3 Types of MASKING | Illustrator Tutorial (FULL GUIDE)

in today's Adobe Illustrator tutorial you will learn how to use three types of masking first it will get overall understanding on how to hide and reveal certain parts of objects using clipping masks draw inside mode and opacity mask and then we will create stunning snake illustration using each one of these masks and not only if you are a beginner I definitely recommend you to watch this tutorial it might seem complicated for you but what you'll get as result is boosted workflow and new amazing possibilities there will be a lot of information to bring your lowest rating and design into brain your level of quality you're watching TNT tutorials let's move on and create a new document select print a for horizontal orientation in Advanced Options select RGB and click on create you can download this reference and colors palette by the link in the video description you should also download swatch colors but we will talk about it a little bit later first of all let me give you overall understanding of how masks and works in Adobe Illustrator let's create a new layer rename it to the ground draw rectangle here gradient linear gradient select this marker color picker let's pick this color here and for this marker this color now let's Lock this layer I will create a new layer first let me show you how clipping mask works let's create one object here rectangle for example and let's also create ellipse now we want to cut this ellipse right on this line of rectangle but we have better option than to simply cut this ellipse we need to bring this rectangle up arrange bring to front that's like this to right click make clipping mask now what options do we have here we have this ellipse uncut and we have this rectangle a shape of our mask we can rotate it like so change portions anyway we want you can do even more and select with direct selection tool this ellipse and move it inside of this mask you can even duplicate it and as you can see all shapes will be inside of this border we can pick objects within a clipping mask with direct selection tool then press V for selection tool move them and change proportions or you can double click on this clipping mask with selection tool then you're in isolation mode if you will place your ellipse outside of this clip group like this it won't be a part of this clipping mask to exit isolation mode you should double click somewhere on the workspace then if you want to release this object you can simply right-click and select release clipping mask now you can apply any color for this rectangle let's say that you want this rectangle to be a part of this ellipse let's just select them both right click make clipping mask now you can do the same with this rectangle routing this mask and you can change this mask also I'll press ctrl Z to undo let's create more objects like this and let's imagine that you want them all to be inside of this border first of all you should place this rectangle on top of them right click arrange bring to front then select them all right click make clipping mask then with direct selection tool you can pick this border I will open this layer group if I drop a tool and apply this color but I personally prefer another method I will press ctrl Z I prefer to have this object behind all these layers I'll press arrange send to back then I simply copy this object control C control shift V this allows me to place copied object on top of all layers then I simply select them all right click make clipping mask and I automatically have my background layer this is my personal preference I just feel like I have better control on my artwork when I apply this method what I also should mention is that you can move your clipping mask and all objects within this clipping mask will move with it you can also scale them like so rotate and apply any manipulations like this for example stylize drop shadow click on preview click OK and as you can see these objects are within this clipping mask and shadow drops only from this rectangle which is our clipping mask let's pick a for direct selection tool select this point of our clipping mask and move it like so we can rectangle on the ground of this clipping mask so you can see that we can just change its proportions accordingly to clipping mask and it will fit it now I will show you one more tip let's double click on this clipping mask now we're in isolation mode let's pick this color B for brush tool I will press this button to scale our brush size you can make it smaller or make it bigger and let me draw some line here as you can see we can draw inside of clipping mask and we see only these parts that fit its border so this is very handy we will use it today now let's talk about draw inside mode let's draw some ellipse here and how draw inside mode works is that we simply select our Fe you can find this little icon here drawing modes click on it and you can select drawing side let's do select this object you can see these borders here that means that we're in draw inside mode let's just pick this color before brush tool and we can simply draw lines like this and they will be visible only inside of this ellipse we can press a for direct selection tool select each of these lines and move it just as we want to so you can see that basically it works exactly is clipping mask but you don't need to apply any kind of manipulations you just need to select your shape and select drawing side mode if you want to edit some objects within this ellipse you can just select this ellipse open this clip group select this ellipse and select draw inside mode again now you can see this border again and you can create even more lines like so to exit this mode you should also double click somewhere in the workspace and we have