Today we're going to play around with various shapes to build a simple little rocket spaceship.
We'll use basic shapes to not only make creating the illustration easy, it also gives it a
stylised, cartoon like appearance.
After building the outlines we'll add some colour to bring it to life, then I'll show
you some techniques for producing different kinds of illustration styles.
So open up Adobe Illustrator and create a new document.
Use whatever size is your default, but set the color mode to RGB.
The size of the artboard doesn't matter at all because we'll be hiding the artboard from
under the View menu anyway.
This gives us a nice large area to work with.
Head back under the View menu and make sure you have Smart Guides enabled.
These will help you snap and align your shapes later.
I've set out a bunch of squares with preset fills as a makeshift colour palette.
If you want to follow along, create a red of 231/76/71
A slightly darker red of 170/49/49
A light grey of 230/230/230
A dark blue of 56/42/71
and a pale yellow of 246/247/201
You could save these colours as swatches so they're easily accessible.
Reset your fill and stroke settings back to the default white and black, then select the
Ellipse tool.
Draw a long oval shape as the rocket body.
Select the Pen tool, then hold the ALT key while clicking the top and bottom points to
remove the bezier handles and convert them into corners.
Use the Ellipse tool to draw another smaller oval near the bottom, overlapping the bottom
portion to make space for the thruster.
Switch back to the Selection tool in order to add the main body to the selection while
holding the Shift key, then click the Horizontal Align Center button from the Align panel.
Activate the Pathfinder panel, then click the Minus Front button to punch out the oval
shape from the rocket body.
Change the tool to a Rectangle and draw a basic shape as the thruster.
Toggle to the Selection tool to add both items to the selection and align them with the Horizontal
Align Center button.
Select just the rectangle, then right click and choose Arrange > Send to Back so that
the fill of the main body shape disguises where the two shapes overlap.
Use the Ellipse tool to draw a large circle that will represent two of the wings.
Hold Shift to keep it perfectly circular.
Select both the circle and the main rocket body with the Selection tool, then give the
body an extra click to make it the key object.
This will ensure it doesn't move out of place.
Instead the circle will move into position when you click the Horizontal Align Center
button.
Select just the circle, then go to Edit > Copy followed by Edit > Paste in Front.
Move the duplicate shape downwards, while holding the Shift key to keep it straight.
Shift and click the original to add both shapes to the selection, then click the Minus Front
button from the Pathfinder window to punch out the overlapping circle, leaving a crescent
shape.
Reposition the wings relative to the body if necessary, then go to Arrange > Send to
Back to disguise the overlap.
Use another oval shape to draw a third wing.
Use the Smart Guides to align it so it matches the size of the other two, then center it
up.
Select the Pen tool and ALT+click the top and bottom points to convert them into corners.
Overlap another circle at the top of the rocket over the nose area.
An alternative to the Pathfinder panel is the Shapebuilder tool.
Select the rocket body and the new circle, then hold the ALT key and click the excess
to quickly remove it.
Draw another oval that covers the bottom edge of this nose shape.
Switch over to the Selection tool to select both shapes, then centre them up, making sure
to add the nose cone as the key object so it doesn't move out of place.
Trim away this shape using either the Pathfinder panel or the Shapebuilder tool.
With the nose cone still selected, go to Object > Path > Offset Path.
Enter 10px in the options.
Add the rocket body to the Selection by clicking while holding the Shift key, then ALT+click
the excess to trim it away with the Shapebuilder tool.
Finish off the rocket with a little window using a basic circle.
Centre it up, then Copy/Paste in Front a duplicate.
Scale this duplicate down slightly while holding the ALT and Shift keys.
To add some extra details, use the Pen tool to draw a dividing line halfway through the
nose cone and wing.
The Smart Guides make it easy to snap perfectly to the centre.
Zoom out and draw a selection around all the shapes that make up the rocket.
ALT+Drag a duplicate to save a copy of the original.
We'll colour the other one in.
Since the illustration isn't completely made out of fully closed shapes, we can't simply
alter the fill colours.
Instead we'll use the Live Paint Bucket.
Select all the artwork, then give it a click with the Live Paint Bucket tool.
Switch over to the Eyedropper tool and deselect everything before sampling the first colour
from those swatch shapes.
