To give you illustrator software users to detailed analysis to share the experience of copying animation pictures and skills.
Because like to watch anime, so watching an animation or comics will want to collect relevant official pictures, but also used to do computer and mobile wallpaper, but even the most popular animation, the real HD picture is too little, those unpopular or old animation is not to be expected. In addition, I also do not like the fan map, because generally add too many artist's own style, I prefer official official picture.
Photshop has been used for almost 10 years now, but AI is the one who learned it after work. At that time want to switch to do design, so began to learn AI, but helpless our company cooperation print shop only receive CDR, so just do the design with CorelDRAW. Later, the website design, mainly with Flash,ai and CorelDRAW are not how to use, but occasionally do the packaging and business cards.
Ai has always been not like, for my work and life, Photoshop is really useful, so the AI has not continued to learn. AI and flash these vector graphics software, feel can only do some abstract type of image, not suitable for Japanese anime diagram. Until one day, I was shocked to see a Japanese netizen who had done the jade market with Excel. With the familiarity of Excel, I think I can do it, so I used it to do the black snow Gitto.
Through this attempt, I found that the simple tools such as Excel can be used in the form of vector graphics to make their own very fond of the effect, then as a professional vector software AI is not alone. So, I began to focus on the image of High-definition to study AI.
The process of high-definition is simply to drag the original image into the AI and then stroke it and paint it. If it is to draw the words of course is not good, is cheating, but I do these drawings is just want to make the original image into a vector of HD map, so what means in fact is not important, as long as can restore the original figure on the line. Of course, even if the description has a certain technical requirements, need to carry out a certain practice, but not what advanced technology, when you master the production process, the most crucial is actually the patience, because generally do a self more satisfied with the figure will take about more than 10 hours.
Master the technology of high definition, no longer need not for very fond of the picture can not find HD and worry, there are many people into this field, the Internet will have a lot of high-definition map, you can create a two-dimensional high-definition world.
Of course, it is not the only use of this technology to make the existing images high-definition. When you are familiar with the color map, you can try to make the Black-and-white comics high-definition and color. If you want to original, you can also use the pen to draw a draft on paper, and then photographed with the camera, dragged into the AI, the process behind the color of black and white comics almost.
Some students may ask: Do you need the art of high definition map?
My view is that if there is an art foundation is certainly not a bad thing, but nothing serious. When you do a high definition map, you can stroke it as you like. Need is the pen tool of proficiency and patience, color directly from the original artwork corresponding to take color on the line, although sometimes to make some adjustments, but are used to the AI inside those familiar functions, these do not need the art foundation.
But if it is black and white comics HD color, you need to have a certain understanding of color and animation coloring some understanding, such as how to tone color, how to show the Light and shade. If it is original, you need to have a certain ability to paint, familiar with the human body, perspective and so on.
However, even after the two kinds of art on the basis of the requirements, is not absolute, because the art is not designed for anime services, anime also do not need to use the art school to teach all things, you chose to study animation, and then according to their own needs to learn relevant knowledge can be, where do not know where to make up, to meet their own needs can be.
In addition, I would like to say the original words, using Photoshop to draw and in the AI to do what is the difference.
If you are using Photoshop to draw, you have to have a digital board, or use the mouse to draw is more painful. and the digital board is just a tool, even if bought, whether or not to draw a good or depending on your work and the familiarity of Photoshop. If there is no digital board, with the mouse, I think with the AI more real. But I never said to people, "I have these pictures are rat-painted"---this is quite a trick, because the use of vector tools to do the map, although there is no digital board large hands a wave of freedom, but also a lot of digital hand-painted difficult to achieve the function. With the mouse is not necessarily more vulnerable than the digital board, can only say that there are advantages and disadvantages, each meet different needs. is not to say that no digital board can not draw animation map, with the mouse, with the AI can be fully competent. Although I have a digital board, but I heartily like to do this type of animation in AI image. "Working Environment"
Let me start by introducing the work interface I'm working on, which involves almost all the tools I need.