hotkey for drawing side mode let's just select this ellipse and press shift D two times until you will see this border so it's up to you where to pick draw inside mode from this panel or simply press Shift + D two times then you can press Shift + D and these borders will disappear you might be confused right now which mask to choose clipping mask or draw inside mode I will show you how to use them in our work in process so you will see where to use clipping mask and where it's better to use drawing sad mode so just let's continue let's talk about opacity mask let's create rectangle like this now select properties' opacity and you have this option here make mask let's just click on it in this case we will uncheck clip I will explain about clipping later who has just uncheck it we can see our figure and right here you see our shape and this white field is our mask what is the most important in opacity mask is that you need to have your transparency panel available so let's just do this if you don't see it here window transparency just select it if it didn't appear here maybe it appears somewhere here for you just drag this window right here now with this object selected select transparency panel I will move it here so you would understand better what is going on later we will simply have it here I will open layers and now as you can see right here our shape is selected but let's select mask icon as we selected mask icon we are fully in mask mode layers changed we have only opacity mask here so why did I told you to have transparency panel active because to return to the shape you will need to simply click on this shape icon and you are in usual mode again so mask mode usual mode a right let's go to mask mode and the most important here that you need to know is that black color hides some parts of object and white color reveal some parts of objects also you can change opacity from white to black with all grades of gray let me show you this right now we have red color here but for your clipping mask is just a great color it's just something like this let me show you this you can even pick some orange color click OK before brush let's draw here and what you can see here is that this layer becomes a little bit more parents because it doesn't see yellow color it can see only gray color so let me explain it to you better if you will pick white color here click OK let's draw like this and you can see that this object becomes fully visible now let me pick black color draw some line here and you can see that in this part it becomes transparent well you're in opacity mask you have all these objects here you can move them here and change appearance let me demonstrate possibilities of opacity mask better let's just return to usual mode dis elect the subject let's pick yellow color L for ellipse tool unless your lips here let's bring it down what makes opacity mask different from clipping mask and draw inside mode is that you can't pick all these elements within masks with direct selection tool you will just simply click on this border so to move them you need to switch between these modes go to mask mode and then you can play with all these objects let's pick some gray color here and just draw a line as you can see it absolutely transparent here where we applied black color and we have less transparency here where we have great color and if you will pick white color and draw a line like this white color will remove all transparency so with this mask you have a lot of possibilities you should experiment with them one of the most popular method is simply applying gradient from black to white let's just draw a rectangle gradient linear gradient let's pick dark color here I have applied colors to stroke we don't need this so I'll press click on none switch between stroke and fill color I can hear linear gradient again let's pick black color for this one and white color here G for gradient tool let's pick some really deep black color like this this object is absolutely invisible where we applied black color and you can play with gradient tool like so you can apply radial gradient play with your shapes like so I will also show you where and how to use opacity mask better not just like this I will just show you how I like to use opacity mask in my projects so let's make everything clear now and understood able for you by creating some cool artwork now it's right time to download swatches colors just open swatches panel click here on this little menu select open swatch library are the library and find path to downloaded swatches you will see this window just click on this folder this folder will move to our swatches panel let's close this window you can click on this little menu again and you can select which size do you want for your colors I will pick medium thumbnail view I will also delete all of these colors because we won't use them today I will just select them always shift but I won't select these two because you can't delete these two colors and let's just drag them here now only needed colors first let's click here to swap feel and stroke select stroke here and pick this color before pantsu let's just draw a shape with pen tool like this just drag points we will create only four points we've created four points to stop drawing line press ctrl shift + a leave a selection tool select this line properties and I will just change stroke width to something like this let's deselect the subject now let's create pattern brush pick this color before pencil let's just draw a shape like this properties change stroke width to one point you have another option to deselect your line you can simply press the V for selection tool then let's press all for a flag to hold out click on this point click on preview and if you see this result that means that