Throughout making the science poster to date I've used many different techniques and tools in order to get the outcome i wanted to achieve on certain parts of my poster. Also getting used to the tools has helped me to enjoy using illustrator and broaden my knowledge on what techniques and tools there are and how to get the most of them.
Brush Tool
This tool the 'brush' tool was one of the first tools i used to start producing my poster. I've used it in the past so I've got a general knowledge about using it and mainly use it whilst using a tablet to make it easier to draw. I used this tool to help draw my assets i.e. the key, female, and her clothing extra assets etc. I really like using this tool because you can use different brush stroke styles and create your own which is pretty neat and i love to draw in general so it was easy to pick up how to use this tool.
Pathfinder
Pathfinder is another tool i found very useful. It allowed me to put shapes over overs and then cut shapes out of the other ones. For example was making a gear graphic and i needed to create a whole in the middle so i made a circle in the middle, got pathfinder up and then selected on both of the shapes and the used 'divide' then deleted the circle and it left the whole from the circle which made the gear actually look more like one. This tool was very useful since i went with steampunk and came in handy especially as i was creating my key with a range of cogs and gears on the key.
Pen Tool
The Pen tool i used very often for creating images, adding anchors or deleting anchors to created assets. I used this mainly for shaping my assets better with adding anchors and also creating my assets like gears and the science objects i used for to create a brush for example.
Brush Making
As i wanted to create a subtle background pattern which was related to science i opened a new document and made a row of different science graphics using the pen tool then duplicated them into another 2 rows but shuffled them around so each row didn't look the same. I then highlighted all of the 3 rows and then made a pattern brush, which i then used to make my pattern brush from the background in my science poster. This tool i like because it lets you be creative and adventurous creating different shapes and patterns which can look really like for a background pattern.
Opacity
Opacity can be a very important tool at times and was for me. Once i created my brush with the different science objects i wanted to use the pattern from them to place in the background of my science poster but wanted it to be subtle so i sued the opacity and changed it from 100% to 30 % so it wasn't to over the top but was subtle enough to be noticeable but not to strong on the eye. But apart from the pattern from the science objects I've created i haven't really used this tool that much.
Gradient Tool
The Gradient tool is another tool within Illustrator that I've come to find very handy and have used within my final science poster design. As i wanted to fade the females bottom half as it wasn't working well with text over it. So i made a a rectangle the shape of the poster and then went into the gradient choices as i made a gradient line over the rectangle and chose 'fading sky'. However it wasn't the colour i wanted as it was blue and not the colour from the background so i went into the fill preferences from my main background and copied the colour code and then went into the gradient then went to the colour of it and pasted the colour code from the main background, making it look like the woman's bottom half was faded.
I've also used this tool to fade the edges around the pattern in the background. I did this by creating another rectangle and then choosing the oval shaped gradient and then matching the colour from black to brown from my background to give a feathered made look to the outside other pattern.
Slice tool
I've used this tool for helping me slice parts of images and cropping them to look more neater. For example the females legs were still sticking out of the poster and the outlines so i wanted it to fit in frame. So i decided to crop her legs by creating a rectangle covering the female apart from what i wanted cropped and then went into 'object' then 'slice' and 'make' which sliced what ever was outside the box, so in this case her legs which helped for the female to have her fit within the borders of the poster and not going outside of it.
These were the main tools I've used so far with my science poster, but at this stage i'm close to making it complete so i will probably only use a few other tools/techniques. I have obviously use more techniques relating to making my graphics and extra add on's but most of it is simple and i don't want to ramble.
For example:
The way i coloured the assets was either mainly just using the fill on the graphic or it was me drawing around the area i wanted to colour in with the brush tool and using the fill to colour it, then placing it behind the stroke of the drawing then making sure the colour fill isn't messy so i would shape it by using 'direct selection tool' to help align the fill to the stroke of the drawing. Now this was probably the most time consuming and annoying thing to do. However making complex drawings means its hard to have the fill positioned correctly if you can't use the fill from the brush because it can look messy and not work at all, which means this way its better but more of a hassle but worth it.
No comments:
Post a Comment