apply an angle of 30 degrees, and then I'll click OK, and by the way, your fill should be white, as we're seeing up here, your stroke should be black, and I've got the line weight set to 12 points. All right, now press the V key to switch to my black arrow tool, and I'll go ahead and move this guy to right about here. You don't have to get everything exactly right, and then I'll create a couple of copies of it, so I'll drag this guy down to here, and then I'll press the Alt, or Option key on the Mac, in order to make a copy, and I'll drag this guy to this location, and then once again press the Alt or Option key to make yet another copy. All right, now go ahead and grab the Pen Tool, which you can get by pressing the P key, and move your cursor over this point. Don't move it over one of the selected point, 'cause you'll end up deleting it, but move it over this guy in order to begin a path outline, and all we're going to have to do is click, so I'm just clicking to lay down points here, and I want to match the points on the ellipses, so just make sure that you're seeing those little points there, and then I'll click up here, and over at this location, and then finally right there in order to create my first shape, and I'll go ahead and press the V key in order to switch to my black arrow tool, and I'll click on the shape to select it, and I wanted to fill it with a gradient that's going to cover up the purple stuff but not the orange, especially down here at this location, and I'm going to do that from the gradient panel, by the way, by going up to the Window menu and choosing the Gradient command, and then I'll just go ahead and click on this Gradient Slider in order to apply a predefined gradient, and I want the angle to be 25 degrees, as it just so happens, and if I go ahead and switch to the Gradient Tool I could keep an eye on the annotator, and you can see right there, this white, both of the color stops are white, incidentally, that its location is 33% currently, which looks like it's going to work great. I could move it in a little bit if I wanted to, like for example, I'll take it to 36%, let's say, and then I'll select the other guy, and he's opaque, so the opacity value's 100%, and the location is 40%, which is working out beautifully. All right, now press the A key in order to switch to my white arrow tool, the one that Illustrator calls the Direct Selection Tool, but it has a keyboard shortcut of A for arrow, and now I'll click on this anchor point and Shift + Click on this one in order to select those two guys, and I'll press Control + C, Control + F in order to paste a copy of that shape, and for now I'll just change the fill to white, and as you can see, the fill is active up here in the Swatches panel, and now I need to draw another path, so I'll go ahead and switch to my Pen Tool, and I'll start at this location right here, and then I'll click down here. You want to make sure that you're aligning to the points on either side of this oval right here, and then, oops, I accidentally joined to another path outline. Didn't want to do that, so I'll press Control + Z, or Command + Z on the Mac, to undo that move, and I'll click right about here, let's say, and then I'll go ahead and close the shape by clicking at the first endpoint. All right, now I'll press the A key to switch to my white array tool, and I'll go ahead and drag this guy