Using some basic shapes, effects, and gradients we will show you how to create a Twitter mascot for your blog or website. Twitter is a popular free web service for social networking and micro-blogging.
Illustrator's tools are powerful, but sometimes they can't do the job without help. One of the problems we quickly discovered was aligning anything except the simplest shapes. Circles and rectangles of unit sizes were easy, but more complex shapes made up of multiple pieces were a big problem. With some effort, we found a method that works.
There are dozens of ways in Adobe Illustrator to combine objects to produce new shapes or effects. But one of the most creative--and probably least known--is the opacity mask. With this technique, you can combine an object with one or more other objects to define transparent areas of the shape. You can even use Opacity Masks to create image effects on live type.
Pattern Swatches are a hidden gem in illustrator. You can use them to quickly fill shapes with patterns and illustrations. Here's a short tutorial using a t-shirt design.
In this video we will look at creating and editing gradients, using blend modes with effects, creating and editing masks, and the click and drag multiple shapes tip using the tilde (`) key.
This tutorial demonstrates the basic shape modes in path finder (add, subtract, intersect, and exclude), and shows how to use the direct selection tool and expand feature. Finally, a bubble box is created (for the Yahoo Map project) with the add shape mode and a drop shadow effect added.