you need to cancel V for selection tool deselect this line select it again or for a flag tool hold alt click on this point and now you can copy a for direct selection tool let's select these points properties and click here to connect selected and points now you can play with proportions like so you can pick these two points with direct selection tool move them I think I will stop on this result now do you select the subject hold out start to move this object to the right and hold shift also you should have Shift + Alt combination release all buttons press ctrl + D to copy this one select them all hold out and duplicate them like so just let them snap here let me show you better you should snap these parts like this this central points are snapping two points over these lines illustrator will help you to do this so this won't be hard I think I will duplicate this one right here it will also snap now let's make them smaller just something like 2 feet width of this line just a little bit more like this now to save it as brush let's rotate it like so it really doesn't matter if you rotate it to the right or to the left you will be able to change direction of these objects anytime now what I like to do is to duplicate this part like so and press ctrl D a couple of times let's select them all move them somewhere here you should be sure that all these points are snapped to do this you just need to follow my explanations in moment when I showed you how to snap these objects everything should be fine after this now click here on brushes if you don't have this panel here you can select it in window brushes with the subjects selected just click here create new brush select pattern brush and click OK don't change anything here just select tints and shades here you can experiment with these settings I will just say that if you will select none you will be able to change color for your brush if you will select in some shades you'll be able to change color to any you want so let's select tints and shades and click OK now first of all I will group all the subjects soon we will delete it now let's select this red line control C control F open your brushes panel and select our pattern brush I'm really happy with this result but if you don't like your brush first that you can do is to select this line double click on your brush in brushes panel with preview checked you can change size here for example I will leave it as it is you can click here to flip along just as I told you that you can change direction of these objects any time like this and you can flip across it just don't work for us right now because you should have different brush for this case also you can play with spacing but it's also not our case right now let's just concentrate on scaling flipping and colorization methods I will click OK apply two strokes what else you can do if you are not happy with your brush you just can simply change this pattern you can delete it create and you will create new brush try it out or change proportions of these ones like this for example click here to create new brush pattern brush ok tints and shades click OK now you have pattern brush to select this line and let's apply this pattern brush too as you can see it looks a little bit different I think I will even change proportions of this one slide so create new brush pattern brush ok tints and shades select this line and apply it here I think this will work for me just fine so I will deselect this line select these two brushes and delete them if these brushes are distracting you you can click on this little menu select all unused and delete now you have only basic brush and your pattern brush now As I am happy with this brush I will simply delete this object because we don't need it I will rename this layer here just to avoid any confusion from your side I will rename it to pattern brush what options do we have here you can pick a for direct selection tool pick points of these lines at once and just move them together as you can see pattern brush follows your shape you should only watch if there is no errors because if you will rotate your shape too much let me show you this I'll press ctrl-z if you will just move it like so you get some results like this so to avoid it just move your object carefully now let's like this base layer object expand click OK after this this is not line anymore this is an object so you can't change it as line anymore we will also expand our pattern brush now object expand appearance you can see that this brush expanded appearance but we also need to expand each of these lines so object expand click OK now you can see that these objects are not lines they are just an objects they don't have stroke color they have only fill color what you should do right now is to select properties' Pathfinder unite because we don't need all this arm to be a separate objects we need this pattern to be as one monolith object so Pathfinder unite now as you can see this is one object now let's select this base layer hold out and duplicate it to the top now with this copied layer selected select also our pattern right click and if you don't see make clipping mask in this panel you can just go to object clipping mask make now we've applied clipping mask to this pattern and as I told you my favorite method we still have base layer behind our clipping mask now let me show you one more trick with clipping mask with our base layer selected let's hold out and duplicate this layer inside of this clipping mask like this so you can just simply drag any object to clipping mask and it will appear inside of clipping mask that you've created before now let's bring it down in clipping mask like this now we need each one of these parts to be separated to be able to apply any color to each part of this