First, the toolbar, I pulled out all the hidden tools, in three columns, one is I very do not like every time to point to open the menu to find tools, and do not want to set shortcuts for each tool, and I also continue to learn, research tools, hoping to continuously improve the efficiency, and complete all I want the effect, So I pulled all the existing tools and tested them slowly.
There are two horizontal toolbars, this is my own development of some scripting tools, in the use of software, I will pay attention to the software has a script development function, by writing script code, can bring a lot of convenience for the work. Photoshop and Ai I have written a number of tools, but these are not really necessary to do the map, just a person like it, I will be in the process of doing a map of what they have what kind of function, if there are students interested, I can write another post about the usage of these tools and then share them.
On the right is my most commonly used panel.
Transparency panel: Often need to adjust the entire path, gradient, mesh point transparency, but also use layer mode, mask features
Gradient Panel (stroke panel): Both gradient and stroke panels are used quite a bit
Color panel: Color Generally I use the eyedropper tool and this panel to specify the color, while selecting the HSB mode for easy color adjustment
Path Finder Panel (alignment panel): Pretty Common
Graphics Style panel: This is a custom, there are several of my most commonly used style, do not have to specify each time, directly click the application on the line
Layers panel: This is needless to say, the core of the panel
In addition to these panels, I also set a lot of shortcuts, I am accustomed to any design software will be all the shortcut keys removed, and then according to the use of their own needs to selectively specify, generally all located in the left hand side, so you can take the mouse right hand, left hand on the keyboard does not move.
In addition to the AI internal shortcut key designation, I also use some external shortcut key software, because the AI internal shortcut key has certain limits, the external software has the infinite possibility, but needs to have the certain writing code ability, because wants the free control, basically is to write some code. I use the external shortcut software has quick macros and AutoHotkey, if there are students interested, I can write another post to talk about their use. Again, these are not necessary, but they can provide some convenience for the work, if you are a designer and interested in the code, strongly recommend to learn. Principle
First of all, we must first drag the original image into the AI, we have to make it on top
When making, you can trace all the edges at once, or you can divide the whole picture into many parts, while the paint is painted on one side, such as finishing the eyes before doing other things. Either way, it's more convenient to see you. However, it is important to note that if you first do a part, remember not to spend too much time in one place, because that place is probably not the focus of the whole picture, it is not necessary to waste too much time
Whether it is a one-time stroke or a part of the completion, I will generally be a separate layer for each part, easy to manage. For example, one layer of eyes, one layer of face ... More complex objects may themselves be divided into many layers, such as hair. The principle of layering is who's on who, who's blocking who.
The following is a demonstration of a GIF, the size is 1.67M, if you do not see it, please wait for it to finish loading
The next step is the actual operation. Japanese anime generally have strokes and color of the two processes, exactly the corresponding AI stroke and fill. However, unlike hand-painted, the freehand line can be drawn arbitrarily, the AI edge can only be a shape outside the boundary, but not freely into the interior of the shape and also keep the fill. If you want to be free to reach inside, you can only select strokes without filling
The following is a demonstration of a GIF, the size is 2.65M, if you do not see it, please wait for it to finish loading
If I were to do this piece of hair as shown in the picture, I would first hook the outer bounds of the entire shape with a pen tool, and all the lines that seemed to be in the inner line would not matter, I would just hook the outer boundary. Then, I put this path to duplicate more than two layers, the top one layer only stroke is not filled, the second layer without strokes and no fill, used to do the clipping path, the bottom layer only fill not strokes, used to do the background. Then I used a lot of disconnected lines to hook up the internal lines, and the lines on the artwork that were connected to the outside were as much as possible as if they were coherent.
Why should this approach be used? Why is the line not directly connected, but to disconnect?
