Hey everyone! :)
Well, I want to use Illustrator to digitally ink my pencil drawings - I've just seen a lot of nice-looking digital-inking done on it, and I'm having problem-after-problem trying to do it in raster-based formats. But I've run into a few frustrations.
First of all - whenever I try to draw a line near another line, it just "grabs" and bends that first line instead of letting me make a new one. :| Pretty lame. Anyway to get rid of that?
Secondly - what's the best way to alter the thickness of a line? By that I mean, say, a line which is thin at one end, fat in the middle, and then thin again on the other side -- or a spiral that gets progressively thinner. How to do something like that?
Thanks bundles!
So have I, is it better in terms of 'inking' than say Flash? There are a few programs that have varying line thincknesses, I mean smoothly like a pen or brush. I would have thought Illustrator too, but it doesn't?
Illustrator will vary the thickness of a line in you use a wacom tablet.
Not sure what you mean about "grabbing" the line, but you have to start a new line with nothing selected, and far enough away from any other lines that Illustrator doesn't think that you're trying to add points to an existing line. If you watch the pen tool when it gets close to a line, a "+" symbol will show up when it thinks you want to add points to an existing line.
For thick-and-thin you have to convert your lines to fills and move the points around. In CS, it's Object/Path/Outline Stroke.
A while back on the blog http://www.drawn.ca there was an article http://drawn.ca/2006/02/21/maryn-roos/about an illustrator who had come to prefer using flash over illustrator. She has a blog http://baronesss.blogspot.com/ with tutorials/walkthrough and they make a lot of sense.
Hey guys, thanks for your input. Still having problems with both Illustrator and Flash. :(
In Illustrator, it really bugs me that it doesn't show me my line as I'm drawing it - it shows me a dot-to-dot line, and then when I let up the pressure, it fills it in. But I can't keep proper track of my line thickness when it doesn't show me what I'm drawing as I'm drawing it - so it becomes a matter of repeated trial-and-error, a real hassle. :|
And in Flash 8, I can't draw a smooth circle. It always breaks it up into jagged little pieces - even setting all the Drawing-related preferences to "off" or all the way up to "smooth."
Any ideas? Thanks!
I use both illustrator and Flash a lot. Some things I've learned:
If you want varying line weights, Illustrator sucks. Use the paintbrush tool in Flash. If you are a stickler for clean lines and unvarying line weight, this won't help. But if you want a hand painted look, it's great. Illustrator's brush tool is sluggish, unpredictable and creates results that will not export into other file formats. Shun it.
The default setting for curve fidelity when exporting Illustrator art to Flash is 7. This sometimes results in butchered art. Crank the setting up a notch to get more faithful translation.
Do your gradients in Flash, which will result in lower file size overhead. (Illustrator gradients are converted to bitmaps when exporting to flash).
Copying and pasting never works as well as exporting and importing.
Don't underrate Flash as a drawing tool. Flash is great for making painterly looking vector art. Do you art in Flash and export it as an EPS when you need good hand-drawn looking vector art.
Colors can sometimes change unexpectedly when moving art from one program to another. Make sure Illustrator is working in RGB mode, and, when working on larger priojects, it is worth the time to build duplicate color palettes in both Flash and Illustrator.
What's red, furry and on your six?
I still get weird jagged curves in Flash. :( Check this out:
Flash has a wierd habit of adding points to a curve if the design wasn't done in Flash. That's why I learned to love the tools in Flash. Importing work from Freehand, CorelDraw, and Illustrator just never really worked all that well for me. Time to get familiar with the pencil and bezier tools in Flash.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
No, that's my point, I did it directly in Flash. :(
Make sure you tick the appropriate pencil modifier such as straighten, smooth or ink. But to get it totally right you'll have to go back and finess with the bezier too. Just takes some practice, and you can always fall back on pulling and stretching with the selection tool on the curves till you get it close to what you want. Then go back to the Bezier and finess the curves.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
Thanks! I'd been using the paintbrush and not the pencil. Tried the pencil with the different settings you suggested. it looked a bit better - but it still changes my lines too much for me to like it. I'll experiment some more, but the experience wasn't encouraging.
Thanks again!
When you use the paintbrush you are actually creating a filled shape, with multiple sides and curves. Hey, all the programs take some getting used to. Flash doesn't have all the plugins, but if you give it a real chance you can do almost anything drawing wise you can do in Illustrator or the other high priced vector programs.
I love the fact that I can pull and resize with the arrow tool, to rough out my work. You really can't do that with Illustrator or Draw. It's more painterly to me. But then I've fought my battles with it and I know how to compensate now. That's always the trouble with a new program that you are learning. None of them are like working on paper, they all take some getting used to.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
One of the biggest frustrations I had to overcome was the fact that snap to object if the default setting. I've learned to turn it off even before I start drawing with the pencil. Give that a try. It can be a real pain in the ass, and you can fight it even when you don't realize that's what you are fighting. You have to select the arrow/selection tool, before you can turn it off.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
I don't know if this helps at all, but the way I usually "draw" in Flash is by using the pen tool and setting up a series of straight line segments to define my shape. Then I use the solid arrow tool to drag the straight bits into curved segments. If they need further refining I make adjustments using the bezier handles. Once that's done, if I want a weighted line I convert the lines to fills and start dragging edges around.
It's pretty quick once you get the hang of it.
Along with the "snap" features turned off, you might want to try playing with the "smoothing" in the "Properties" box for the brush. I have it set at 50, and it seems to work fine for me.
Aloha,
the Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
bump.......
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
I'd like to throw some brush strokes in illustrator on a design I made in Flash. It won't let me. Can anyone help me?
Which version of each program are you using? You might try converting them in to paths or objects.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
I'm using Illustrator 10 and Flash MX.
You should be able to export as swf, then import that swf into your Flash project.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
bump......
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
bump......
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."