How to animate with adobe | Creating Character with Adobe Illustrator

okay so here I am an illustrator I'm gonna go ahead and make a new document and you can really size your document to be whatever you want I know that I want my document to be 1440 by 1080 that resolution has a 4 to 3 ratio so when I export it I can scale it down to 800 by 600 which is ideal for posting to dribble but it's also large enough to be 1080p if I ever decide I wanted to do an HD animation with this character make sure that your color mode is set to RGB and uncheck align new objects to pixel grid then press ok and we can start designing the character I'm gonna start by making his torso so I'll switch to the rectangle tool and I have smart guides turned on which is what you're seeing these pink highlights showing up smart guides allow you to snap to different things when the document and can make building things much easier if yours aren't turned on come up to view and just make sure that smart guides is checked so I'm going to start by just clicking right in the center and making a box that's 175 by 275 and press ok then I'll come up to the selection tool and come up to my align pallet in the top here and make sure that align to artboard is selected and then I'll Center it in the document by centering it on the horizontal axis and on the vertical axis so now my box is perfectly centered in my document next I'll get rid of this stroke by clicking on this little red line here and then double clicking on the fill and changing the color to a navy blue something about there and hitting ok then I'll switch to the ellipse tool and then come to the top center of that box click and drag while holding option or alt on a PC making a shape about this size that's our torso next I'll make his head so I'll come back to the rectangle tool then again aligned to the center of that object which is also the center of my document come up to about the center of where the head is gonna be click and drag hold option or alt on a PC you to again scale from the center and scale it up to be about the size I want the head then I'll grab one of these 4 circles and click and drag on it to round the corners all the way to 100% now I'm using illustrator CC 2015 if you're using an older version and don't have that option you can create this shape and the same by switching to the rounded rectangle tool and clicking and dragging and if you press the up and down arrow keys while making your shape you can control how round those corners are then I'll select the head and change it to a skin color something about that looks good and then I'll bring his head down I want to make it a little bit wider so I'm going to come to the edge here and hold option while clicking and dragging and right about there looks good now I want to make a duplicate of his head so that I can make a neck based on the same shape so I'll select it copy by pressing command or ctrl C on a PC pasting in front by pressing command or ctrl F that pastes it in the exact same spot then I'll hold down option grab one of the corners and click and drag so that it scales it down to be about the shape of the neck that I want then I'll click and drag it down and make it a little bit darker so I can differentiate between the neck and the head now I want to send it behind the head so with it selected I'll come up to object go to arrange and say send backward and now it's behind the head next I'll add a belt for the top of his legs and I'll do that by duplicating this torso shape so with it selected I'll copy by pressing command C or control C and pasting in front by pressing command or ctrl F then I'll scale this down and bring it down below the torso just a little bit and I'll change its color to be black next I can make his arms and I want to line the center of his arms up right with the edges of his torso so I'll switch to the line tool swap my fill and Stroke by clicking on this double arrow here I'll come to where I want the shoulder to be and then click and drag while holding shift to make it a perfectly straight line and come just down past the body a little bit I'll let go then I'll come over to my stroke palate and change the weight to 55 points and I'll change the cap to round and the corner to round then I'll switch to the eyedropper tool by pressing I on the keyboard and holding down shift and clicking on the heads color and that way the arm is the same color as the head now I'm going to zoom in here and resize this top shape by selecting it with the selection tool then clicking on one of these handles holding option to scale it proportionally until it matches the shape of that arm a little bit better next I want to make a shoulder that looks like part of the shirt so I'll switch to the rectangle tool go right to the end of that path that makes up the arm click and hold option or Alt on a PC and drag it out to be about the width of the arm and make it a little bit taller then I'll switch to the direct selection tool by pressing a on the keyboard and select just the top two corners and round those at a hundred percent then I'll select the whole shape and drag it down and then just zoom in here and line it up just so none of the arm is showing underneath I'll zoom back out and now I'll make a cuff by duplicating the shape by pressing command or ctrl C to copy and command or ctrl F to paste in front and I'll scale this down a little bit get rid of the rounding and then bring it