Saturday, March 3, 2012
Do you like this story?
Final Product What You'll Be Creating
I have quite a bit of experience working with Shutterstock and iStockphoto. This tutorial details a professional workflow for creating vector illustrations and prepping the artwork for these sites. I’ve also included a bunch of time-saving tools and tips as well. Let’s get started!
Introduction
The world of vector graphics opened it’s door for me after I discovered the royalty-free micro-stock community and the business possibilities for a start-up digital artist. It’s been more than a year since my first vector uploaded to Shutterstock and then iStockphoto.During this time I’ve collected some knowledge of how to prepare vector illustrations for sale on micro-stock websites and I would like to share it with you in this tutorial. Now I sell my vector illustrations royalty-free exclusively at iStockphoto, but I’ll tell you some tips for Shutterstock as well.
You Will Learn
- How to create a vector illustration from sketch to finish in Adobe Illustrator according to the demands of micro-stock websites.
- How to clean up your Adobe Illustrator file before saving it in EPS format.
- How to find and close all open paths.
- How to save EPS and JPEG files correctly for micro-stock sale.
You Will Need
- Paper and pencil
- Photo camera or scanner
- Adobe Illustrator (I used CS3, but the method works with other versions too)
- Drawing tablet
- Scripts for Adobe Illustrator (download them using links in this tutorial)
Step 1: Making a Sketch
Draw a sketch of your illustration. I made this sketch with an H pencil and played with it until I was satisfied with the result. Your sketch is a reference for forms and composition of your future illustration, so work on it.Scan your sketch or photograph it. As I do not own any scanner, I took a picture of my drawing with my camera and imported it into Photoshop. Then I clean it up and saved it in usable size for Illustrator (File > Save for Web & Devices). My sketch is 600 pixels by 786 pixels.
Step 2: Importing to Illustrator
Open Adobe Illustrator. Create a new document 700 px by 800 px (File > New). Import your sketch to Illustrator (File > Place).Step 3: Creating Shapes of the Boy
Create a new layer and name it “Boy.” Using the combination of Pen (P) and Shape tools create the shapes of a boy. Try to close all the shapes while you are creating them, as you need all your shapes closed in your final vector illustration for micro-stock sale.Step 4: Coloring the Boy Character
Now start selecting the shapes and coloring them. At this stage you can send the parts forward or backward according to each other.I like to add basic color to a character at this stage so that I have a nice difference. This way it doesn’t get boring if I change the types of work during the process. I don’t have any typical system for choosing colors. Playing around with colors to see what looks better, works for me.
Step 5: Map
Create a new layer and name it “Map.” Create the shape of the map using the Pen Tool (P). Using the Pencil Tool (N), draw the shapes of a forest and lake. Make sure you close them by holding the Alt key while drawing with the Pencil Tool (N). The shapes that reach the edge of the map should go beyond it.Step 6: Squirrel
Create a new layer and name it “Squirrel.” Use the Pencil Tool (N) to create a rough shape of the squirrel. Always close the shapes by holding down Alt. Where the shape should close in a corner, use the Pen Tool (P). Use the Ellipse Tool (L) for the eyes. For the whiskers use the Pen (P) or Pencil (N) Tools (0,5 pt, flat brush, white stroke, no fill).Step 7: Road Sign
Create a new layer and name it “Road sign.” Using Shape Tool, create the shapes of the road sign. I used the Rounded Rectangle Tool for the post and the Rectangle Tool (M) for the upper arrow. To make the point of the arrow I added the point with the Add Anchor Point Tool (+) in the center of the right side of the shape and dragged it to the side with the Direct Selection Tool (A).Copy the shapes, reflect (right-click > Transform > Reflect > Vertical). Make two copies and position the lower arrows in their places on the post. Use the Ellipse Tool (L) for the nails. Color all the shapes.
