March 17, 2009
Tutorial: Global Color in Illustrator
I recently started predominantly using Illustrator to color my designs since starting The Black Axe. So far its been going pretty well. My file sizes are a fraction of what they used to be and pre-press has been a breeze. Im not going to lie though, it definitely took some getting used to. Illustrator is a quirky program, and has no problem letting you do things the hard way if you are ill informed. I tend to do a lot of experimentation when coloring and often times have to provide a few different colorways when submitting work to clients, so any time i can save in that process is a huge help. That’s why i decided to pass some knowledge i picked up on using global swatches. Hope it helps.
background tunes: riverboat gamblers, hour of the wolf
Good shit. Definitely RTing and passing this along to some friends!
nice tut … didnt use that before but will def try it in future!
Awesome! I would love to see your process from start to finish, or at least going from scanned drawing, clean up, and on to colors.
Do you know of a good way to color parts of your linework in illustrator?
Just a quick question, you mentioned that you don’t like to draw in Illustrator. What program do you use for your illustrations?
jp: I usually throw a block of color behind my linework, select all and hit divide in the pathfinder tools. That breaks up all my negative areas into shapes that i can easily color.
jc. right now painter x but im still looking for the perfect program, its pretty buggy
i can sees your buddies!!
Buddies yes, but I’d like to see Deal’s boobies ;)
hey that blog is really helpful… illustrator does my head in sometimes but trial and error seems to be the way to figure it out.
this helps alot cheers
professional trick that i’ve been searching for… thanx derek….
yo man where do you draw?? in photoshop? but how can the ribs of the drawing are vectors?? can photoshop transform em when you export to illustrator?? xs??