until it snaps into the proper alignment. All right, now I'm going to press the P key to switch back to my Pen Tool, and I'll start my path right there, and I'll click at this location, and I guess I did it again. I joined to another path outline, so I'll press Control + Z, or Command + Z on the Mac, to undo that change, and I'll click right about here, and so I'll come back to that in a moment, and I'll click at this location, and then I'll come down to here, like so, and I'll press the A key in order to switch to the white arrow tool, and then I'll go ahead and drag that guy up like so. All right, now I'll go ahead and click in this Gradient bar once again with the fill active, and we need to move things around a little bit, so I'll go ahead and switch to my gradient tool. We want the angle to be 25 degrees, once again. Just find it easier to enter that as opposed to messing around with the Gradient Annotator. Now I'll drag this guy up. That is the opaque white swatch, as we're seeing right here, and this guy's the transparent one, so I'll move it to right about there, and I just want to make sure I've gone far enough. I want to cover up that purple corner right there, so I'll go ahead and drag it down like so, and then I'll press Control + Shift + A, or Command + Shift + A on the Mac, to deselect my artwork, and I'll go ahead and get my pen tool once again. I'll click right there just to make sure I have alignment. I'll click here as well. Is that going to be a problem? Am I going to join to something? I think I might, so I'll just click up here for a moment, and then I'll click at this location. I'll click here. Actually, I'll come back to that, and I'll click there in order to close the path, and now I'll press the A key to switch to my white arrow tool. I'll go ahead and drag that guy down to the proper position. Then I'll go up to the Edit menu, and turn on my Smart Guides, which are currently turned off, and that way I can drag this point, and it will snap into alignment with this segment right here, and then I'll go ahead and change the fill to white. All right, now I'll press Control + Shift + A, or Command + Shift + A on the Mac, to deselect my artwork, and I'll draw another path around this foot, but I have to do that thing where I start it in the wrong location, 'cause otherwise I'm going to join to this path right here, so I'll press the P key to switch to my Pen Tool. I'll click here, then go ahead and click at this location, click here, and then just click like so. All right, now I'll press the A key to switch to my white arrow tool, and I'll go ahead and drag these points to the desired positions, and I'll click on that Gradient Slider inside the Gradient panel once again, and then I'll go ahead and grab my Gradient Tool. Now, this guy wants to have an angle of 20 degrees in order to make it look right. This is the opaque color swatch right here, so I'll drag it down until I can't see that purple in the background, and this one has an opacity value of 0%, as we can see here inside the Gradient panel, so you may look at this and say, well, what in the world's going on? Why is this color changing here inside of this orange oval? Well, that's because of the template, which has some different colors going on, but at this point you can just turn the template off, and actually this gradient is going the wrong direction. I actually want this