Download the Leather Texture: http://www.cgtextures.com/texview2.php?id=15237&PHPSESSID=a0de8f18a6408c0524cbd5ed02838dbc Welcome to this video tutorial! We will be using Illustrator CS4 today to create some vector leather! After we create our leather we will create this nice shining and sparkling metal lightning bolt on it. In this video tutorial we will learn about a bunch of Adobe Illustrator's features including, Live Trace, Bridge, Masking, Magic Wand, The Flare Tool, and More!
Finished Image:
1. In the following tutorial we will use Adobe Illustrator to create a fully Vectorized Metal Icons as well as this Vector Leather. We will begin by creating a new Illustrator document File>New.
2. Next download this Leather Texture: http://www.cgtextures.com/texview2.php?id=15237&PHPSESSID=a0de8f18a6408c0524cbd5ed02838dbc Grab the 800x600 size and then after you have saved it to your hard drive get into Illustrator and hit Cmd/Ctrl + Opt/Alt + O to launch The Bridge. Navigate to the Leather Texture file and drag it into Illustrator. Don’t worry if it comes in and is very tiny we will fix that in a moment.
3. Next drag that Texture up to the top left corner of your document, grab your selection tool (Black Arrow, Hotkey = “V”) and drag the bottom right anchor handle out until the leather texture covers the entire document.
4. Now with the image selected turn your attention for a moment to the control bar (that bar that runs across the top of the document which changes every time you select something different) and hit the “Embed” button. This attaches the image right to the document, whereas before we were only linked to it. After we do that simply select the “Live Trace” Button.
5. Now we want to stick with the defaults, only changing the “Threshold” a threshold of 80 gave me a nice leather look.
6. Next, still up there in that control bar, we want to slide over to the right and hit the “Expand” button. Doing this in essence “un-live’s” the Live Trace and allows us to go in and edit the individual shapes that make up this Live Traced Object. Next we need to deselect everything which we can do by simpley clicking anywhere on our artboard or by using the hotkey Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + A. Now that we have done that we want to use the Magic Wand tool (Y) to select all of the white areas with one click.
7. Next we want to open our color panel, Window>Color and we want to work with grayscale so hit the little fly-out menu in the top right corner and choose “grayscale” and then set the color to 80%. This fills the white areas with an 80% gray.
8. Now look over to the Layers panel and click that little circle to the right of the Layer name to select the contents of the layer, then with them selected hit Cmd/Ctrl + C to copy the whole grouping of Vectorized Leather. Click the little blank space between the eye ball and the Layer name to lock that layer up and click the “Create New Layer” button. Then hit Cmd/Ctrl + F to paste the leather you copied into the new layer exactly into the same place as it is on the lower layer. Your Layers panel should look like mine.
9. Next with the Select tool (V) selected we want to grab the top-middle anchor handle and hold the Opt/Alt key and drag it down until this bit of Vector Leather covers about half of the older Vector Leather.
10. With that piece of Vector Leather selected use one of the corner points to rotate the whole piece until it can run from the bottom left corner to the top right corner. After rotating it to that angle select one of the middle anchor handles on the smaller sides and pull the piece of Vector Leather while holding the Opt/Alt key until it looks like the screenshot.
11. We now need to mask this angled bit of leather to our Vectorized Leather backdrop so we don’t see all the extra stuff hanging over the edges of our document. We need to begin our mask by creating a rectangle. Grab the Rectangle tool and click anywhere, you will see a dialog box pop-up. Enter a width of 800 and a height of 600 and hit OK. Then drag the rectangle to the top corner of the document so it is covering everything except the two edges of the diagonal piece of Vector Leather sticking out of the lower left and upper right corners as seen here (NOTE: The rectangles color does not matter!):
12. Next we want to fill this rectangle with the color white by leaving it selected (or selecting if it is not already selected) and going to our Color panel (Window>Color) and selecting white. Then hit Cmd/Ctrl + X to cut it right off there (At this point you cannot see the white rectangle, don’t worry Illustrator is holding it in an invisible clipboard location). Next we want to click on the little circle to the left of the layer top layer’s name to select that whole layer (Do this EVEN if you have the diagonal leather strap is selected!). After we are sure we have the whole layer selected double click that little blank area to the right of the thumbnail in the Transparency panel to create our Mask (Transparency Panel: Window> Transparency)
13. As soon as we create the mask you will see a little black box appear in there. You have created a mask and the whole piece of diagonal Vector Leather has disappeared, no need to panic. Press Cmd/Ctrl + F to paste that white rectangle into the mask, and, because white reveals, we see only the area of the diagonal Vector Leather bit that is inside of our documents boundaries.
