Gradient Mesh Tool can be quite daunting to beginners. But once you have mastered the basics, you can start drawing realistic objects in Illustrator. I have compiled a list of helpful gradient mesh tutorials to help you get started with gradient mesh. Red Pepper A neat tutorial with tips on creating a red bell pepper in this [...]

Vectordiary is releasing 2 new packs of vector banners for your projects. It comes in different colors and designs perfect to use for your commercial projects. Enjoy a discounted rate of only $15 when you buy the banners vector pack now! See more vector packs here.

Gradient Mesh Tool in Illustrator allows artist to to create photorealism drawings. Below are some examples of the top notch artist showing their works online. All of the illustrations below are made using Illustrator. No photoshop! Takashi Morisak (Japan) Yukio Miyamoto (Japan) Link to old website of Yukio Miyamoto Ann Paidrick (USA) Halim Ghodbane (Algeria) Reggie Gilbert (USA) Wayne Forest (Canada) Highside [...]

Due to the infringes of using ‘IStock’ that poses some rights with iStockphoto, I will be changing my domain name from iStockdiary.com to vectordiary.com. Remember to bookmark the new domain name and subscribe to my new feed at http://www.vectordiary.com/feed Thanks!

Flashmint.com which sells Flash Templates is holding a Contest for Flashmint Blog Design. Designers can win $500 for the best theme design and Bloggers get up to $300 for driving the largest audience to the website. So, here is what they need - a custom WordPress theme for their FlashMint Blog. It should come with the following [...]

I have just launched my first vector pack. Enjoy great illustrations of kids party when you download the vector pack. It comes with 15 amazing party illustrations in EPS 8.0 format and is fully editable with Illustrator. You can use it to print invitation cards, cover designs or use it as a design element for [...]

Designing a logo is a common task in Adobe Illustrator. In this final project, we will sum up what we have learnt so far in Illustrator to create your own custom logo. I will show you the process in drawing a logo and hopefully you have more confidence after this tutorial. Drawing the Honey Farm Logo First [...]

In this lesson, we will learn how to crop your artwork for exporting to JPG for website or printing. We will also cover about EPS file which is the universal format for saving vector graphics. Savings Files Using Crop Area When you try to export your file to a JPG, sometimes you may notice white areas [...]

With Clipping Mask and Opacity Mask, you can quickly mask away any unwanted areas you wish to hide. Let’s take a look how it works… Clipping Mask In this illustration I have 3 layers. The background, sunburst effect and the sun. I will need to mask the sunburst to a square. First, I will select both the sunburst [...]

With Live Paint, you can freely paint your artwork. It is like painting a kid’s coloring book where you have the line art and you start filling them will different colors. In this lesson, you will see how to break a star into different segments using Live Paint. Creating a Beveled Star using Live Paint I will [...]

Liquify Tools can add some wacky distortion to your photos or shapes easily using different distortion effects. Though it is not popular but we will still take a look at how it works. Liquify Tools You can have some wacky distortion using the Liquify Tools. Here is the list of liquify tools. Here I have a leaf [...]

With 3D Live Effects you can add dimension to your 2D drawings easily. Though the features are limited, you can still control the appearance of 3D objects with lighting, shading, rotation, and more. You can also easily map artwork onto the 3d surfaces. Let’s see how each 3D effects works… 3D Extrude & [...]

Using filters and live effects we can creates lots of special effects instantly. You can smooth out sharp corners, create warp text, add drop shadows and make textures with the live effects. There are many filters in Illustrator and you can have lots of creativity in experimenting all the filters. Live Effects or Filters To create special [...]

Symbols help you to create repeated design elements easily. First, you will need to create a symbol which acts like a master copy. New instances you created are linked with the master copy. Once you update the master copy, the instances will automatically update the graphic but retain all the transformations made to the symbols. Creating [...]

Gradient Mesh allows you to create shapes with gradients. And many artist has been able to create photo realistic drawings of people, products and vehicles just by using Gradient Mesh. Here is an example of photorealistic artwork by Halim Ghobane. If you don’t believe your eyes, the gradient mesh line will show the answer. Halim [...]

Illustrator Blend Tool does the trick of creating smooth transition between objects. You can blend open paths to create line effects and blend shapes to create realistic shadings. There are many creative things you can do with the Blend Tool and you will definitely be using it a lot in your illustrations. Blend Effects Here are [...]

The type tools allows some simple common text formatting. You will learn about columns, wrap text and text on a path. This will help you create aesthetic type effects on brochures and newsletter covers. Typing Text Using Point Text To create a point text, simply click once on the artboard using the Type Tool and type out [...]

In this lesson, you will learn how to quickly resize and rotate objects using the Transform functions. I will be showing some useful transform tricks to create random rotating objects using Transform Each function. Resizing Objects Method 1: Select the object with Selection Tool and the bounding box will appear. Select the corner handle and resize while [...]

Transparency effects open the door for designers to create eye catching effects. You can add transparency to drop shadows or apply blending modes to objects to enhance your illustrations. Adding Transparency You can add transparency in Illustrator by lowering the opacity of objects so that underlying artwork becomes visible. Go Window>Transparency to open up your Transparency [...]

As you start working on complicated illustrations, layers will start to build up. And you will have to group and arrange them so that you can move and edit the layers easily. I will show you an example of an illustration I did so that you can see how I name and group my layers. Layers [...]