shape so how you do this obviously you need to separate all these parts so let's just double click on our clipping mask like this you can see that it's isolated now everything becomes faded all around this object just select them all like this with selection tool make sure that they are all selected properties plot finder click on these three dots and select divide here after you pressed on divide you've separated red object to different objects let's double click somewhere on the workspace to exit isolation mode now with direct selection tool you can pick any part apply any color you can select a couple of them and pick any color you want I'll press control Z this is a great time to use draw inside mode you can just pick this one for example you can click here select draw inside or simply press Shift + D two times as you can see this object is selected you can press B for brush tool let's select this brush and you can just draw inside of each of these parts Shift + D to exit this mode now if you want to change something here pay for direct selection tool select lines that you have already drawn and you can edit them like this if you want to draw inside of this object again you're opening layers panel but you just can't find it because you have too many layers what you should do in this case pay for direct selection tool just try to pick any object within this layer I will pick this line for example now simply click on this icon locate object it will find it for you then just select your clipping mask Shift + D 2 times again deselect it and just continue to edit it just like this what other options do you have here with draw inside mount is that you can pick few objects and if you want to draw some pattern inside of these ones you think that you can just pick them all and so I draw inside malt here but you can't to be able to do this you should go to object compound path make and after this you can pick draw inside now with deselect them let's just pick brush and draw something like this as you can see draw inside mode is very useful so you can create a hundreds of combinations different patterns different objects just separate them unite them with compound path if you need to draw inside of few objects and create some unique design it's up to you to experiment and to use your imagination and in this exact illustration I won't use drawn side mode anymore because I wanted to show you another feature so I'll press ctrl Z to undo right to the point where we divided all the subjects we just kept them all separated I want you to show you some more cool stuff we'll just select this one's gradient linear gradient as you can see I applied gradient to stroke again we don't need it so let's click here on none select our fill color icon gradient linear let's double click on this slider swatches let's pick this yellow color and for this marker let's pick this one now click somewhere here to exit this window and press G for gradient tool as you can see in this case gradient tool applies to each one of these objects if you will drag gradient tool like this this effect will disappear so just don't do this in this case we need these gradients to be done this way to be applied to each one of these objects because we don't want to select each one of them and apply the same gradient over and over to rotate this gradient tool just select degree here like this don't rotate it by yourself you will get this cool result now let's just continue according to reference I've selected this one's linear gradient double-click on the slider let's apply this color now for this slider let's apply this color G for gradient tool and let's change degree like this now let's do the same with red linear gradient double-click on the slider pick this color and let's pick this color here we pick gradient tool just to view direction but you can simply change degree in this panel without gradient tool like this I just like to see exact direction all right now it's time to apply yellow here I've selected this object and I can press I for eyedropper tool and simply click on these gradients this gradient applied to this object now what I need to do is press G for gradient tool and apply direction in this case this direction works for me just well so let's just continue again I for eyedropper tool and let's pick this gradient G for gradient tool and in this case we even don't need to change degree all we need to do is click here to reverse gradient so just keep in mind that you have this option let's continue i for eyedropper tool pick this gradient now let's simply click here on reverse gradient G for gradient tool let's change degree here like this after eyedropper tool pick this gradient G for gradient tool let's change direction because of we applied divide these objects are not clipping masks anymore they are just a group we can enter group the same as we enter clipping mask just double click on it but you can see if you will move objects like this we can see them even outside of border of our previous clipping mask we don't have clipping mask here so let's press control Z here double click somewhere on the workspace and now we need clipping mask apply it to the subject so let's duplicate this layer once again select these two object clipping masks make now as you double click on this clipping mask to change objects you will need to double click again because you have group inside of clipping mask now we enter it group inside of clipping mask so you can see all these writings here we're in group that is inside of clip group that is in the layer form so if you want to return to clip group you can click here to enter group again you can double click on this group now you can edit objects now press ctrl Z and to exit isolation mode you need to double click on the