region to be white and this region to be exposed, so I'll just go ahead and swap these guys here on the Gradient Annotator, like so, and you can see now the colors stop with an opacity value of zero has a location, let's say, of 62%, whereas the opaque one has a location of, let's say, 50%. Now, there's an obvious problem, and that's that the feet are behind the legs, so I'll press the V key to switch to my white arrow tool, and I'll click on this guy, Shift + Click on this one, and Shift + Click on this one as well, and then right click anywhere in the document window, choose a range, and then choose Bring to Front, or you have that keyboard shortcut of Control + Shift + Right Bracket, or Command + Shift + Right Bracket on the Mac, and that's how you draw an impossible trident, which can't possibly exist in real life, but can here inside Illustrator. If you're a member of LinkedIn Learning, I have a followup movie in which I show you how to shade your impossible trident with gradients, but frankly, we can do better than that. These prongs, the tines, they should be rounded, cylindrical, like this, which is so much cooler. Volume recedes into flatness, which is next week, by the way. Deke's Techniques each and every week. You like this? Keep watching.
Practice while you learn with exercise files
Download the files the instructor uses to teach the course. Follow along and learn by watching, listening and practicing.
- 669_custom_QR.zip
- 670_more_QR.zip
- 671_hidden_circles.zip
- 673_shade_panels.zip
- 672_more_rectangles.zip
- 674_cafe_wall.zip
- 675_skewed_walls.zip
- 676_magic_checkers.zip
- 677_magic_dots.zip
- 678_reverse_illusion.zip
- 679_illusion_decor.zip
- 680_more_gizmos.zip
- 681_connect_gizmos.zip
- 682_wifi_symbol.zip
- 683_bluetooth_logo.zip
- 684_trajan_color.zip
- 685_trajan_AIcc.zip
- 686_stylistic_PsCC.zip
- 687_stylistic_AIcc.zip
- 688_grad_molecules.zip
- 689_sharper_moles.zip
- 690_smart_cules.zip
- 691_explore_cules.zip
- 692_blend_cules.zip
- 693_high_pass_cules.zip
- 694_cell_pattern.zip
- 695_hemoglobin.zip
- 696_edgy_cells.zip
- 697_springy_cells.zip
- 698_accordian_letters.zip
- 699_skew_blends.zip
- 700_cross_blends.zip
- 701_slice_blend.zip
- 702_blend_distort.zip
- 703_dynamic_roughen.zip
- 704_fish_twist.zip
- 705_dynam_bgnd_1.zip
- 706_dynam_bgnd_2.zip
- 707_quieter_art.zip
- 708_disintegration.zip
- 709_more_flakes.zip
- 710_mask_ashes.zip
- 711_flakes_to_ash.zip
- 712_note_tool.zip
- 713_contour_map.zip
- 714_contour_grad.zip
- 715_contour_arb.zip
- 716_contour_riff.zip
- 717_smooth_contour.zip
- 718_contour_cash.zip
- 719_color_of_money.zip
- 720_AI_adjust.zip
- 721_computer_key.zip
- 722_key_type.zip
- 723_faux_hedcut.zip
- 724_hedcut_lines.zip
- 725_color_hedcut.zip
- 726_ET_moon.zip
- 727_ET_trees.zip
- 728_ET_TRex.zip
- 729_global_glow.zip
- 730_content_aware.zip
- 731_space_portal.zip
- 732_enhance_portal.zip
- 733_rushing_stars.zip
- 734_AIcc_puppet.zip
- 735_puppet_tricks.zip
- 736_complex_puppet.zip
- 737_puppet_shortcut.zip
- 738_pentagons.zip
- 739_reinhardt.zip
- 740_kershner.zip
- 741_james_pentagon.zip
- 742_rice_pentagons.zip
- 743_stein_pentagon.zip
- 744_15th_pentagon.zip
- 745_tessellate_15.zip
- 746_pentatiles.zip
- 747_mod_pattern.zip
- 748_complement_tiles.zip
- 749_image_pattern.zip
- 750_pattern_fit.zip
- 751_candy_keeper.zip
- 752_keeper_text.zip
- 753_monster_movie.zip
- 754_mono_halftone.zip