If you use a freehand line to draw the line, then all the lines are disconnected, with the fill will be a collapse, so can only stroke. After the stroke, to the background, then you have to go along the side very carefully again the entire boundary hook once, so that the background does not exceed the edge, and do not have gaps between the edge, to just under the edge. This virtually wasted a lot of time, although you can think of ways to speed up a little, but always is not a good way
So, finally after the test I identified the above method, a layer of responsible side, cover the top, a layer as a clipping path, you can throw things inside without fear of the internal lines and shadows will overflow, the bottom layer as an undertone. The background and path into two layers is easy to separate operation, but also take into account the edge, background, shadow of the cascade relationship
The first thing I actually worry about is that the internal line is disconnected, afraid to look inconsistent, but after the actual attempt, feel completely not a problem, do not need to spend how much effort can be adjusted to appear to be consistent effect
Any part of the whole picture can be made using this method, which is the core principle.
Basically use this technique to make the whole picture down, and the rest is a little trick. Of course, not every place must be so divided into three layers, according to the actual situation to choose, such as very simple objects, only the background and outside, there are only a small number of lines, then I generally on a layer of stroke plus fill, and then directly draw the inner line on the line, do not need to use the shear path "line processing"
The processing of lines in general I use two ways:
1, the Profile panel configuration file, directly choose a need, there are two small, there is a big one small (next to the mirror tool
Can invert the size of the head)
The following figure is the result of not applying the profile and applying the configuration file
According to the official Help manual, its usage is as follows:
Note: Each of the following knowledge points (except the last one) I have a GIF, and if you don't see it, wait for it to load or refresh
The basic principle of work is: Drag directly on the line will generate a width point, you can change the width of the position of the line width point. Move up and down to find the desired width effect
L Direct Drag point can move a single point, drag the handle of the point can change the width of the point
The width of the L line is a smooth transition between the width points, and if you want to make a very sharp effect, you need to close the two width points.
L Direct Click, pull out the width is proportional to both sides
L Press ALT directly to click and drag, pull out the width is out of proportion
L Copy a width point when dragging an existing width point by alt
L Copy the selected width point and push the other points along the path while holding down ALT and shift drag
L hold SHIFT Click to select multiple width points and drag to move multiple selected points without pressing any key
L Drag any point directly by holding down shift to move all width points at the same time
L to remove the width point, click it and press the DELETE key.
L to deselect the width point you can press ESC
The above is the basic usage of the width tool, and I often use the following method in the actual use:
Want to start somewhere at the end of the line gradually smaller, you can double-click somewhere in the line, will pop up a dialog box, directly determined on the line, do not take care of those parameters. This will create a width point that is the same width as the original line when you double-click it. Then, direct the end of the line to pull a very thin width point, so as to ensure that the line gradually change the line, and the impact range is limited to the small range you specify, does not cause the entire line to be smaller from beginning to end only to small ends:
With no dots in the middle, it's getting smaller from beginning to end:
The use of things is above these, the rest are some tips, I will continue to update in this post, if necessary, later can record a video to demonstrate the complete production process. Some of the works currently completed:
Like Photoshop, Ai has a mask, but the AI masks seem to be split in two, namely, clipping masks and opaque masks.
Let's introduce the clipping mask first. There are two main methods of creation.
"1" is created by a menu command
For example, as shown in the following illustration, we want to use a star as a mask for the following three rectangles, and we need to put the star in the top of these graphs
Then, select all the graphics, you can use the selection tool, you can also select in the Layers panel
The Create Mask command is executed, or it can be performed by using a shortcut key. The shortcut keys in the following illustration are my own, please refer to the shortcut keys from the menu
The mask was created successfully, and the parts outside of the star were not visible, and all the shapes just selected were automatically merged into one group
When you expand the group on the layers panel, you can see the order in which you want to arrange them. At the top is our clipping path.
You can drag another layer to the bottom of the clipping path at any time, so that the mask works for it, for example, we just draw a circle and then drag it underneath the star layer.
So the circle is obscured by the mask. As long as it is under the clipping path, put a layer, put how many objects can be
"2" is created by the internal drawing function of the toolbar
First draw a path to make sure there are no fills or strokes
Click the internal drawing options shown in the following illustration
There will be a dotted box, representing the internal drawing mode, you can draw any path, so the painting will automatically take the star as a mask.
