From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)
928 Creating real artwork with basic shapes
From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)
928 Creating real artwork with basic shapes
- Hey gang, this is Deke McClelland. Welcome to Deke's Techniques. This week, I'm going to show you how to make this guy, this floating triangle-face man, inside Adobe illustrator. Now trust me, even if you can't draw, you can draw this. Mostly just a bunch of equal lateral triangles set against a photographic background, a real piece of artwork made exclusively using a bunch of basic shapes. How did I come up with this? How did I, your humble narrator, come up with such an awesome, like "Wow. Deke, this is actually really good" idea? YouTube, Broken Bells, "Leave It Alone." Scrub to about a minute, 57 seconds in. I know, what a rip-off. These next several minutes, they're like something out of a crazy heist film. Like the 1955 French classic "Rififi," only, you've probably never seen "Rififi," whereas you're about to see this. All right, here's the final version of the artwork, open inside illustrator. We're going to start off inside this blank document here. Notice that it contains a couple of center guides. And so what I'd like you to do is go over to the shape tool fly-out menu and select the polygon tool which allows you to draw regular polygons and then go up to the View menu and make sure that your smart guides are turned on. Next, go ahead and click at the intersection of these two guidelines in order to bring up the polygon dialogue box. We want to create a triangle, so I'll set the sides value to three, and then I'll switch to the radius value and set it to a hundred points and then click okay. All right, I want to thicken up the stroke so I'll go up here to the horizontal control panel which if you're not seeing it, you can go to the window menu and choose the control command. Or if you prefer, you can work inside the much larger properties panel. In any event, I'm going to take this value right here and I'm going to bump it up to two points and then I'll click on the word stroke to bring up the stroke panel, and I'll change the corner to round join. And that way our neighboring shapes will align that much better. All right, I'll go ahead and press the enter key or the return key on the Mac to dismiss that panel. And next I'll switch to the rotate tool which you can get by pressing the R key. Now, I want you to notice something here, see that little target, that represents the transformation origin, which in this case is going to be the center of the rotation. Now that point should actually be right there at the center of the shape which is the location where those two guidelines intersect. However, for whatever reason illustrator has chosen to place that center at the center of the bounding box and to see what that looks like, I'll go to the view menu and I'll choose show bounding box in order to turn it on. Now that's not going to immediately show you the bounding box because I'm working with the rotate tool, so I'll go ahead and switch back to the black arrow tool, which you can get by pressing the V key so that we can see the bounding box and the appropriate center right there at this location. However, if you take a look at where the center of the bounding box is, notice that it's much higher. It's going to be right about there. And sure enough, if I press the R key to switch back to the rotate tool, there it is. Well naturally that would not be to my liking, but it happens to work in this case, and let me show you why. I'll go ahead and press the enter key or the return key on the Mac to bring up the rotate dialog box. Then you want to turn on the preview option, start with an angle value of zero degrees and then press shift-up arrow in order to watch that shape rotate around that point there, that little target point, and you can see that at 60 degrees, I end up turning the shape upside down because it's a triangle. It only has three sides. And I also offset it over to the right, which happens to be exactly what I want. And so at 60 degrees, you can play with other ones if you want to, you can just sit there and press shift-up arrow a bunch of additional times. And that'll give you an idea of exactly how that center point works. Notice once I take it all the way up to 180 degrees the angle value that is, that I realign that shape with the vertical guide. That is not what I want, however, so I will set it back to 60 degrees like so. We still get an upside down triangle but it's now offset, at which point I'll click okay o accept that change. All right, now I'll press the V key to switch back to the black arrow tool. I do not want this bounding box. It's just going to get in my way. And so I'll go up to the view menu and choose hide bounding box. Notice that this command has a keyboard shortcut of control-shift-B, that's command-shift-B on the Mac. I really recommend you memorize that shortcut, because there are times where the bounding box is useful and there are times like now where it's not. In any event, I'll choose that command to get rid of it and then I'll go ahead and zoom out a little bit here. And I'll drag this bottom anchor point like so up to this location so that it snaps into alignment with itself. You should see the white snapping cursor by the way. So notice when we're not snapping, we're seeing a black arrowhead. When we are snapping, when you and I are snapping together, we see a white arrowhead, at which point I'll go ahead and press the alt key or the option key on the Mac, at which point I'm seeing a double arrowhead. That tells me I'm going to create a copy of the shape like so. All right, now I want to duplicate both these guys. So I'm going to shift-click on the first shape. And you know, as long as they're both selected let's go ahead and give them a fill. And so notice that I'm seeing the swatches panel in the top right corner of my screen. If it's not there for you, you can choose the swatches command from the window menu. In any event, I'm going to change my fill, which is currently active, to this shade of orange right here. It's not necessary that you use the same shade of orange. In the long run, we're not going to be using orange at all. It'll just help us keep track of our shapes. All right, now you want to drag this guy by his top right anchor point right there until it snaps into alignment with this point right there, and then go ahead and press the alt key or the option key on the Mac, so you're seeing the double white arrow cursor, which tells you you're going to create a duplicate like so, and then click off the shapes to de-select them, click on this guy to select it and then press control-D or command-D on the Mac to duplicate it all by