I will give you a detailed analysis of the experience and skills of copying anime pictures for the users of Illustrator software.
Tips:
In simple terms, the high-definition process is to drag the source image into AI and draw and color it. If it is for painting, it will certainly not work. It is cheating, but I just want to convert the source image into a vector of high-definition images. So it is not important to use any means, you only need to restore the source image. Of course, even a profile has certain technical requirements and requires some exercises, but it is not an advanced technique. After you master the production process, the most important thing is patience, it usually takes more than a dozen hours to make a satisfactory image.
Having mastered the high-definition technology, there is no need to worry about the inability to find high-definition images. If many people are involved in this field, there will be a lot of high-definition images on the Internet, it can create a high-definition world for the second element.
Of course, HD of existing images is not the only use of this technology. After you are familiar with the color picture high definition, you can try to make the black and white cartoon high definition and color. If you want to be original, you can also use a pen to draw a draft on paper, and then use a camera to take it and drag it into the AI. The subsequent process is similar to that of the black and white cartoon.
Some may ask: do I need the art foundation for creating a high-definition image?
In my opinion, it is certainly not a bad thing to have an art foundation, but it does not matter. If you do a high-definition image, you can follow the source image during the stroke. You need the skill and patience of the pen tool. In terms of color, you just need to take the color from the corresponding part of the source image, although some adjustments are made sometimes, they all use the familiar functions in AI, which do not require the art foundation.
But if it is black and white cartoon high-definition color, you need to have a certain understanding of color and animation color, such as how to adjust the color, how to express the light and shade, etc. If it is original, you need to have a certain degree of painting ability, familiar with the human body, perspective, and so on.
However, even if there are two requirements on the art base, they are not absolute, because art is not designed for animation services, and animation does not need to use all the things taught by art schools, you have chosen to study cartoons, and then you can learn relevant knowledge based on your own needs. If you do not know what you want, you can make up for it to meet your own needs.
In addition, I would like to talk about the difference between using Photoshop to draw and doing it in AI.
If you use Photoshop to draw a picture, you must have a number board. Otherwise, it is quite painful to use the mouse to draw the picture. Moreover, the digital board is just a tool. Even if you buy it, whether you can draw it depends on your skill and familiarity with Photoshop. If there is no digit board, I think AI is more practical. But I would never say "I'm a rat-painted figure"-this is a simple saying, because we use vector tools to make a picture, although we don't have the freedom to wave a big hand, however, there are also many features that are hard to achieve by hand-drawing the digital board. Using the mouse is not necessarily weaker than the digit board. It can only be said that each has its own advantages and disadvantages and each meets different needs. It doesn't mean that you can't draw a cartoon chart without a number board, and you can use the mouse and AI to be competent. Although I have a number board, I really like to do this type of animation in AI. [Work environment]
First, I will introduce the working interface I am currently using. This involves almost all the tools I need.
The first is the toolbar. I pulled out all the hidden tools and arranged them in three columns. As a result, I do not like to open menus every time to find tools, nor do I want to set shortcuts for every tool, 2. I am still learning and studying various tools, hoping to continuously improve my work efficiency and accomplish everything I want, so I figured out all the existing tools and tried them slowly.
There are two horizontal toolbar in the figure. This is some of my own script tools. When using the software, I will pay attention to whether the software has its own script development function. By writing the script code, it can bring a lot of convenience to your work. I have written some tools for Photoshop and AI, but these tools are not necessary for creating pictures, but they are just my personal preferences, in the future, I will introduce the functions they all have during the graph creation process. If you are interested, I can also write a post to talk about the usage of these tools and sort them out and share them.
The right side is some of my most commonly used panels.
Opacity panel: it is often necessary to adjust the transparency of the entire path, gradient, and grid point. The layer mode and mask functions are also used.
Gradient panel (stroke panel): gradient and stroke panel are used a lot
Color Panel: generally, I use a straw tool and this panel to specify the color. At the same time, I select the HSB mode to adjust the color.
Path Finder panel (alignment panel): Very common
Graphic style panel: this is custom. There are several of my most common styles in it. You don't have to specify them each time. Just click the application.
Layer panel: this is the core panel.
In addition to these panels, I also set a lot of shortcut keys. In my habit, I will delete all the built-in shortcut keys in any design software, and then choose them according to my own needs, generally, they are all placed on the left hand side. In this way, you can hold the mouse in the right hand side and the left hand side is not moved on the keyboard.
In addition to specifying the internal shortcut keys of AI, I also use some external shortcut keys. Because the internal shortcut keys of AI have certain restrictions, external software has unlimited possibilities, however, some code writing capabilities are required, because some code is required for free control. I use Quick Macros and Autohotkey for external Quick Software. If you are interested, I can add a post to explain their usage. Similarly, these are not necessary, but they can provide some convenience for your work. If you are a designer and interested in code, I strongly recommend that you learn them. [Basic principle]
First, we need to drag the source image into AI before creating a graph.
