today a highly requested video on how to make an isometric design and I'm gonna
show you how to make an isometric laptop in today's Illustrator tutorial we first
need to make an isometric grid but it is straight it doesn't have that built into
the program so I'm going to show you how to create a makeshift one right now so
choose the rectangular grid tool here and then click once on the artboards I'm
going to use 1000 pixels squared and also 120 for the vertical and the
horizontal numbers but just make sure they have the vertical and the
horizontal numbers as the same values
when ready we'll take the grid by 45 degrees but this is hardly isometric is
it so we need to head into the transform window and adjust the height values to
fifty seven point seven four percent and this number needs to be absolutely
precise so there is your isometric grid ready in Adobe Illustrator and you can
adjust the stroke weight here pending on how visible you want your isometric grid
to be now press command or control two to lock the grid down in place because
we're now going to design the isometric laptop today's tutorial is quite lengthy
but follow along and learn all of the tricks and the techniques or making a
stunning isometric design select a color and then make sure it's a stroke only in
the color palettes you can press shift annex a toggle between the stroke and
the fill now press P for the pencil and draw a
rectangle as I'm doing here using the isometric grid as a guide
now if you're somebody who's using illustrator CC you can press a to the
direct selection tool and you're going to be able to round off the corners
using the live function and if you want to round off just one corner at a time
select it at once and then hold on sheriff and then click again now if you
don't have CC you kind of cost you the round corners effect in the top
drop-down menu under effect and around corners now we only want to round off
three of the corners on the base of the laptop now hold down the alt option key
and then click and drag to make a duplication right below that shape press
save the direct selection tool again and you can manipulate the anchor points of
the new shape as I'm doing here on my design now this is going to help create
a kind of 3d effect on your isometry design today we need to make sure that
the original line is brought to the front of the new object in the layers
window it's now time to give the original shape a gradient that we can
change that later of course this is going to be the base of our isometric
laptop and I'd like a nice deep dark purple or blue gradient for my design
now the render looks pretty bad on my video due to the editing software but in
real life an illustrator it looks seriously smooth we compress a
G for the gradient tool to quickly change direction of the gradient over
the shape
now select the lower object and press I for the eyedropper tool and in sample
the above shape you're grading or fill will be transferred onto this shape to
which you can adjust as you see fits and I personally like to make this lower
shape darker in general for the isometric design feel so the base is
pretty much complete the let's select both shapes and impress command or
control two to lock them down in place so like I said for some reason my video
editing software makes the gradient look pretty horrible but if you see the final
designer looks really smooth and also you should be smooth on-screen now - I'm
going to now add a highlights using the pen tool and also a stroked line like so
so increase the stroke weights and then add the same stroke style as I'm going
to use you can also use the width tool here but when you have your line ready
open up the Europeans panel so here you can either use the outer glow effects or
even the Gaussian blur effect on your line this is going to make it appear
more blended into your design in general
so when we proceed to build up our isometric laptop things will begin to
look a lot better and make more sense for your design
so to ensure the raster effects look needs you can increase the values here
safeguard that all blurs and global ethics look smooth we now need to clear
the appearance settings in the appearance panel and then move on to the
next step in today's tutorial so draw in a small square as I'm doing here and
then hit into the appearance panel once more we can't add an outer glow effect
and this is going to be the light on the edge of the laptop and you can add as
many of these as you so wish just remember that small details like this
are really gonna help set off your isometric design when it's completed and
finished if I head into the layers window you can see that I've labeled all
of my layers to make my life easier but I want to unlock the top layer of the
base so I can sample the gradient for the next step in today's process
now I'm going to draw a rectangle for the touchpad and round off the corners
we did before you can flick the stroke of the touchpad over to a fill by
pressing Shift + X and then bring it on to your design in perfect placement
remember to have an object selected when you edit in the gradient now copy the
touchpad with command or ctrl C and then paste the duplication
already over the top using command ctrl F press shift + X to turn the duplicate
into a stroke and then press C for the scissors tool we're going to cut the
shape in half and they remove a section to give an illusion of shadow and depth
on the touchpad of the laptop
you can change the stroke style to make it blend into your design more at the