itself. All right, now I want to fill in a few more shapes. So I'll select this guy, that top right shape and then I'll switch back to the rotate tool. Again, you can get it by pressing the R key. Great shortcut, use this tool all the time. You want to alt or option-click on this bottom anchor point, right there. An angle value of 60 degrees is going to work just great. Except this time, you want to click on the copy button in order to create a copy of that shape. And I'm going to change its fill. Again, I'm just doing this so that I can better keep track of all the shapes we'll be creating here. And so I'm going to set it to the shade of blue. Let's say just cause it's a nice complement, and then I'll press the V key to switch back to my black arrow tool, and I'll drag this new guy by his top anchor point until it snaps into alignment with this point right here, at which point I'll press the alt key or the option key on the Mac in order to create a duplicate of that shape. All right, now I want to scale that shape a little bit, so I'm going to go in and switch to the scale tool which has a keyboard shortcut of S and I want to alt-click or option-click on the top anchor point. That brings up the scale dialog box, and it also goes ahead and sets the location of the origin point right there. And I'm looking for a uniform value, just arbitrary of 108%. That's just what I came up with. And then I'll click okay. All right, I also want to scale this guy right here. So I'll temporarily switch to the black arrow tool by pressing the control key or the command key on the Mac and clicking on it like so, and now you want to release that key to switch back to your scale tool and alt or option-click on its bottom anchor point. Notice that sets the origin point to that same location once again, and this time I'm looking for a uniform value of 120%, at which point I will click okay to accept that change. All right, now we want to give this guy a chin down here. And so I'll go ahead and press the V key in order to switch back to the black arrow tool, I'll click on this shape right here in order to select it, which as you may recall, is the very first shape that we drew. And then I'll go ahead and drag it by its top-right anchor point until it snaps to this location here. So we're snapping to the bottom of the orange triangle, not the blue one, notice, so the orange one right there and then you want to press the alt key or the option key on the Mac and release in order to duplicate the shape like so, and now we're going to nudge it to a new location. And so just to confirm that we're on the same page, go ahead and check out your keyboard increment by pressing control-K or command-K on a Mac. We're looking for this guy to be one point as by default in which case click okay to accept that change if you made a change, which of course I did not. In any event, I'm going to nudge this shape 40 points to the left by pressing shift-left arrow one, two, three, four times, and now I'm going to nudge it 50 points down by pressing shift-down arrow one, two, three, four, five times. All right, now I'll click off the shape in order to de-select it, and I'll go ahead and turn off the guides because believe it or not, we just don't need them anymore. And while what we've created so far is extremely primitive. It's going to end up looking like this, which is fairly remarkable, given that we're working with one of the simplest shapes there is, an equilateral triangle here inside illustrator. If you're a member of LinkedIn Learning, I have a follow-up movie in which we take what we've made so far and turn it into something that we're going to make a few minutes from now. If you're looking forward to next week, that's when we're going to take our various triangles and other exceedingly basic shapes and paint them with a few relatively complex gradients that include a few suspenseful moments of translucency. Deke's Techniques, each and every week. 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
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860 Using an iPad as a Sidecar drawing tablet11m 37s
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861 Introducing Adobe Fresco for the iPad15m 27s
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862 Adobe Fresco paints halftone patterns9m 37s
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863 Live brushes in Adobe Fresco9m 36s
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864 Using oil brushes in Adobe Fresco5m 54s
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865 Masking layers in Adobe Fresco9m 47s
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866 Repurposing and inverting masks5m 25s
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867 Vector brushes in Adobe Fresco9m 7s
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868 Opening Fresco art in Photoshop8m 32s
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869 Customizing the Auto Color command6m 51s
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870 Camera Raw 12: Panoramas with fill edges9m 38s
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871 Developing your panorama in Camera Raw5m 53s
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872 Healing with Clone Source plus Diffusion8m 8s
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873 The improved Simplify command in Illustrator 20207m 25s
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874 Filling in any post-Simplify gaps4m 27s
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875 Posterizing colors, in the style of "Hair"11m 54s
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876 Recoloring art with the Paint Bucket tool5m 34s
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878 Adjusting your poster art dynamically6m 15s
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877 Posterizing colors nondestructively9m 8s
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879 Hiding the Filmstrip in Camera Raw4m 35s
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880 Making an awful photograph awesome10m 14s
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881 What if Rembrandt had painted sea lions?4m 43s
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882 Recolor a freeform gradient in Illustrator4m 58s
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883 Recoloring a gradient using a color group3m 24s
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884 Faking a GoPro over-under shot10m 20s
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885 Developing your over-under in Camera Raw4m 41s
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886 Drawing a 3D metal star in Illustrator14m 25s
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887 Rendering the 3D star in heavy metal5m 51s