During the creation, you can draw all the edges at one time, or divide the whole graph into multiple parts, and draw and color the edges at one time, for example, finish the eyes first and then perform other operations. You can use either of them to make it easier. However, you should note that if you do a part first, remember not to spend too much time in one place, because it may not be so important after creating a complete image in that place, no need to waste too much time
Whether it is a one-time stroke or a part of the complete, I usually have an independent layer for each part, convenient management. For example, one layer of eyes and one layer of face ...... Complex objects may be divided into multiple layers, such as hair. The principle of hierarchy is who is there and who is blocking it.
The following is a gif image demonstration. The size is 1.67 MB. If you cannot see it, wait until it is loaded.
Next is the actual operation. Generally, Japanese anime has two steps: Stroke and coloring, which correspond to the stroke and filling of AI. However, unlike hand-drawn, the hand-drawn line can be painted at will. The AI side can only be the outer boundary of a shape, but cannot freely penetrate into the shape and keep it filled. If you want to freely reach into the interior, you can only select to draw only the edges without filling.
The following is a gif image demonstration. The size is 2.65 MB. If you cannot see it, wait until it is loaded.
If I want to show this hair as shown in the following figure, I will first hook out the outer boundary of the whole shape with a pen tool. I don't care about all the lines that should look inside. I only check the outer boundary. Then, I copied the path to two layers. The top layer only has no stroke filling, and the second layer has no stroke or fill, which is used to cut the path, the bottom layer only fills the non-stroke side for background color. Then, I used a lot of broken lines to check the internal lines. The lines on the source image that are connected with the outer boundary were adjusted as if they were consistent.
Why is this method used? Why do we need to disconnect the wires that are connected together without going straight?
If you draw a line in the same way as hand-drawn lines, all the lines will be disconnected. Filling will collapse, so you can only draw edges. After drawing the side, you have to tick the entire boundary along the side carefully so that the background color does not exceed the side, and there is no gap between the side, it must be at the bottom of the edge. This wastes a lot of time. Although you can think of a way to speed up, it is never a good way.
So, after the test, I confirmed the above method. One layer is responsible for the side, and the top layer is covered. The other layer is used as the shear path, you can drop anything in it without worrying that the internal line and shadow will overflow. The bottom layer serves as the background color. Dividing the background color and path into two layers facilitates separate operations, and also takes into account the stacked relationship of the edge, background color, and shadow.
In the first place, I was most worried about the disconnection of the internal line and the inconsistency. But after trying it, I thought it was not a problem at all, you don't need to spend much effort to make it look consistent.
This method can be used to create any part of the entire image. This is the core principle.
Basically, you can use this technique to complete the entire graph. The rest is some tips. Of course, not every place must be divided into three layers in this way. You can choose one based on the actual situation. For example, a very simple object has only the background color and the outside, and there are only a few lines inside it, then I usually add a layer of stroke to fill, and then draw the internal line directly, without the need to use the cut path [line processing]
Line processing generally involves two methods:
1. The configuration file of the stroke panel can be directly selected as needed. The two sides are both small and one is big and one is small (the image tool next to it
You can reverse large or small headers)
The following figure shows the effect of no application configuration file or application configuration file.
2. Use the width tool
According to the official help manual, its usage is as follows:
Note: I have a Gif image for each of the following knowledge points (except the last one). If you cannot see it, please wait until it is loaded or refreshed.
L The basic working principle is: drag a direct online bar to generate a width point, which can change the line width at the position of the width point. Move up or down to find the desired width
L You can drag a point directly to move a single point. The handle of the drag point can change the width of the point.
L The width of the line is smooth transition between the width points. If you want to make a very sharp effect, you need to close the two width points.
L when you click directly, the pull width is proportional to the two sides.
L when you press alt directly to click and drag, the width of the pull is out of proportion.
L copy a width point when alt is used to drag the existing width point.
L when you hold down alt and shift, copy the selected width point and push other points along the path
L press shift and click to select multiple width points. Then, you can move multiple selected points without pressing any key.
L hold down shift and drag any point to move all the width points at the same time
L to Delete a width point, click it and press the Delete key.
L to cancel the selection, you can press Esc
The above is the basic usage of the width tool. In actual use, I often use the following method:
If you want to gradually shrink the line from somewhere at the end, double-click it somewhere online. A dialog box will pop up and you just need to determine the parameters. This will create a width point with the same width as the original line at the place you double-click, and then pull a very fine width point at the very end of the line, this ensures the line-by-line variation, and the impact scope is limited to the small range you specified. This will not cause the entire line to become smaller from start to end only at the end:
If there is no point in the middle, it will become smaller from start to end:
Basically
The above is what is used, and the rest are Tips. I will keep updating this post. If necessary, I can record a video later to demonstrate the complete production process. Currently, the following works are completed:
[About mask]
Like Photoshop, AI also has Masks. However, AI masks are split into two parts: cut masks and opacity masks.
