[ Music ]
>> Hello, and welcome to this video tutorial brought
to you by TastyTuts.com.
So now we are getting into the project section of this course.
In the previous 12 episodes, I introduced you to Illustrator,
showcased some handy tips,
and we practiced some essential tools and techniques.
In this video, we are going to begin our project by setting
up a document in Illustrator for our poster and T-shirt design.
Then, we will be placing in a previously scanned drawing
and arranging the layers in such a way
to prepare us to begin tracing it.
I will be talking you through some of the details you need
to consider as we set up a new document.
Later in this project, we are going
to convert the scanned drawing into better artwork
by using the drawing tools in Illustrator.
Once converted into better artwork, we will be able
to apply effects to it in the future.
So currently I have this document open.
This is an example of what we are going
to prepare in this video.
This image has been placed in, and if you look carefully
in the layers panel, we can see the structure has been arranged
to create an ideal set up for us to start tracing.
To follow along with this tutorial,
you will need this image to place into your document.
This can be found in the project folder.
If you'd like to see this document I have open
and take a closer look, this can also be found
in the projects folder.
You can download the project folder for free.
The download link is in the description.
So I'm just going to close this document
because now we are going to set up our new document.
To create a new document, we need to come to file, new.
Now each time we create a new document in Illustrator,
we will see this properties window up here.
Before we create the new document,
we need to specify a number of criteria in order
to create the right document for our work.
So we're going to create a poster and T-shirt design here
in Adobe Illustrator, and this artwork is going to be printed.
So we need to create a document for print.
Starting from the top here, we have the name.
So on this occasion, I'm going to call this skull artwork.
Next, we have a profile tab.
So this is currently set a custom,
though if we click the tab option, we can choose
from a list of presets.
Here we have print, web, devices,
video and film and basic RGB.
Choosing one of these presets will help us set
up the right document settings.
For example, if I pick web, we can choose from a number
of standard website canvas sizes
and notice the units have been set to pixels.
If I click on video and film, we have an array of canvas sizes
for various video formats.
Now, we are going to be making artwork for print.
So on this occasion, we are going
to choose print from the presets.
Now we can specify the number of art boards.
I'm going to set this to two
because I know eventually I'm going to create two pieces
of artwork in this document.
As soon as we specify more than one art board,
a number of options will become available just to the right.
Here, I can specify the arrangement
of my art boards in my new document.
We can arrange grid by row, grid by column,
arrange by row or arrange by column.
No matter what you choose at this point,
you can always change this again later.
I want my art boards to be side by side.
So on this occasion, I'm going to choose grid by row.
I'm going to put my spacing up to 10 millimeters
between my art boards and set the column to two.
Next, we can choose our size.
So I set my profile to print.
So now I can choose from a set of print formats.
I'm going to go ahead and choose A3.
Notice now the units have been set to millimeters.
This can be changed by clicking on the tab,
but since this document is for print,
I'm going to keep this set to millimeters.
I want my document artwork to be portrait.
So I will make sure my orientation is set to portrait.
Now, my document will be sent to the printers upon completion.
So I'm going to add some bleed.
Bleed is normally specified by your printer.
In my experience, it's between 3 and 5 millimeters.
For those who may not be familiar with bleed,
when we come to export our artwork later to give
to the printers, the artwork will have a number of marks
and guides to help the printer correctly trim the
poster artwork.
If we create a full bleed document, the bleed will allow
for an element of over-trimming.
So I'll push my bleed up to 5 millimeters.
We also have a little tab here called advanced.
If I click this, this will reveal some other options.
We can see the color mode is set to CMYK.
That's good as we are going to be working
with CMYK colors for print.
The raster effects we can leave at 300 dpi.
This will guarantee any artwork we rasterize will retain
high quality.
And we will leave preview mode set to default.
So once I'm happy with the document setup,
I will click okay.
So upon click, Illustrator will create the new document for us.
And here we have our two art boards.
If we look closely, we can see red lines are
on the outside of our art boards.
This is the bleed margin.
So now I'm happy with my document.
It's time to bring in my drawing.
What I'm going to do now is place an image into my document.
To do this, I'm going to come to file and place.
Here, I'm going to navigate to the project folder.
This image can be found in the test project folder, set up,
assets, and I'll select the scan skull JPEG and click place.
Now Illustrator will ask where you want to place your image.
I'm just going to click once and there is my image.
Right now it appears to be quite small.
So with this selection tool, I'm going to click and drag
on the bottom right square of the bounding box holding shift
to scale up like so until I'm happy.
So now we have an image inside Illustrator.
If we come across to our links panel here on the right,
if you cannot see your links panel, come to Window.
Scroll down and select links.
In my links panel, I have a new item.
This represents my image share.
You will be able to see all the images
in your Illustrator document in this links panel.
This makes it really easy to re-link images update images
and navigate the images in the document.
Okay, so this is a drawing I have prepared earlier
which I am now going to trace in Illustrator.
So at the moment, the illustration is too dark.
This is going to make it difficult to trace.
So I'm now going to prepare the layers and treat the image.
So first I'm going to select my image, and I'm going to come
over to the transparency panel.
If you cannot see your transparency panel,
come to Window, scroll down and select transparency.
So I'm going to set my transparency to 20 percent.
Now we can see the image is faded.
Now this is going to help because as we start to draw
on top using the drawing tools a little later,
we won't clash with the drawing.
Excellent.
So once your sketch is faded,
I'm going to come to the layers panel.
I'm going to double click on the layer name
and rename this to drawing guide.
If we look closely, we can see an eye symbol to the left.
To the right of this is an empty space.
If we click this, we will see a lock icon up here.
This means I will not be able to accidentally select
or alter this layer in any way.
Next, I'm going to come to the top right, click the menu icon
and select create new layer.
I'm going to call this layer trace layer and click okay.
So this will be the layer we begin
to trace our scanned drawing image.
This is now a good setup.
The background image is locked, and we are now free
to start tracing the scanned drawing on top.
So to finish off, I'm going to save this document.
I'm going to come to file, save and save my document
to the desktop and simply save as skull sketch.
Make sure you save your document somewhere safe
as we will be using this document in the next video.
So that is how you can set a big document for print
and import the drawing into Illustrator
and create the right setup to begin tracing.
Now, before we begin to trace the image using the drawing
tools, I want to demonstrate an alternative.
There is a way in Illustrator to quickly convert a hand drawing
into a vector graphic.
In the next video, I'll be showcasing a particular tool
called the image trace tool known in early versions
of Illustrator as the live trace tool.
I will also be discussing why you may or may not choose
to use the image trace tool
over the tracing technique using the drawing tools.
So I'll see you in the next video.