down so that it's just at the end of the shoulder and I'll change the color to be a little bit and then round it completely and extend it out so that it goes beyond the arm just a little bit and drag it down so that the top of it lines up with the bottom of the shoulder I'll make it a little bit taller make sure that roundness stays at 100% let make it just a little bit wider too now that I have a whole arm I can duplicate it to the other side so I'll select the shoulder the cuff and the arm with the selection tool active I'll hold down option or alt on a PC click and drag while holding shift to drag it straight to the side and line it up right with the other side of the body and let go of the mouse that makes a duplicate of the arm now that we're getting into more and more shapes I'm gonna start breaking these out into layers so I'm gonna come down to my layers palette and make a new layer by clicking on this icon and I'll put the left shoulder on it so I'll grab the shoulder and the cuff cut by pressing command or control X then select that layer and press command or ctrl F to paste in front on that layer then I'll make another layer cut the arm paste in front on that layer and drag it down below the shoulder and I'll rename this layer el arm for left arm and I'll rename this layer el shoulder for left shoulder then I'll do the same thing for this other arm take the cuff and the shoulder and cut new layer paste it our shoulder take the right arm cut new layer paste our arm and I'm going to move these two layers below the rest of the body then I'll select the head cut new layer paste in front head I'll put that on top I'll cut the neck new layer paste neck and drag that just below the head and I'll rename the layer we're working on torso now each one of these objects is on its own layer and I can turn off the ones that I don't want to see so right now I'll turn off the shoulders and the right arm then I'll copy the left arm make a new layer and paste it in the same spot turn off the arm layer and rename this el leg and I want to make this black too so it matches the waist so with the stroke selected I'll come up to my color and change it to black and then I'll move it down so it lines up right with the waist and then drag that layer down to the bottom of my layer stack I want to change the weight of this stroke to be 70 and then bring it in on the body just a little bit so I'll select it and press the right arrow until I'm happy with the placement now this time I don't have anything to line it up with when I copy it over so I'm gonna do a different technique I'm gonna copy and paste it in front then with it selected I'll press o on the keyboard to switch to the reflect tool and then I'll click right in the center of the torso and then if I click and hold I can reflect it based on that point that I clicked on and if I hold shift I can snap it to a 90 degree angle which reflects it right off of the center of my document now I know these two pads are spaced evenly off the center of my character now there are little too close together so I'm going to select the right one and tap the right arrow key a few times keeping track of the number of times I press it so one two three four five six seven eight nine ten then I'll select the other leg and do ten times the other direction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 and that might have been a little bit too much so I'm just gonna bring it in a couple clicks so one two and one two yeah I think that looks pretty good I'll turn my arms back on then I'll cut this right leg make a new layer and paste it in front and rename it our leg then I'll bring both of those legs above the right arm and the right shoulder next I'll make his ear Saul zoom in here to his head and again we can base it off the same shape of his head so I'll duplicate this shape this time by duplicating the layer itself so I'll click and drag it down to the new layer icon and that makes a copy and I'll rename this ear then I'll select the shape and then size it down to be the size and shape of the ear and then position it right halfway lined up on the side of the head I'll scale it down just a little bit more that's good and then I'm going to back the rounding off just a little bit so it's a little bit flat on the top and bottom but only by a little bit so if i zoom in here I want it to be about that far just so it has a flat edge on the top and bottom just a little bit and then I'm gonna push it up on the head just a little bit using the arrow keys and I think that looks good all right let's make some hair on this first layer I want to be exactly the same shape as the head trimmed to about where the ear is so again I'm gonna duplicate this layer by dragging it to the new layer icon and rename it hair and I'll change the color to be a brown color let me right about there and then I'll double click on the shape to enter the isolation mode so I can't accidentally click and edit any of the other shapes then I'll switch to the direct selection tool by pressing a on the keyboard and then select the bottom of the shape and delete it by pressing delete on the keyboard then I'll grab these two points here and then drag it up to a little bit past the ear all right now there's no path between these two points closing the shape so I'm going to select the two of them and press command or control J on the keyboard to connect those two points then I'll double click outside of