- 755_word_haunted.zip
- 756_cheat_letters.zip
- 757_alt_adjust.zip
- 758_scuba_mono.zip
- 759_backscatter.zip
- 760_sample_outside.zip
- 761_Ps_vector_logo.zip
- 762_trans_shapes.zip
- 763_photo_logo.zip
- 764_high_res_snow.zip
- 765_enhance_snow.zip
- 766_snowflake_bokeh.zip
- 767_mandala_ps.zip
- 768_mandala_pattern.zip
- 769_mandala_dots.zip
- 770_mandala_color.zip
- 771_mandala_final.zip
- 772_AI_trim_view.zip
- 773_AI_presentation.zip
- 774_global_edits.zip
- 775_global_control.zip
- 776_freeform_grads.zip
- 777_freeform_lines.zip
- 778_freeform_gotcha.zip
- 779_great_white.zip
- 780_sharper_shark.zip
- 781_vibrance_sat.zip
- 782_vib_sat_sharp.zip
- 783_hedcut_action.zip
- 784_action_actions.zip
- 785_color_lines.zip
- 786_combine_lines.zip
- 787_clip_to_group.zip
- 788_color_outside.zip
- 789_flip_horizontal.zip
- 790_white_walker.zip
- 791_walker_begins.zip
- 792_digital_shave.zip
- 793_deep_wrinkles.zip
- 794_deep_brows.zip
- 795_pale_lips.zip
- 796_glowing_blue.zip
- 797_lifeless_pupils.zip
- 798_cold_gloomy.zip
- 799_brittle_flakes.zip
- 800_trans_shapes.zip
- 801_range_mask.zip
- 802_flip_photo.zip
- 803_actual_dream.zip
- 804_augment_dream.zip
- 805_smart_distortions.zip
- 806_blend_distortions.zip
- 807_star_negative.zip
- 808_star_pattern.zip
- 809_shaded_stars.zip
- 810_grad_pattern.zip
- 811_pattern_fade.zip
- 813_gobstopper.zip
- 814_gobpattern.zip
- 815_galignment.zip
- 816_etched_lines.zip
- 817_blend_pattern.zip
- 818_cubical_holes.zip
- 819_grad_pattern.zip
- 820_iso_arrows.zip
- 821_position_tips.zip
- 822_fill_gaps.zip
- 823_cartoon_teeth.zip
- 824_triangle_eye.zip
- 825_add_windows.zip
- 826_perfect_tessellate.zip
- 827_triangle_tunnels.zip
- 828_triangles_pattern.zip
- 829_colorful_triangles.zip
- 830_recolor_triangles.zip
- 831_rainbow_blends.zip
- 832_pattern_blends.zip
- 833_imposs_trident.zip
- 834_shade_trident.zip
- 835_opposing_grads.zip
- 836_trident_shadows.zip
- 837_impossible_hex.zip
- 838_impossible_lattice.zip
- 839_Joan_Miro.zip
- 840_watercolor_wash.zip
- 841_Miro_signature.zip
- 842_Photoshop_Miro.zip
- 843_enlarge_Miro.zip
- 844_Miro_Peele.zip
- 845_color_Us.zip
- 846_red_rorschach.zip
- 847_finish_Us.zip
- 848_CAF_fails.zip
- 849_turkey_2019.zip
- 850_trace_hand.zip
- 851_articulated_hand.zip
- 852_colorful_hand.zip
- 853_paint_fingernails.zip
- 854_paint_turkey.zip
- 855_turkey_feathers.zip
- 856_drop_shadow.zip
- 857_Ps_iPad_1.zip
- 858_Ps_iPad_2.zip
- 859_Ps_iPad_3.zip
- 860_iPad_Sidecar.zip
- 861_Adobe_Fresco.zip
- 862_Fresco_halftones.zip
- 863_live_brushes.zip
- 864_oil_paint.zip
- 865_Fresco_masks.zip
- 866_repurpose_mask.zip
- 867_vector_brush.zip
- 868_fresco_ps.zip
- 869_auto_color.zip
- 870_ACR_pano.zip
- 871_correct_pano.zip
- 872_diffusion.zip
- 873_simplify_2020.zip
- 874_fill_gaps.zip
- 875_posterize.zip
- 876_paint_bucket.zip
- 877_nonD_poster.zip
- 878_dynamic_poster.zip
- 879_filmstrip.zip
- 880_awful_awesome.zip
- 881_rembrandt.zip
- 882_recolor_freeform.zip
- 883_recolor_group.zip
- 884_over_under.zip
- 885_dev_over_under.zip
- 886_3D_metal_star.zip
- 887_heavy_metal.zip
- 888_wonder_poster.zip
- 889_wonder_displace.zip
- 890_wonder_woman.zip
- 891_metadata_template.zip
- 892_edit_metadata.zip
- 893_quilt_warp.zip
- 894_warp_object.zip
- 895_gopro_images.zip
- 896_content_aware.zip
- 897_gopro_combo.zip
- 898_blend_vignette.zip
- 899_photo_painting.zip
- 900_cue_ball.zip
- 901_pool_ball.zip