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First, we will introduce the cut mask. There are two main creation methods.
[1] use menu commands to create
For example, as shown in the following figure, if we want to use a star as the mask of the following three rectangles, we need to put the star on the top of these images.
Then, select all the images. You can use the selection tool or the layers panel.
You can run the create mask command or the shortcut key. The shortcut keys in the following figure are modified by myself. Refer to the shortcut keys in the menu.
The mask is successfully created, and parts other than the star are invisible. All the selected images are automatically merged into a group.
Expand the group on the layer panel to see the order of several layers. At the top is our cut path.
You can drag another layer to the bottom of the cut path at any time to make the mask effective. For example, we can draw a circle and drag it to the bottom of the star layer.
In this way, the circle is covered by a mask. As long as it is under the cut path, which layer can be put and how many objects can be put
[2] use the internal drawing function of the toolbar to create
First, draw a path to ensure that there is no filling or stroke
Click the internal drawing option shown in the following figure.
A dotted box appears, indicating that the image is in the internal drawing mode. You can draw any path, so the image is automatically masked by the star.
After the painting, remember to change back to the normal drawing. Otherwise, all the painting will be affected by the mask.
Generally, I usually use the first method of creation. Next we will talk about the opacity mask. You can use an opaque mask to make the part of an object semi-transparent, and the cut mask above can only make a part of the object completely visible or completely invisible.
Opacity masks can also be created in two ways.
[1] drawing in mask rendering mode
First, select the object, group, or layer (multiple objects can be selected) you want to apply the mask to, and click "make mask" on the transparency panel, or double-click the circular icon.
The object will completely disappear because you haven't painted any mask path yet. Click the black box on the transparency panel to enter the mask painting mode. If you press alt to click it, all other objects will be hidden.
The object is completely invisible, indicating that it has now entered the mask painting mode. You only need to draw a colored (including white) path on it to see the mask effect.
For example, if you draw a white rectangle, you can see the image in the rectangle.
If you want to look at the original object for painting, you can temporarily uncheck "cut", so that the image is completely displayed. After the path is painted, you can re-hook "cut".
In the mask painting mode, you can draw multiple paths, and their mask effects will work together.
The color determines the degree of opacity. The white color is completely opaque, and the black color is completely transparent. The gray color and other colors are translucent. Generally, I use black and white gray instead of color, which has better control effect. The following three rectangles are: black, red, and white.
Any image or bitmap can be copied and pasted as a mask.
If gradient is used, the image can be changed from transparent to opaque.
Remove paths to make the edges translucent
Or you can use the grid to adjust it freely.
[2] use the current image to create
For example, draw a rectangle as a mask and click the menu button of the transparency panel.
Run the create opacity mask command.
Then, you can perform various operations as described above.
[Summary]
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Each of the two masks has its own purpose. Generally, I use a cut mask. An opaque mask is used only when the opacity effect is required. If no mask button or circular icon is displayed, click the show thumbnail command in the panel menu
This will bring up
[Locking and box selection and cable selection]
When you click a point in the operation path, you can use the direct selection tool to choose a point or press shift to continuously click to select multiple points. If you want to select a part of the path, you must be very careful. If there are other paths nearby, you can easily select the points on other paths, the direct selection tool does not limit that you can only select the points in the current path. This is very unfriendly. As a comparison, 3D software also needs to operate on the dot and line surfaces, such as 3ds max. When you are dealing with points, you can only select points on the current object, don't worry about mistaken selection of other objects. Generally, the direct selection tool is used for Operation points, so there won't be too many points that need to be selected for other paths (unless you want to connect two paths, but there are also more practical solutions that do not have to be set in this way)
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Similarly, the plug-in tool in AI can be used to select points or objects. Therefore, you must be very careful not to select other paths, but be so careful, basically, you don't want to use this plug-in.
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If you want to freely use the direct selection tool or use the plug-in tool, you must first separate the path to be processed from other paths.
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There are two ways to solve this problem: isolation and locking. I usually use the locking method.
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The first method is the isolation mode. However, I don't like this method very much, because other objects will become lighter in color during isolation.
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There are several ways to isolate an object:
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[1] check "double-click to isolate" in the preference, and double-click the object to be isolated with the selection tool. If you are using another tool, press ctrl to double-click
This method seems to be fast, but it is easy to misoperate, because sometimes it becomes a double-click when you click more, and I do not like it very much.