After painting, remember to change back to normal drawing, otherwise all the things will be affected by the mask
Generally I am more commonly used is the first method of creation. Next, opaque masks. With opaque masks, you can make parts of the object translucent, and the clipping mask above can only choose to make a part of the object completely visible or completely invisible.
Opaque masks also have two ways to create them.
"1" drawn in mask drawing mode
First, select the object you want to apply the mask to, the group or layer (which can be multiple objects), and click the "Make mask" on the transparency panel, or double-click the circular icon
The object will disappear completely because you have not yet painted any mask path. Click on the black box on the transparency panel to enter the mask drawing mode. If you press ALT to click to hide all other objects
The object will be completely invisible, indicating that it is now in the Mask drawing mode, as long as you draw a color (including white) path above, you can see the effect of the mask.
For example, if you draw a white rectangle, you can see the image in the rectangle.
If you want to see the original object to draw, you can temporarily cancel the check "cut", so that the image is fully displayed, finish the path after the "cut" back on the hook
In mask drawing mode, you can draw multiple paths, and their mask effects are combined to work
Color determines the degree of opacity, white for completely opaque, black for complete transparency, gray and other colors for translucent, I generally use black and white ash instead of color, better control effect. The following three rectangles are: black, red, white
You can copy and paste any graphic or bitmap in a mask
If you use gradients, you can change the image from transparent to opaque
Feather the path so that the edges are semi-transparent
Or you can use the grid to freely adjust
"2" with the current graphics to build
For example, to draw a rectangle as a mask, click on the Transparency Panel menu button
Execute an opaque mask command
Done, and then you can do all sorts of things like that.
The two masks have their own uses, and I usually use clipping masks, and only opaque masks are used if you do not display the Make Mask button and circular icon, click the display thumbnail command of the Panel menu
That's how it's transferred.
"Lock and box selection, lasso"
At the point of the operation path, you can click to select a single point with the direct selection tool, or you can hold down SHIFT and click continuously to select multiple points. If you want to select a part of the box, you have to be very careful, if there are other paths nearby, you can easily select points on other paths, because the direct selection tool does not restrict you to select only the points on the current path. This is very impersonal, as a comparison, the three-dimensional software also needs to operate on the point line, such as 3ds Max, you are in the processing point, you can only select the point on the current object, do not worry that will be mistakenly selected other objects. The general use of direct selection tool is to operate the point, there will not be too much need to put the other path of the point is also selected (unless you want to connect two paths, but there is a more practical solution, does not have to be set this way)
Similarly, the AI in the Lasso tool can also be selected, also can choose objects, so use the time is very careful not to choose other paths, but to be so careful, basically you do not want to use this lasso tool
If you want to freely use the direct selection tool to select the box, or use the Lasso tool, you must first separate the path to be processed and other paths
There are two ways to solve this problem: isolation and locking. I usually use the lockdown method.
The first method is isolation mode. But I do not like this method, because the other objects in isolation will be lighter color.
There are several ways you can isolate an object:
"1" Check Preferences for "Double click to isolate", and then double-click the object you want to isolate with the selection tool, and if you are using another tool, hold down CTRL to double-click
This way seems to be very fast, but relatively easy to operate, because sometimes click a bit more to become a double-click, the individual does not like
To exit isolation mode, double-click a location other than the quarantined path
"2" Click on the Isolation button on the Control Panel, but the button position is not very fixed, depending on the use of tools, sometimes in the absence, and often only into the isolation mode of the button, there is no Exit button
"3" uses the menu command on the Layers panel to "Enter isolation mode", which can also be used when exiting the Exit isolation mode.
"4" Specifies shortcut keys to enter and exit
In addition to the above mentioned method of exiting isolation mode, one of the simplest is to press the ESC key
Note that when you want to isolate objects or groups on the layers panel, you need to select a sublayer or group (point layer name instead of a dot behind it) and then perform the quarantine
The second method is to lock the layer
Here we have to talk about the AI lock layer principle
Ai has two types of layer locking methods: 1, in the layers of the graph lock; 2, menu command lock
In fact, the Layers Panel menu also has a lock command, but very impractical, so I do not say
For the sake of illustration, I will use the main layer and the sub layer Two words, the main layer represents the top-level large layer, the child layer is the layer inside the main layer
First, let's talk about the lock on the layers panel.
