Hello
everyone this is Chris from Spoon Graphics back with another video tutorial for Adobe
Illustrator Today we're going to play around with various
shapes to build a simple little rocket spaceship. We'll use basic shapes to not only make creating
the illustration easy, it also gives it a stylised, cartoon like appearance. After building the outlines we'll add some
colour to bring it to life, then I'll show you some techniques for producing different
kinds of illustration styles. So open up Adobe Illustrator and create a
new document. Use whatever size is your default, but set
the color mode to RGB. The size of the artboard doesn't matter at
all because we'll be hiding the artboard from under the View menu anyway. This gives us a nice large area to work with. Head back under the View menu and make sure
you have Smart Guides enabled. These will help you snap and align your shapes
later. I've set out a bunch of squares with preset
fills as a makeshift colour palette. If you want to follow along, create a red
of 231/76/71 A slightly darker red of 170/49/49 A light grey of 230/230/230 A dark blue of 56/42/71 and a pale yellow of 246/247/201 You could save these colours as swatches so
they're easily accessible. Reset your fill and stroke settings back to
the default white and black, then select the Ellipse tool. Draw a long oval shape as the rocket body. Select the Pen tool, then hold the ALT key
while clicking the top and bottom points to remove the bezier handles and convert them
into corners. Use the Ellipse tool to draw another smaller
oval near the bottom, overlapping the bottom portion to make space for the thruster. Switch back to the Selection tool in order
to add the main body to the selection while holding the Shift key, then click the Horizontal
Align Center button from the Align panel. Activate the Pathfinder panel, then click
the Minus Front button to punch out the oval shape from the rocket body. Change the tool to a Rectangle and draw a
basic shape as the thruster. Toggle to the Selection tool to add both items
to the selection and align them with the Horizontal Align Center button. Select just the rectangle, then right click
and choose Arrange > Send to Back so that the fill of the main body shape disguises
where the two shapes overlap. Use the Ellipse tool to draw a large circle
that will represent two of the wings. Hold Shift to keep it perfectly circular. Select both the circle and the main rocket
body with the Selection tool, then give the body an extra click to make it the key object. This will ensure it doesn't move out of place. Instead the circle will move into position
when you click the Horizontal Align Center button. Select just the circle, then go to Edit > Copy
followed by Edit > Paste in Front. Move the duplicate shape downwards, while
holding the Shift key to keep it straight. Shift and click the original to add both shapes
to the selection, then click the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder window to punch
out the overlapping circle, leaving a crescent shape. Reposition the wings relative to the body
if necessary, then go to Arrange > Send to Back to disguise the overlap. Use another oval shape to draw a third wing. Use the Smart Guides to align it so it matches
the size of the other two, then center it up. Select the Pen tool and ALT+click the top
and bottom points to convert them into corners. Overlap another circle at the top of the rocket
over the nose area. An alternative to the Pathfinder panel is
the Shapebuilder tool. Select the rocket body and the new circle,
then hold the ALT key and click the excess to quickly remove it. Draw another oval that covers the bottom edge
of this nose shape. Switch over to the Selection tool to select
both shapes, then centre them up, making sure to add the nose cone as the key object so
it doesn't move out of place. Trim away this shape using either the Pathfinder
panel or the Shapebuilder tool. With the nose cone still selected, go to Object
> Path > Offset Path. Enter 10px in the options. Add the rocket body to the Selection by clicking
while holding the Shift key, then ALT+click the excess to trim it away with the Shapebuilder
tool. Finish off the rocket with a little window
using a basic circle. Centre it up, then Copy/Paste in Front a duplicate. Scale this duplicate down slightly while holding
the ALT and Shift keys. To add some extra details, use the Pen tool
to draw a dividing line halfway through the nose cone and wing. The Smart Guides make it easy to snap perfectly
to the centre. Zoom out and draw a selection around all the
shapes that make up the rocket. ALT+Drag a duplicate to save a copy of the
original. We'll colour the other one in. Since the illustration isn't completely made
out of fully closed shapes, we can't simply alter the fill colours. Instead we'll use the Live Paint Bucket. Select all the artwork, then give it a click
