Illustrator CS3 tutorial - Using a Smart Art Object

Adobe Illustrator CS3 Tutorial

Samurai

The latest image in the gallery. Author's comments:
" Used a sketch by an unknown artist as a reference for the figure.
The symbol in the sun is tomoye, it signifies the revolution of the universe (I think it's shintoist but I could be wrong).
The Japanese word says "samurai" (so I'm told!)."

Vector Design Brushes for Photoshop

Vector design brush set for Adobe Photoshop compiled by TammySue Download

Illustrator Brushes and Symbols

A result of playing with brushes and symbols in Illustrator.

Avidly growing an editor's network

"Avid has a bullet-proof software that has paid for my mortgage," says veteran editor Peter Hordylan, regarding the company that created the first commercially available digital nonlinear editing system.

Hordylan is the new president of the 12-year-old 700-member Avid Toronto Users' Group (replacing the group's founder Al Mitchell), and he's keen to put the perfect spin on the technology. "Everyone I know in the industry has one," boasts Hordylan. "You never have a problem with Avid."

Hordylan's message comes across as pure PR (as Avid is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year), but as the new leader of the non-profit association, his top priority is actually to create a much-needed directory and database of editors in a revamped ATUG website.

"I've noticed the difficulties production and post-production facilities have had finding freelance editors," says Hordylan. "My hope is that through the website, the frustrations of companies looking for editors will end."

Avid Technology is fully supporting the project and has promised Hordylan that the site will be up before 2008. The directory will offer every ATUG member one free demo and CV page and the site will also feature job postings and a forum.

Hordylan says the invigorated group will also increase the scope and variety of its seminars - which typically attract about 80 participants - adding sessions that underline "what editing really is - an art form."

On Oct. 25, at the Bravo! studio in the former CHUM/City Building on Queen Street, ATUG will present a panel on editing dramas and comedies.

Eric Abboud, who has worked on Bravo!'s Arts and Minds, will host, and one panelist, The Tudors' editor Lisa Grootenboer, has been confirmed to participate.

Another more technology-based session dealing with intra-frame editing, advanced motion effects, vector-based graphics and advanced key framing is expected to take place in late November.

Hordylan notes that ATUG founder Mitchell started the first Avid user group in the world and that chapters now exist in the Middle East, Japan and the U.S.

www.atug.ca

Producing creative drawings with Live Trace and Live Paint

Producing a creative drawing on paper tends to be a two stage process involving “inking” and “colouring”: sketching the defining lines in black and then filling this framework with colour. The first mainstream program to attempt to translate creative drawing to a computer environment was Adobe Illustrator back in 1987. Based on Adobe’s PostScript technology, Illustrator and subsequent competitors such as CorelDRAW and Macromedia FreeHand build their drawings as mathematically-defined vectors or “paths”. “Stroking” an open-ended path produces a line and filling a closed path produces a coloured shape. And with a stack of stroked and/or filled paths you have all you need to reproduce any illustration – or technical drawing, graphic design or even text-based layout. It’s a beautifully efficient system and one that has become second nature to generations of computer artists.

Second nature maybe, but no-one could say that drawing with vectors is truly natural. Compared to the simple creative freedom of sketching on paper, the whole process of drawing onscreen is intrinsically awkward and indirect despite important advances such as freehand tools and digitizing tablets. And there are further limitations imposed by the underlying vector architecture. For creative drawing, you often want lines that are fluid and expressive, but that’s just not possible with stroked paths which are intrinsically uniform along their length. Again advances such as vector brushes that treat each stroke as a filled path radically improve the end results – Creature House’s Expression deserves especial credit here - but no-one could claim they were as natural as pens and pencils.

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Flowers Everywhere Wallpaper

Give your desktop a fresh outlook. Vector Wallpaper by Mgssy image resolution:1280×1024

Swirly Curls Illustrator Symbols

An artistic symbol collection for Adobe Illustrator by namespace. Download link. Enjoy !