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888 Creating a Wonder Woman 1984 poster effect9m 5s
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889 Creating the Wonder Woman displacement map15m 5s
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890 Masking your Wonder Woman11m 39s
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891 Creating a metadata template in Bridge9m 24s
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892 Streamlining a multi-use metadata template9m 29s
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893 The Photoshop 2020 freeform Warp enhancements12m 32s
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894 Applying a freeform Warp to a Smart Object7m 54s
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895 Rescuing a frame from a GoPro movie7m 49s
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896 Filling gaps with Content-Aware Fill7m 5s
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897 Two images are better than one13m 8s
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898 Blending images with a hand-drawn vignette4m 44s
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899 Creating a photographic painting12m 37s
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900 Drawing a gradient sphere as a 2D shape9m 49s
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901 Turning a sphere into a colorful pool ball7m 51s
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902 Changing a pool ball from solid to stripes8m 22s
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903 Rotate versus Transform Each in Illustrator9m 36s
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904 Recoloring your pool balls8m 20s
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905 Drawing a pool cue in Illustrator15m 43s
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906 Rotating with precision accuracy7m 28s
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907 Repeating a face so it shares a common eye11m 20s
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908 Continuous rainbow faces in Photoshop5m 42s
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909 Masking in the natural colors of the lips6m 8s
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910 Flipping a face to create new identities9m 8s
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911 Hand painting a symmetrical layer mask4m 18s
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912 Two ways to colorize with gradients6m 9s
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913 Two ways to mask gradient effects6m 40s
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914 Lantern tile: Type 1, onion7m 53s
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915 Lantern tile: Type 2, traditional6m 33s
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916 Lantern tile: Type 3, scallop4m 30s
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917 Quickly change the number of steps in Illustrator8m 22s
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918 Creating a blend inside a blend7m 44s
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919 Reversing the stacking order in Illustrator4m 32s
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920 Turning a blend into a repeating pattern12m 16s
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921 Recoloring a blended pattern5m 8s
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922 Precisely sizing any polygon in Illustrator9m 19s
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923 Creating a beveled, equilateral triangle11m 46s
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924 Turning a triangle into a Mercedes star9m 7s
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925 Adding a ring around the Mercedes star7m 57s
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926 Precisely sizing stars in Illustrator10m 20s
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927 Let's review that star technique5m 25s
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928 Creating real artwork with basic shapes9m 55s
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929 Making a face of triangles in Illustrator10m 18s
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930 Painting with gradients and translucency10m 34s
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931 More advanced gradients in Illustrator6m 52s
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932 Combining translucent vectors with a photo5m 30s
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933 Using the dynamic Free Distort filter9m 3s
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934 Combining dynamic effects in Illustrator6m 4s
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935 Creating a Halloween cat’s eye in Illustrator14m 35s
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936 Combining multiple gradient fills and effects8m 28s
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937 Tracing a photo with primitives in Illustrator11m 31s
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938 Halftone pattern and Zig Zag in Illustrator13m 5s
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939 Adding dynamic highlights to your cat’s eye10m 29s
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940 Blending reptile-like scales in Illustrator13m 42s
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941 Shading to your cat’s eye in Illustrator10m 53s
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942 Shading with variable-width strokes9m 10s
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943 Turning your cat’s eye into a dragon’s eye10m 40s
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944 Clearing the Photoshop Home screen5m 5s
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945 Hiding a single Home screen thumbnail3m 29s
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946 Clearing the Illustrator Home screen4m 4s
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947 A new way to unlock stuff in Illustrator5m
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948 Another way to unlock stuff in Illustrator2m 47s
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949 The new Line tool in Photoshop 202110m 43s
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950 Fixing a broken candy cane pattern4m 58s
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951 Creating a candy cane rhinoceros in Photoshop10m 4s
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952 Warping a pattern around an object4m 2s
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953 Adding some rippling, reflective ice shadows8m 35s
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