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To exit the isolation mode, double-click a location other than the isolated path.
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[2] click the isolation button on the control panel. However, the button is not fixed. Based on different tools, sometimes it is not in place, and usually only the button that enters the isolation mode, no exit button
[3] use the menu command on the layer panel to "enter isolation mode". You can also use "exit isolation mode" here to exit"
[4] specify the shortcut key to enter and exit
In addition to the preceding method to exit the isolation mode, the simplest method is to press the ESC key.
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Note that when you want to isolate an object or group on the layer panel, you need to select a child layer or group (click the layer name, instead of the dot after the dot), and then perform isolation.
The second method is to lock the layer.
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Here we will first talk about the principle of locking layers with AI.
There are two ways for AI to lock layers: 1. Locking on the layer panel; 2. Locking by menu commands
In fact, the layer panel menu also has a lock command, but it is not very practical, so I will not talk about it.
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For ease of description, I will use the main layer and the child layer. The main layer represents the top layer, and the child layer is the layer in the main layer.
First, let's talk about the lock on the layer panel.
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1: click the lock icon to lock a single layer, whether it is a primary layer or a child layer.
2: press alt and click the lock icon of the main layer to lock other main layers.
3: drag on the column of the lock icon to lock multiple primary or child layers at a time.
Then the menu command is locked.
1: Lock the selected object: only used to lock the child layer of the selected object (does not lock the main layer, even if you directly select the main layer ). Note: You must use the selection tool or the dot behind the dot layer to select the selected object.
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In the following gif image, the main layer "Layer 2" is selected, but only the child layers inside the gif are locked.
2: lock all the drafts above: the lock of this command must meet two conditions to take effect: ①, the object to be locked is above the selected object (from the layer panel) ②, the object to be locked must have an intersection with the selected object's border box (that is, the Border box has an intersection, not the path has an intersection ). In general, it is not a good command.
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In the following example, the star is under the blue graph and selects the star to execute the command to lock all the top drafts. Although it seems to have no intersection, the blue graph is eventually locked, other paths are not locked. Because the blue images are on the top of the star, their border boxes are intersecting.
3: lock other layers: lock other main layers (equivalent to clicking the lock button of all other main layers on the layer panel ), however, other child layers in the main layer of the current path are not operated.
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In the following gif image, select a path of Layer 2 and execute the command to lock other layers. The result shows that other main layers are locked and other paths on the same layer are not locked.
Finally, let's talk about how to unlock it.
The lock on the main layer can only be unlocked by clicking the lock icon on the layer panel (the "unlock all" of the menu command cannot solve this problem !)
Lock the sub-layer. You can click the layer panel or unlock the sub-layer by using all the unlock commands in the menu.
That is to say, the so-called "unlock all" can only unlock the lock on the child layer, there is no way to unlock the main layer
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Based on the above analysis of the locking principle, if we want to freely use the box selection tool and the plug-in tool, all the other child layers must be locked (do not press alt to click the lock icon of the main layer, because the child layers of the same layer cannot be locked, which may cause interference ), use "unlock all" in the menu command to unlock
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So the key question is: how to lock all child layers at a time? The method is:
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1. Select the layer you want to operate on. It can be either a layer or multiple layers, either a main layer or a child layer.
2. Select and reverse
3. Object, locked, selected object
In this way, you can lock all the child layers other than the layers you selected at the beginning. You can freely use box selection or cable selection without worrying about selecting other objects.
Through the above analysis, you should be able to understand that "object, lock, selected object" is locked in the child layer, so you can use "unlock all" to unlock
Although AI has different locking methods for the primary and child layers, it seems that they are used to confuse people, but their differences also bring some benefits.
If you want to lock some layers (for example, some reference images, you don't want them to be moved), you can lock the main layer on the layer panel, this way, unless you manually click the lock icon of the layer panel, it will be locked, because the "unlock all" function cannot unlock the main layer.
In this way, you can safely lock and unlock other layers. The layer of the reference graph remains locked.
The above method takes two steps to complete the selection. Although you can set the shortcut key, it is still a little troublesome, so we can record an action.
Select a path, create an action, and perform the operation described above: Select in reverse direction, lock the selected object, and then press the stop button.
We can specify a shortcut key for this action, so we can lock other layers with only one shortcut key.
Unlock all "we can also set a shortcut key. This step is quick enough. One shortcut key is locked and the other is unlocked, but if you think it is not enough, you can use an external tool to specify a single shortcut key for switching, locking, and unlocking.
The tool I used is QuickMacros, which specifies Ctrl T to switch between lock and unlock.
All right, the above information is the full content that is easily resolved and shared by the users of this software in Illustrator, users now see this. I believe that you are now very familiar with the production method. I hope that the content analyzed above will help you.