that shape to go back out and that'll be the base shape for the hair next I want to make a circle right about here it's around that size and then line it up so that the midway point lines up with the bottom of the shape we just created I'll pull it out to the side a little bit and then I'll shift and click on the hair layer so I have both selected and come to my Pathfinder which again if you don't have it open come up to a window and make sure Pathfinder is checked and I'm going to click on the second icon here that says minus front what that does is subtracts the shape that was on top from the bottom shape next I'll press - on the keyboard to switch to the delete Anchor Point tool on the pen and I'll delete a couple of these points that I don't need anymore so that'll work for the trimmed portion of his hair now I need to do the part of the hair that comes off of the head and I can use this shape as a foundation so I'll select it copy and paste in front then I'll double click on it to go into isolation mode and then I'll press - to switch to the delete Anchor Point tool again and delete this point here and this point here and I'll modify this path a little bit by dragging this point down so it lines up perfectly with this one so we've got a straight line across and I'll drag it out a little bit further but I'm not gonna worry about lending it perfectly to the side of the head because I'm gonna subtract from this layer as well then I'll switch to the ellipse tool again and I'll make another circle this time pretty big and then I'll hold down spacebar before I let go of the mouse so I can reposition it and try and line up the edge of the circle to the corner of this shape so I'm aiming for this point right here and right about there looks good then I'll select both shapes and come to my Pathfinder and I'll click on - front then I'll make another circle again making it pretty big and putting it right about there I'll just reposition it a little bit now I want to grab this point and drag it up until it snaps to the side of that circle and I'm just gonna freeform drag these handles to kind of make this curve flow from here into the circle so I'll drag this handle out while holding shift to snap it horizontally maybe drag it down to the base of the circle so it lines up right at the bottom edge find that anchor point right there it snapped to it so that this point on the circle is the same as the anchor point for this curve and I'll drag this one out a little bit while holding shift to snap at horizontally and bring this one out a bit as well then I can just click and drag this point up so that it's behind the big circle and now this looks like a nice big single shape and then finally I want to make another fairly large circle that lines up right about where these two shapes meet then I'll select the other circle as well and subtract so the hair has this nice flow to it then I'll switch to my direct selection tool by pressing a on the keyboard click on this sharp point and grab the round corner handle and drag it down a good amount now I've got this nice round shape for the hair if I double click outside of the shape it gets me out of isolation mode now I'll change the colors so that the long hair is a different color than the short hair so I'll make those two shapes a little bit darker and I'll make this shape a little bit lighter so now there's just two distinct layers to the hair now all that's left is to give them some sunglasses so I'll make a new layer name it sunglasses and I'll add a circle and make it black and make it around this size move it up here switch to the delete Anchor Point tool by pressing minus on the keyboard and then deleting this Anchor Point here then I'll press P to switch to the pen tool and hold down option or Alt on a PC to switch to the convert Anchor Point tool and click and drag on this handle until it snaps down to that anchor point for both of these handles and I'm left with a half circle scale this down just a tiny bit and then hold down option or Alt on a PC and then click and drag while holding shift to snap it on the horizontal axis and shift the left lens over a little as well then I'll go to the rectangle tool start on this corner click and drag all the way to the center of the ear and let go for the frames then I'll grab all the sunglasses and shift it up a little bit by pressing the up arrow key now if i zoom out I have all the main components of the body completed I want to shift the head off-center just a little bit so I'm going to select all those elements and make sure to deselect the neck by holding shift and clicking on it then I'll tap the right arrow key a few times until his head is a little bit off-center and now it looks like he's facing to the right just a little bit I want to change the color of the shirt a little bit so I'm gonna select the torso and come up to select go to same and say fill color and that selects everything that's that same blue then I can change that color press ok then I'll do the same thing for the cuffs I'll select both of them and change the color a little bit now I want to add some detail to his torso so I'm gonna solo that layer by holding down option or alt on a PC and clicking on the eyeball for that layer and that hides all the others so I can focus on just that one now I want to add a polka dot pattern on this shirt so I'll switch to the ellipse tool change my color from this blue to white I'll zoom in