workspace so now as we added some volume with these gradients let's add even more volume with this tip double click on this mask swatches we'll just select none for field select stroke pick this color before brush brushes panel let's pick this brush let's increase size of our brush with this button like this I will decrease it just a bit with this button then press enter and make sure that this marker isn't smooth click okay and then just draw a line along this border just don't worry about this line we will fix it right now as you can see we've created line inside of clipping mask and we can see it on the inside of it so to change it a for direct selection tool pick this line and just manipulate it like so move this line selected select properties opacity blending modes and select multiply this is first that you need to do then let's decrease the opacity to 55% for example like this then let's just draw another line here like this if set is from this line didn't apply to this line you can select this line I for eyedropper tool and pick settings from this one so now it's pick them both we've selected them effect blur Gaussian blur click on preview and you can see this great transition here we are blurring our brush and adding volume to our shape you can play with these settings click OK we are able to change settings anytime properties let's just first change opacity here to something like this then let's click on our applied effect click on preview and let's just change it like this I will click OK you can edit these lines even outside of isolation mode just pick a for direct selection tool and you can pick these lines like so and edit it like this let's pick this one all right I've created another layer for new line unlocking this layer just to accidentally don't move anything now I'm making copy over this line brushes and let's apply this pattern brush here layers select this part object expand okay let's make our pattern brush layer invisible for now let's create head like this deselect this object select it again all for a flag tool hold alt click on this point and click on copy select them both properties unite now swap feeling stroke P for pencil just draw a line like this draw another one here let's select this one all for a flag tool hold alt and click on this point click on copy let's bring this ones here select them all stroke round cap now let's make these objects look more interesting select this one shift + W and let's change proportions like this + delete this one and copy this to other side let's apply with 2 for this one also now select them all object expand appearance and unite let's place this object right in the middle we need it to be behind this layer so let's bring it down let's just rotate them like so make them bigger I'm not trying too hard to match this corner pay for direct selection tool pick this point and move it here the same with this point we don't need this point so let's pick p4 pencil and click on it let's just move this shape like so using handles just to have better attachment select these two layers we have our base layer selected head layer selected properties pathfinder unite we have no errors here that's great now let's make brush layer visible let's bring it up pay for direct selection tool let's select this point and move this brush like this we can change its flowing with handles and now I see that we need to scale it just a bit so let's select brushes double click on this brush and let's just scale it like so now let's do the same as we did with first shape duplicate this layer here select it brush layer object expand appearance then object expand click OK right click if you don't have my clipping mask here object clipping mask make now let's open this clip group and duplicate this base layer inside of this clip group like this now it's double click on this clip group select all layers inside of it properties but finder click on more options divide let's exit this isolation mode as you can see this is not clipping mask anymore this is just a group so later we will need to apply clipping mask using this layer just as we already did now I will simply apply colors and gradients just as we did with this shape let's create eyes and for ellipse to gradient radial gradient now p4 pencil swap fill and Stroke swatches let's pick this color let's just draw a line like this properties let's change stroke width then click on stroke profile and select with profile one now group these layers and just let's place them here let's add some gradient here just pick this object I for eyedropper to click on this gradient the gradient panel reverse gradient now let's move these two objects to our group let's just drop them here then duplicate this base layer to the top of this one select them both right click make clipping mask now let's just double click on this clipping mask before brush select this brush swatches pick this color let's make this brush bigger let's change blending mode of these lines to multiply change opacity just a bit effect blur Gaussian blur preview and let's apply it now as we have this objects selected we want to test opacity mask here we want to make shadow to fall from this part to this part and we want to make this shape go under this one so it might seem complicated but there's only a few steps to achieve these great results let's just do this as we need to hide this part of this layer behind this one that means that we need to take this part of underneath layer and apply it as mask to this object so let's just open this previous layer who has just duplicate this layer to this one like this next pick this layer duplicate it here so we have these two copies on the top of all layers alright now select them both and we're interested only in these parts we don't need any other