with the Live Paint Bucket tool. Switch over to the Eyedropper tool and deselect
everything before sampling the first colour from those swatch shapes. Switch back to the Live Paint Bucket and click
the relevant areas of the illustration to have this colour applied. Repeat the process with each of the other
colours, using the Eyedropper to sample it as a Fill, then apply it with the Live Paint
Bucket tool. This is where saving those colours as Swatches
would have been slightly quicker. You could then just click the swatch without
having to toggle back and forth between tools. Because of the overlapping shapes, the Live
Paint tool needs applying to multiple segments to fully colour some shapes. Don't forget to change the colour of the Strokes
to fit in with this colour scheme. Activate the stroke setting in the toolbar,
then use the Eyedropper tool to sample the dark blue colour. Be sure to hold the shift key while clicking,
otherwise it will sample the appearance of the shape and apply the dark blue as a fill. Bump up the stroke weight to 2pt from under
the Stroke Panel. Make a duplicate of this coloured version
of the rocket illustration. There's a clever little trick that can really
help make your illustrations stand out. Go to Object > Expand to apply the Live Paint
effects, then Copy and paste a copy of the rocket on top of itself. Click the Unite button in the Pathfinder panel
to create an outline. Increase the stroke weight to 4pt to generate
a thicker outline. This outlined look is my favourite illustration
style, but there are loads of other art styles you can try. Make another duplicate of the original rocket
and see what it looks like with no outline at all by clearing the stroke. This is more like the trendy flat look that's
popular at the moment. Make another duplicate of this flat style
rocket and go to Object > Expand again to apply the Live Paint effects. Repeatedly right click and select Ungroup
to completely break it apart. Select both halves of the nose cone and Unite
them with the Pathfinder panel. Do the same with the wing, then with the body
where there's lots of individual pieces to select and merge together. Draw a selection around all the shapes and
press CMD+C and CMD+F to Copy and Paste in Front. Replace all the fills with a black to white
gradient. Switch over to the Transparency panel and
change the blending mode to Overlay. The black portion of the gradient will darken
the underlying colour slightly, while the white will brighten it. The Overlay mode in particular also adds some
vibrancy, but you could also try Soft Light for a subtler look, or either Screen or Multiply
for just shadows or highlights. Deselect everything, then activate the Gradient
tool. Hold the CMD key to toggle the Selection tool
in order to select each shape in turn, then click and drag to alter the gradient direction. Compare all the rockets to see the range of
art styles we've made form this one illustration I'm going to choose my favourite to finish
it off into a neat little graphic. Draw a selection around all the elements and
Group them together, so you can move it around without losing any pieces. Draw a circle as a container, then give it
a dark blue fill. Line it up centrally with the Align panel. Give it a slightly lighter stroke with a 20pt
weight. Sample the pale yellow colour from the palette
that we haven't used yet, then draw a little circle. Click the New Symbol icon in the Symbols panel,
then delete this shape. Grab the Symbol Sprayer tool and begin painting
a load of circles to represent the basics of a smoke cloud underneath the rocket. Switch to the Symbol Sizer tool and click
around to randomise the size of some of the circles to help fill in some of the gaps. Use the Symbol Shifter tool to bunch them
together and move them around to close any gaps where the blue backdrop is showing through. Select the main circle container then copy
and paste it. Bring it to the top with the Arrange > Bring
to Front command, then hold Shift and select the symbol group. Right click and choose Make Clipping Mask
to trim the yellow circles to fit inside this container circle. Draw a rectangle using this pale yellow colour,
aligned from the rocket's thruster. Use the shortcut for the Arrange > Send Backwards
command, which is CMD+[ (or CTRL on Windows), until the rectangle sits underneath the rocket. Head to Object > Envelope Distort > Make With
Warp, then alter the settings to Shell Lower with the Horizontal option. Configure the Bend and Vertical sliders to
produce a blast that flows into the rest of the cloud. So I hope you found the tips in this tutorial
useful. If you did, be sure to hit the Subscribe button
to stick around for more. If you're a bit of a space nerd you can pick
up this artwork as a t-shirt from my little merch store. Join my mailing list at Spoon Graphic if you
want to keep up with all my content beyond YouTube, otherwise thank you very much for
watching, and I'll see you in the next one.