Step 8: Ground
Create a new layer and name it “Ground.” Use the Pen Tool (P) to create the shape of the grass. Close the shapes carefully. I didn’t follow the sketch precisely and extended the grass a bit to the left.Use the Pencil Tool (N) for the rough shapes of the flowers and the Ellipse Tool (L) for bright shapes in the center of each flower. Create stems of the flowers using the Pen (P) or Pencil (N) Tools (0,5 pt, flat brush, green stroke, no fill).
Step 9: Sky
Create a new layer and name it “Sky.” With the Rectangle Tool (M), create a big rectangle the size of your artboard (700 px by 800 px). Align it to Artboard using the Align palette.Make a gradient that goes from a more intensive blue to a lighter blue. I like to select a color, apply it to the gradient on both sides and then adjust each side in the Color palette.
Create shapes of the clouds with the Pen Tool (P) and apply the gradient to them using the same technique as with the sky, but make the colors lighter. Use the Pen Tool (P) to create the shapes of the birds and color them.
Step 10: Details, Shadows, and Highlights
At this point your illustration should look like the image below.Create the shapes of the shadows with the Pen Tool (P) and color them darker than the color of the main shape. Repeat this process with the highlights on the hat, hair and the bottle etc., but use lighter colors than the main shapes.
Step 11: Closing All Open Paths
Create the copy of your vector illustration file and name it “traveler_stock.ai”. Open it in Adobe Illustrator. Delete the layer with your sketch. It is a raster image and we should have only vector in our file.Your vector illustration should not contain any open paths. The examples of open paths are: broken outlines of shapes, single points, or brush strokes.
You should carefully separate these three types of open paths in your illustration and close them with a separate methods. Stray points should be simply deleted and strokes should be expanded (Object > Expand > Fill and Stroke).
After you’ve installed the scripts, you’ll find them in File > Scripts Directory.
Step 12: Check for Transparencies, Hidden and Locked Objects
Now that we have closed all the shapes in our vector illustration, we can check it for transparencies. You can not use any transparencies in your vector for micro-stock sale because as you save it in EPS 8 format all your transparencies will become open shapes. Check carefully for any transparencies that you might have used by mistake.Also, go to the Object menu to see if there are any hidden or locked objects in your illustration. If yes, unlock them and show them all by pressing Unlock All and Show All.
Step 13: Making Groups
Go to every layer one by one and group all parts of every object together (e.g. all parts of the boy character like basic shapes, details, shadows and highlights should be grouped together). This is important because in the EPS 8 file that you will create later there will be no layers, and without objects grouped together you will have a mess of pieces for your client to download. I also make the sub-groups inside of the bigger groups (e.g. hat is a sub-group and boy is a group).Step 14: Cleaning Your Palettes
Go to your Swatches palette and click on the drop-down menu. Click on Select All Unused… and as all the swatches that you haven’t used are highlighted, press on the Delete Swatch button. Do the same with your Brushes palette.Step 15: Saving EPS 8 File
Go to File > Save As, select the location and click on the drop-down menu, then choose Format > Select Illustrator EPS (eps) > Save.Step 16: Saving JPEG File
Go to File and select Save For Web and Devices. When the window appears select JPEG as the type of file.For the last couple of months I’ve been using a script for saving files for micro-stock website that my husband Alex wrote for me. It is working great and saves me some time. It is called “Save For Stocks”. This script saves an EPS8 file, 2800 px by 1900 px JPEG for iStockphoto and a smaller JPEG for Shutterstock. You can download it for free and read the instructions at my website.
Conclusion
At this point you should have a package of files ready for upload to micro-stock websites and sale.![author](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ubwIhqPcR6M/TIb2GsaA-uI/AAAAAAAAA-s/vtz7ruWg4jU/s1600/frank.jpg)
This post was written by: Franklin Manuel
Franklin Manuel is a professional blogger, web designer and front end web developer. Follow him on Twitter
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 Responses to “ ”
Post a Comment