14. Double click on that layers name and name the Layer “Strap”. Next select the Strap and copy it Cmd/Ctrl + C and Paste it in Back Cmd/Ctrl + B and with this shape selected open the Pathfinder panel: Window>Pathfinder and first select the “Merge Shapes” icon (Bottom row of icons, 3rd from the left). After you have done the select the “Unite” icon (Top row 1st on the left) and you should now have something similar to what I have.
15. Again using the Color panel we want to fill this shape with a 75% gray. It will not look like we have done anything because remember, we pasted this “behind” so it is currently underneath the leather texture. Hit the “V” key to select the “Selection” tool and hit Shift + Right Arrow Key to nudge that shape out from under the top shape a little. You will now see a little gray edge peeking out from under the Vectorized Leather Strap.
16. Repeat step 15 but fill that shape with a slightly darker gray, something like 65% gray. Then grab the Line tool (\) and draw a line along the top edge of the Strap where a line of stitching would be. Note the little white line near the top of my Strap in the screenshot.
17. We need to find a Brush to make this line look like a line of stitches, not just a straight white line. Before we do that copy that line and paste it and nudge it down ward so we have a line of stitching running along each side of the Strap and then open the Brushes panel (Window>Brushes). Then hit the little fly-out menu in the top right corner of that panel and navigate Open Brush Library> Borders> Borders_Dashed.
18. Now, using the Selection Tool (V) select both little lines we want to become lines of stitching and click on the border I have highlighted in the screenshot (It is a default brush included with Adobe Illustrator).
19. Select both lines, which have probably turned black and are nearly impossible to see, and go Object>Expand Appearance. We now are able to fill this line with any color, matter of fact we are working with a fill color, not a stroke color. Fill both lines with white and then, with them both selected, hit Cmd/Ctrl + G to Group them. Select this group in the Layers panel and look up into the Transparency panel and set the Opacity to 75%.
20. We are now ready to create our Vector Metal Lightning Bolt. Select the Strap layer in the Layers panel and lock it up by clicking that little blank space between the eye ball and the Layers name. Next create a New Layer and use the set your Fill color to none by selecting the Fill swatch at the base of the Tools panel and hit the “/” key and then select the Stroke swatch down there and set that to white by clicking on it and then using the Color panel to select a white. Then use the Pen tool to draw a shape like you see in the screenshot:
21. Select that line you have drawn and open the Stroke panel (Window>Stroke) and set the weight to 4 pt. Next copy the line, paste it, and nudge into a position similar to the screenshot:
22. Now that we have done that we want to attach these two line to make a fill-able shape. We can do this by using the Direct Selection tool (A) and selection the very top point of the line on the left and dragging it over until it touches the top point on the line to the right. Do this with the bottom point(s) as well. You should now have a shape that resembles mine.
23. Now drag a selection over the top joined point to select both anchor points in there and hit Cmd/Ctrl + J to join them together and choose “Corner” from the dialog box that pops up. Do the same with the lower points and then select the whole shape with the Selection tool (V) and hit Shift + X to swap the Fill and Stroke colors.
24. Select the Object and open the Gradient panel (Window>Gradient) and click on the little Gradient swatch in there this will fill our shape with the gradient we see. We want a metallic Gradient however so add a few points and fill in some blacks and whites and some grays until you get a Gradient like I have in the screenshot also be sure to set the angle to “90”.
25. Next Copy the Metal Lightning shape and Copy it Cmd/Ctrl + C and Paste it in Front Cmd/Ctrl + F. Select the shape in front and go Object>Path>Offset Path and set it like I have mine.
26. Now with that slightly smaller shape selected go back to the Gradient panel and set the angle to “-90”. This will flip the Gradient and make the shape underneath look like a metallic edge. A few little Strokes, Flares, and Shines later we have our final Metallic Lightning Bolt! All of these last finishing touches are covered in the video version of this tutorial!
Final Image
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