edges of the stroke line now the next step is quite annoying but it's
essential we're going to be making the keys of the laptop so press M for the
rectangle tool and draw the rectangle like so round off the corners of the
shape and then duplicate the rectangle by holding down the alt/option key and
then clicking a dragging press command or control D to repeat the process
leaving yourself with 14 different keys in total having the smart guy is
activated here is going to help immensely and you can do that by
pressing command or control you
now we need a perfect square so hold down shift and then use the rectangle
tool to generate a square and then run off the corners repeat the process so
you have 13 squares in total and then add on the last key which is a rectangle
you can duplicate this second row and then rotate it by 180 degrees because
they are essentially the same but in the opposite order now you can look on a
laptop and figure out the keys that are still remaining to be made because it
would take too long in today's video to show you the entire process of making
the keys but it doesn't need to be perfect because the main part of making
the isometric design look awesome is yet to come but when you do have your keys
ready select them all and then head into the Pathfinder window and unite them
together as one vector shape now we're going to first add a gradient and then
make your ISO metric later now my gradient is pretty funky and of course
you can change that later and also use any colors you want for your gradient
press G for the gradient tool to spread the grading over the entire key design
now we need to make this part of the laptop isometric so rotated by 45
degrees
and as we did early in the tutorial adjust the height values in the
transform window to fifty seven point seven four percent exactly now it's just
the case of arranging them on to isometric laptop base and as you can see
things are really starting to take shape but I've still got some cool techniques
to show you in today's illustrator tutorial so let's
continue now for the screen we're going to repeat the process that we use for
the base by drawing a rectangle using the pen tool and also the isometric grid
as a guide and then rounding off the corners and then duplicating the line
back and behind this layer needs to be behind the other layers of your design
in the layers window
and once you've rounded off the corners hold down the alt/option key and
duplicate the shape as we did earlier
and it helps to have all of these objects have strokes instead of fill
colors so you can press Shift + X to change that use a direct selection tool
to manipulate the anchor points of the behind shape as I'm doing here
and like I've already said it really does help to label your layers so that
you can keep track of everything and easily locate a specific part of your
design any given moment it is going to help to have the screen layers as tricks
for the next step or you can press command or control Y to enter into
outline mode but when ready drawing a rectangle for the actual screen itself
and this doesn't need to be rounded off
but the screen does need to fill gradient and for my design I've opted
for a kind of sky or baby blue for the gradient now if I had a background but
it's not permanent and I'm gonna change that later and also I've added a few
more highlights like we did before and these really do help with the overall
isometric design look and the feel and finally to really give our creation some
pop and a punch duplicate the screen out and able onto laptop itself the gradient
color for this second screen on my design is kind of white towards pink as
I feel it looks best in my design today
now to add some death to this layout screen choose white and a stroke in the
color plate and then draw around the corner edge of the new screen increase
the stroke weights and also change the stroke style to fit the screen itself
now you can experiment with the width tool here too but also you can change
the layer blend modes in the transparency window
I have made the background using the new gradient tool in Illustrator CC which
was very easy to do but if you haven't got CC then sorry you're gonna have to
make deal with the mesh - or something like that but the important thing here
is that I made the light source at the top right which fits even the lighting
on my design and then lastly today let's make a shadow for the isometric design
draw a rectangle and add the same isometric process as we did before by
rotating it 45 degrees and then adjusting the height values - fifty
seven point seven four percent
make sure this layer is below all of the other layers on your laptop in the
layers window and then add a Gaussian blur effect to the shape itself
the lake is that you can see on my screen were added using the free
transform tool which I actually forgot to show the process of using but there
you pretty much have it one needs entire the isometric laptop
design and this tutorial was I think is the longest video my channel two dates
and because now I've got a really good video editor I can make longer content
just like this video I'm still gonna make short tips videos too but from time
to time I will make longer tutorials like today's illustrator isometric
design tutorial don't forget to let me know what you thought of today's video
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already and until next time design your future today peace
you