part so we've made these copies just to cut this rectangle let's press shift plus alpha shape builder hold out you can click on unnecessary parts or you can simply drag through them like this and we have only needed part so now let's do it one of them we need only one rectangle here let's select this rectangle this layer as you can see they're both selected properties opacity and simply click here make mask as I showed you in the beginning red color is not red color for masks is just a gray color so gray color is health of opacity for our objects now when you have clip checked that means that you have something like clipping mask you can only see this part but we want to see all this object so we'll uncheck clip you should test it on your own just try different combinations it's very easy to do but you should definitely learn it so now let's just click on this mask icon because we need to make this part absolutely transparent we need to make this red rectangle which is great for masks absolutely black so we're in mask mode you can open layers and you can see your opacity mask this opacity mask is selected we have it as object as you can see you can move it through this object as you want I'll press ctrl Z to return it and now let's simply change its color to black like this click OK as you can see it becomes absolutely transparent and we can see this red part why do we see this because let's open our transparency panel let's go to use your mode openlayers and you can see that you simply have another layer behind this one let's just make this layer invisible and now you can see object that is beneath needed shape so let's just delete this one and I will demonstrate it once again without unnecessary shape transparency we have our object selected let's click here to enter mask mode we have this shape selected I will click here on color select grayscale and when I'm change in color from white to gray into black you can see how opacity changes so this is very simple it might only seem complicated but as you can see nothing difficult let's open layers panel deselect this object we're in mask mode so if we will pick any object if we will draw rectangle here we will have this object invisible in place where replaced black color now you want to make some part within this rectangle to be visible there is nothing more simple then just deselect this object for example pick L for ellipse tool draw ellipse color then let's apply different color you can see that you have unlimited amount of variation with this opacity mask I think that this is the most powerful mask between each three of them so as we've created this mask here let's just do it on necessary parts we did what we wanted here now we have this object go behind this one and then on top of it this is great now let's make shadow falling from this object to this one this is also very easy to do but in this case we will use usual clipping mask click on transparency let's return to usual mode I will just undo until that moment when I've deleted base shape of this layer that's why I'll always keep a copy of them now we will use this layer only in this part to drop shadow so let's make it visible bring it up in this case we can simply create rectangles like this properties Pathfinder click to minus front all right now let's bring this layer down like this effect stylize drop shadow click on preview click OK and now basically the same we need to apply shape of this layer as mask to this shadow so it will be visible only within border of this shape there's nothing more simple then just pick this layer duplicate it on top of this one select them both right click make clipping mask and you have these stunning results if you wonder how you can hide these parts that are outside this border I use this technique all the time in each object I create I never cut parts that are outside of border I just simply create new layer we can just duplicate the ground layer here like so select all layers within add board right click make clipping mask then you can edit anything you want everything is under control when you are not cutting your objects you can always move them inside of your artboard was just select this one for example and change composition like this now as you know mask techniques you'll be able to change masking here just in a few clicks it takes even less than one minutes you just can delete these masks and the building you want just experiment with that in conclusion I would say that clipping masks certainly in the most often use you use it even to hide objects that are outside of add board but that doesn't mean that you should simply forget about opacity mask and draw inside mold these masks are extremely powerful tools that really make difference between weak and strong illustrations if you learned something new from this tutorial drop a comment below let me know if everything was clear enough for you and what you liked about this video if you enjoyed this tutorial support this channel by clicking on subscribe and what's most important by clicking on the bell icon to get notifications about new tutorials from TNT I would also appreciate if you click thumbs up and we'll share this video this was TNT tutorials see you next videos

Channel: T&T Tutorials

Views: 26,639

Keywords: illustrator tutorial, masking illustrator, illustrator clipping mask, clipping mask, illustrator clipping mask tutorial, clipping mask in illustrator, opacity mask illustrator, mask illustrator, draw inside mode, illustrator opacity mask, opacity mask tutorial, draw inside tool illustrator, how to mask in illustrator, pattern brush illustrator, adobe illustrator tutorial, illustrator cc, adobe, illustrator, tutorial, T&T Tutorials

Id: HiEl_PcXsOI

Length: 52min 43sec (3163 seconds)

Published: Wed May 01 2019