Switch back to the Live Paint Bucket and click the relevant areas of the illustration to
have this colour applied.
Repeat the process with each of the other colours, using the Eyedropper to sample it
as a Fill, then apply it with the Live Paint Bucket tool.
This is where saving those colours as Swatches would have been slightly quicker.
You could then just click the swatch without having to toggle back and forth between tools.
Because of the overlapping shapes, the Live Paint tool needs applying to multiple segments
to fully colour some shapes.
Don't forget to change the colour of the Strokes to fit in with this colour scheme.
Activate the stroke setting in the toolbar, then use the Eyedropper tool to sample the
dark blue colour.
Be sure to hold the shift key while clicking, otherwise it will sample the appearance of
the shape and apply the dark blue as a fill.
Bump up the stroke weight to 2pt from under the Stroke Panel.
Make a duplicate of this coloured version of the rocket illustration.
There's a clever little trick that can really help make your illustrations stand out.
Go to Object > Expand to apply the Live Paint effects, then Copy and paste a copy of the
rocket on top of itself.
Click the Unite button in the Pathfinder panel to create an outline.
Increase the stroke weight to 4pt to generate a thicker outline.
This outlined look is my favourite illustration style, but there are loads of other art styles
you can try.
Make another duplicate of the original rocket and see what it looks like with no outline
at all by clearing the stroke.
This is more like the trendy flat look that's popular at the moment.
Make another duplicate of this flat style rocket and go to Object > Expand again to
apply the Live Paint effects.
Repeatedly right click and select Ungroup to completely break it apart.
Select both halves of the nose cone and Unite them with the Pathfinder panel.
Do the same with the wing, then with the body where there's lots of individual pieces to
select and merge together.
Draw a selection around all the shapes and press CMD+C and CMD+F to Copy and Paste in
Front.
Replace all the fills with a black to white gradient.
Switch over to the Transparency panel and change the blending mode to Overlay.
The black portion of the gradient will darken the underlying colour slightly, while the
white will brighten it.
The Overlay mode in particular also adds some vibrancy, but you could also try Soft Light
for a subtler look, or either Screen or Multiply for just shadows or highlights.
Deselect everything, then activate the Gradient tool.
Hold the CMD key to toggle the Selection tool in order to select each shape in turn, then
click and drag to alter the gradient direction.
Compare all the rockets to see the range of art styles we've made form this one illustration
I'm going to choose my favourite to finish it off into a neat little graphic.
Draw a selection around all the elements and Group them together, so you can move it around
without losing any pieces.
Draw a circle as a container, then give it a dark blue fill.
Line it up centrally with the Align panel.
Give it a slightly lighter stroke with a 20pt weight.
Sample the pale yellow colour from the palette that we haven't used yet, then draw a little
circle.
Click the New Symbol icon in the Symbols panel, then delete this shape.
Grab the Symbol Sprayer tool and begin painting a load of circles to represent the basics
of a smoke cloud underneath the rocket.
Switch to the Symbol Sizer tool and click around to randomise the size of some of the
circles to help fill in some of the gaps.
Use the Symbol Shifter tool to bunch them together and move them around to close any
gaps where the blue backdrop is showing through.
Select the main circle container then copy and paste it.
Bring it to the top with the Arrange > Bring to Front command, then hold Shift and select
the symbol group.
Right click and choose Make Clipping Mask to trim the yellow circles to fit inside this
container circle.
Draw a rectangle using this pale yellow colour, aligned from the rocket's thruster.
Use the shortcut for the Arrange > Send Backwards command, which is CMD+[ (or CTRL on Windows),
until the rectangle sits underneath the rocket.
Head to Object > Envelope Distort > Make With Warp, then alter the settings to Shell Lower
with the Horizontal option.
Configure the Bend and Vertical sliders to produce a blast that flows into the rest of
the cloud.
So I hope you found the tips in this tutorial useful.
If you did, be sure to hit the Subscribe button to stick around for more.
If you're a bit of a space nerd you can pick up this artwork as a t-shirt from my little
merch store.
Join my mailing list at Spoon Graphic if you want to keep up with all my content beyond
YouTube, otherwise thank you very much for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.