here switch to the ellipse tool and make a circle while holding shift to make it a perfect circle and scale it to be the dot size that I want for this pattern that looks pretty good now I want to make this a repeated dot pattern so I'll hold option or Alt on a PC while clicking and dragging to the right and a hold shift to make sure it snaps horizontally and go to where about I want it spaced out and let go of the mouse then I'll hold command or control D to duplicate the last action and that makes a duplicate and offsets at the same amount as what I had copied before then I'll press this a few more times just so I have enough that goes all the way across the shirt then I'll hold shift and select all these dots and group them by pressing command or ctrl G and I'll Center them on the artboard by coming up to the align pallet making sure that align to artboard is selected and click on the horizontally center button next I'll hold down option or alt again while holding shift to drag it down to be spaced out about the same distance downwards as they are left and right and I'll let go of the mouse and then I'll offset them while again holding shift until I get that intersect guide that tells me that these dots are now perfectly centered in between these ones and they look a little bit too far down so I'm going to click on it and tap the up arrow key a few times until it looks right then I'll select both of these and group them then I'll hold down option while clicking and dragging and holding shift until they're offset at the right distance again I'll press command or control D to duplicate that action over and over again until the entire shirt is covered then I'll go up to select same fill color group all of that together and now I can reposition it however I'd like so long as it's covering the entire shirt now I'll turn the shoulders on and adjust this pattern so the sum of the dots line up nicely on top of the shoulder okay I think that's a pretty good place for that pattern and while we can't see it right now there are dots going off of the torso because the dots are the same color is the background so what I want to do is select both shapes of the torso and copy them select the dots paste them in front come to my Pathfinder and click on the first button which is unite and that merges them together then I'll shift click on one of the dots which selects the entire group and press command or control 7 what that does is makes a clipping mask of my selection based on the object that was on the top so because the torso object was on top it's now masking off the dots so that none of them appear outside of that shape now I need to repeat this process on the shoulders and I want to keep the dots in the exact same place so I need to duplicate this shape so I'll double click on the shape to go into the clipping mask so I can copy just the dots and not the mask so I'll copy then exit isolation mode I'll actually turn the torso off go to my left shoulder and paste in front so command or ctrl F then I'll copy and paste the shoulder in front of the dots hold shift and select the dots and press command or ctrl 7 and now those dots are masked off perfectly then I'll do the same thing for the right side again going into the dot pattern to copy it then selecting the right shoulder pasting in front copying the shoulder and pasting in front of the dots holding shift selecting the dots command or ctrl 7 to create a clipping mask and now the dot pattern is seamless across the shoulders and the torso and with that my character is complete now you can use this method to make any kind of pattern or texture you want on top of the shirt unfortunately you can't put anything on the arms or the legs because of the way that we'll be animating inside of After Effects but if you wanted to you could add any details you want to the neck head or ears and customize the shirt in any way you like now if you wanted to do a character that had long sleeves you'd need to get rid of the cuffs and change the color of the arm to be the color that you want the sleeve to be and don't worry that it goes all the way down to the hand I'll show you an after effects how to add that part of the hand back in you can't do much more than just a solid color for the arms and legs because of the way that we'll be animating inside of After Effects I will show you how to add a few more details but as far as your artwork goes this is how you should prepare it if you want to do a long-sleeve shirt same thing goes with the lake's if you wanted to put him in shorts you can just leave them as the color that you want the shorts to be and then after effects we'll go in and change the bottom half of the pads to be the skin color now that my character is done I'll select all by pressing command or ctrl a and raise it up until it's centered in the document and I'll save it to my desktop and name it Paul because this character is modeled off of Paul from the band mute math I'll leave all these is default and press ok and now I have my completed character totally ready for importing into after-effects with all the individual shapes separated into layers

Channel: Computer Tutorials

Views: 23,395

Keywords: Animation Tutorial, How to animate with adobe illustrator, Adobe tutorial, adobe animate tutorial, Design with adobe, ad, How to animate with adobe

Id: IPtrJYOIMJw

Length: 22min 14sec (1334 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 28 2018