- 902_stripe_ball.zip
- 903_transform_each.zip
- 904_recolor_pool.zip
- 905_pool_cues.zip
- 906_rotate_cues.zip
- 907_repeat_face.zip
- 908_rainbow_faces.zip
- 909_mask_lips.zip
- 910_single_many.zip
- 911_symmetrical_mask.zip
- 912_colorize_grads.zip
- 913_mask_grads.zip
- 914_lantern_type1.zip
- 915_lantern_type2.zip
- 916_lantern_type3.zip
- 917_blend_steps.zip
- 918_blended_blends.zip
- 919_reverse_order.zip
- 920_pattern_colors.zip
- 921_blend_pattern.zip
- 922_polygons.zip
- 923_equil_triangle.zip
- 924_mercedes.zip
- 925_star_ring.zip
- 926_perfect_star.zip
- 927_lets_review.zip
- 928_basic_shapes.zip
- 929_triangle_man.zip
- 930_paint_grads.zip
- 931_adv_grads.zip
- 932_trans_vectors.zip
- 933_free_distort.zip
- 934_dynamic_fx.zip
- 935_cats_eye.zip
- 936_cat_iris.zip
- 937_primitives.zip
- 938_zig_zag.zip
- 939_dynamic_hilight.zip
- 940_reptile_scales.zip
- 941_shade_eye.zip
- 942_variable_shade.zip
- 943_dragon_eye.zip
- 945_single_thumbnail.zip
- 946_ai_home.zip
- 947_unlock_object.zip
- 948_unlock_icon.zip
- 949_line_tool.zip
- 950_broken_candy.zip
- 951_candy_rhino.zip
- 952_wrap_pattern.zip
- 953_ice_shadows.zip
- 954_illustrator_ipad.zip
- 955_pencil_points.zip
- 956_ipad_blob.zip
- 957_ipad_pen.zip
- 958_grads_repeats.zip
- 959_color_grading.zip
- 960_grading_tricks.zip
- 961_blend_balance.zip
- 962_font_height.zip
- 963_camera_profile.zip
- 964_JPEG_raw.zip
- 965_match_detail.zip
- 966_Ps_line_tool.zip
- 967_troubleshoot_line.zip
- 968_blend_vectors.zip
- 969_curve_line.zip
- 970_point_glyphs.zip
- 971_area_glyphs.zip
- 972_snap_glyphs.zip
- 973_snap_letterform.zip
- 974_glyph_shape.zip
- 975_glyph_pen.zip
- 976_playing_cards.zip
- 977_scale_shape.zip
- 978_card_suits.zip
- 979_enhance_path.zip
- 980_power_symbol.zip
- 981_huge_artboard.zip
- 982_new_artboard.zip
- 983_triceratops.zip
- 984_pen_tricks.zip
- 985_round_corner.zip
- 986_draw_round.zip
- 987_reshape_round.zip
- 988_AI_brushed.zip
- 989_AI_rivets.zip
- 990_blend_grad.zip
- 991_binoculars.zip
- 992_blue_halo.zip
- 993_bi_aberrations.zip
- 994_hide_shapes.zip
- 995_subwoofer.zip
- 996_deep_cone.zip
- 997_gradient_frame.zip
- 998_hex_screws.zip
- 999_thats_all.zip
Contents
-
-
-
-
767 Mandala patterns in Photoshop CC 20191m
-
768 Painting a free-form mandala pattern9m 5s
-
769 Painting mandala-style dot patterns6m 56s
-
770 Coloring your mandala pattern7m 48s
-
771 The final full-color mandala6m 27s
-
772 Illustrator CC 2019 new preview mode1m 1s
-
773 Illustrator CC 2019 presentation mode3m 21s
-
774 Global edit in Illustrator CC 20196m 30s
-
775 Applying a global edit from the control panel4m 8s
-
776 Freeform gradients in Illustrator CC 20198m 29s
-
777 Freeform gradients: Points versus lines8m 10s
-
778 Freeform gradient limitations6m 29s
-
779 Crop and develop a great white shark8m 54s
-
780 Sharpening your great white shark6m 11s
-
781 Low vibrance and high saturation9m 3s
-
782 Vibrance, saturation, and sharpness9m 11s
-
783 Actioning a full-color hedcut in Photoshop1m
-
784 Recording an action to play all actions9m 37s
-
785 Draw something, color the outlines8m 46s
-
786 Combining multiple works of line art7m 3s
-
787 Group your line art, clip to the group4m 9s
-
788 Coloring outside your line art in Photoshop6m 32s
-
789 Flip horizontal view in Photoshop CC 20191m
-
790 Creating a White Walker in Photoshop1m 59s
-
791 The White Walker begins9m 25s
-