1: Click on the lock icon, you can lock a single layer, whether the main layer or a child layer
2: Press ALT to click on the main layer of the lock icon, you can lock other main layer
3: Drag on the lock icon column to lock multiple primary layers or sublayer at once
And then a lock on the menu command.
1: Lock the selected object: only to lock the child layer of the selected object (the main layer is not locked, even if you directly select the main layer). Note that the selected object here needs to be selected using the selection tool, or a dot at the back of the point layer, not the layer name.
In the GIF below, the main layer "Layer 2" is selected, but only the child layers within it are locked.
2: Lock All artwork above: The lock of this command will be valid for two conditions: ①, the object to be locked is above the currently selected object (viewed from the Layers panel) ②, the object to be locked must intersect with the bounding box of the currently selected object (the bounding box has an intersection, not the path). In general, it's not a good command.
In the following example, the star is below the blue graphic, and the Star Execution command is selected to lock all the artwork, although seemingly disjoint, the blue graphic is eventually locked and the other path is unlocked. Because the blue shapes are both on the top of the star and their bounding boxes intersect.
3: Lock Other layers: Lock other main layers (equivalent to clicking the Lock button on all other primary layers on the layers panel), but do not operate on other child layers in the main layer where the current path is located
In the following GIF, a path to Layer 2 is selected, and then a lock on another layer command is performed, showing that the other main layer is locked and that the other paths on the same level are not locked
Finally, the way to unlock it.
The lock on the main layer can only be unlocked by clicking the lock icon on the Layers Panel (menu command "unlock all" to solve this!)
The lock on the sub layer can be clicked through the layers panel, or it can be unlocked by all the commands of the menu unlocked.
In other words, the so-called "unlock all", can only unlock the lock on the child layer, the main layer is helpless
Through the principle analysis of the locking function on the face, if we want to use the box selection tool and the Lasso tool freely, you must lock all other child layers (press ALT to click on the lock icon for the main layer, because you cannot lock the layers of the same layer, or cause interference), unlock the menu commands with the "unlock all" to achieve
So the key question is: How do you lock all the sublayer at once? The method is:
1, first select the layer you want to manipulate, can be a layer, can also be multiple layers, can be the main layer, can also be a child layer
3, object, lock, selected object
This way, you can lock all the layers outside of the layer you started to select, and you can freely use the box selection or lasso without having to worry about selecting other objects.
Through the analysis above, you should be able to understand, "object, lock, selected objects" This is locked in a sublayer, so you can unlock it with "unlock all", although the AI has a different way of locking the main layer and the sublayer, as if it were specifically used to confuse people, but their differences also bring some benefits.
If you have some layers that you want to keep locked in, such as some reference graphs, you don't want it to move around, you can lock its main layer on the layers panel, so unless you manually go to the anchor icon on the layers panel, it will remain locked because the unlock all feature cannot unlock the main layer.
So you can safely lock and unlock other layers, the reference map of the layer is always locked, the above method, selected after two steps to complete, although you can set shortcut keys, but still a little trouble, so we can record an action. Randomly select a path, create a new action, and then do what we said above: reverse Select, Lock the selected object, and finally press the Stop button.
We can specify a shortcut key for this action, so, we can only use a shortcut key to lock other layers, all unlocked "We can also set a shortcut, to this step is fast enough, a shortcut key to lock, another to unlock, but if you think it is not enough, You can coordinate with external tools to specify a single shortcut key to toggle lock and unlock.
The tool I use is Quickmacros, which specifies the CTRL T to toggle the lock and unlock.
Well, the above information is small make up to you illustrator this software users of the detailed copy of the animation pictures of the experience and skills to resolve the share of the total content, you see the users here, small series believe that everyone is very clear now, Hope that the above tutorial can bring you useful help.