792 Giving a guy a digital shave in Photoshop3m 58s
-
793 Carving deep wrinkles or scars into skin8m 37s
-
794 Shading the White Walker’s deep-set brows6m 21s
-
795 Creating pale, lifeless lips in Photoshop5m 57s
-
796 Giving your White Walker glowing blue eyes10m 46s
-
797 Adding some creepy lifeless pupils6m 40s
-
798 Adding a cold and gloomy background12m 18s
-
799 Adding cold and brittle snowflakes6m 25s
-
800 Using the Transparency Shapes Layer option5m 29s
-
801 Combining a radial filter with a range mask8m 35s
-
802 Flipping a photograph in Camera Raw6m 20s
-
803 An actual dream effect, in Photoshop14m 37s
-
804 Augmenting your Photoshop dream8m 45s
-
805 Applying distortions as Smart Filters6m 37s
-
806 Combining distortions with blend modes10m 5s
-
807 Drawing a 24-sided star in negative space12m 48s
-
808 Making your star a repeating hex pattern8m 27s
-
809 Shading your star pattern in Illustrator6m 57s
-
810 Creating a gradient pattern in Illustrator4m 31s
-
811 Making one pattern fade into another6m 23s
-
812 Welcome to my seamlessly repeating summer1m 35s
-
813 Drawing a cubical gobstopper in Illustrator14m 55s
-
814 Creating a pattern of gobstoppers7m 23s
-
815 Aligning your many gobstoppers5m 54s
-
816 Blending line textures in Illustrator12m 58s
-
817 Combining object blends with a pattern8m 40s
-
818 Carving cubical holes into cubical objects9m 52s
-
819 Nesting gradients inside a pattern5m 36s
-
820 Drawing 3D isometric arrows in Illustrator7m 33s
-
821 Positioning the tips of your arrows7m 17s
-
822 Filling in the gaps in a repeating pattern8m 50s
-
823 Drawing cartoon teeth aligned to the hair5m 50s
-
824 Drawing a triangular cartoon eye8m 6s
-
825 Adding windows to the houses pattern10m 46s
-
826 Creating a perfectly tessellating pattern4m 32s
-
827 Op art experiment 4: Triangle tunnels6m 58s
-
828 Expressing your triangles as a hex pattern7m 18s
-
829 Adding color to your triangle tunnels7m 55s
-
830 Recoloring your triangle tunnels3m 20s
-
831 Creating rainbow gradients with blends6m 18s
-
832 The downside of using blends in patterns3m 35s
-
833 Drawing an impossible trident in Illustrator9m 49s
-
834 Shading an impossible trident with gradients4m 3s
-
835 Painting paths with opposing gradients13m 51s
-
836 Adding impossible shadows in Illustrator6m 42s
-
837 Drawing an impossible hex object14m 8s
-
838 Creating impossible latticework5m 46s
-
839 Painting like Joan Miró in Adobe Sketch9m 46s
-
840 Painting a watercolor wash background8m 23s
-
841 Signing your artwork like Joan Miró4m 17s
-
842 Opening your Sketch artwork in Photoshop9m 1s
-
843 Enlarging your Miró to poster size11m 5s
-
844 What if Joan Miró had met Jordan Peele?14m 10s
-
845 Coloring your terrifying Miró/“Us” scene11m 47s
-
846 Painting a Rorschach background9m 22s
-
848 What to do when Content-Aware Fill fails?10m 4s
-
847 Finishing your “Us” artwork in Photoshop10m 35s
-
849 Hand turkey 20191m 56s
-
850 Tracing your actual hand on an iPad10m 6s
-
851 Drawing a highly articulated hand9m 50s
-
852 Adding color to your hand-drawn hand12m 33s
-
853 Painting your hand-drawn fingernails9m 3s
-
854 A hand becomes a Thanksgiving hand turkey9m 6s
-
855 Painting the turkey’s tail feathers13m 30s
-
856 What’s wrong with this drop shadow?11m 14s
-
857 Introducing Photoshop for the iPad13m 6s
-
858 Photoshop for the iPad: Part 29m 13s
-
859 Photoshop for the iPad: Part 310m 17s
-
-
-