Hello everyone and welcome back, I am your host Elias Sarantopoulos.
This Drop Cap Vectornator tutorial was inspired by a Byzantine Church built in 1321.
Currently a museum, located in Istanbul, Turkey it hosts a plethora of mosaics, some surrounded
by floral motifs.
So in this Vectornator tutorial we follow a sketch inspired by such decorative designs,
using circular shapes to lay down the ground work, use the pen tool for our curves, and
create variable stroke widths.
As a final step, we will export our inspired drop cap from Vectornator to Adobe InDesign
and plug it into a paragraph.
So inside the Vectornator 2 I'm going to start off using shapes to lay down the groundwork
for some smooth curves and here I'm using the Oval tool to create a normal shape, slightly
rotate it and position it close to these sketch we have in the background, like so.
And then I'm going to use the Scissors tool to create one cut right there and I'm just
going to remove the remaining of the paths by going up to the Action bar and tap on the
Trash icon.
Again I'm going to use the Oval tool to create another oval shape, slightly rotate it and
position it as close as you can to the sketch we have in the background...there you go and
then again we're going to use the Scissors tool, this time we're going to create two
cuts, one there and one right there and then I'm going to remove the remaining of the paths.
OK now with the Node Selection tool, marquee select the last node and then we use the Pen
tool to tap and drag a small node so we have two Bezier handles to work with as we continue
drawing.
Now all I'm doing here is dragging and holding the canvas with a second finger to disconnect
the Bezier handles and then change the direction of the path.
Continue doing that, there you go.
I'm going to use the Node Selection tool to just reposition this and have a better curve
like so.
Again I'm going to use the Oval tool to create another oval shape for this curve here, try
to move this as close as you can to the last node we drew...and then again I'm going to
use the Scissors tool to create another cut right there, and then just remove the remaining
of the paths.
Now marquee select those two paths and then under the Paths Inspector and the Paths tab
use the Joint Paths operation to join those two paths.
Again I'm going to use the Oval tool, this time creating a perfect circle so position
is as close as you can to the two end nodes, again I'm going to create another cut so use
the Scissors tool to create one cut and then remove the remaining paths like so.
Now marquee select those two paths and then again join them and then marquee select the
remaining two paths and join them as well, and then with a Node Selection tool just try
to smooth out any paths that you can so we have a nice and organic shape.
So I'm going to continue this and finish the right side of the floral shape, again I'm
using the Oval tool to create a perfect circle, position is as close as you can to the sketch
and then we're going to use the again the Scissors tool we're going to create two cuts,
one there and one there, and then I'm just going to remove the remaining of the paths.
I'm going to use the Node Selection tool to marquee select that node and then use the
Pen tool to drag out one Bezier handle so we have two so the next path is again smooth
path that will help you to do so, then marquee select those two and join them up.
Again with the Node Selection tool, marquee select that node and kind of refine it a bit
and using the same tool marquee select on that node and then use the Pen tool to make
sure you have two Bezier handles to be able to help you have a smooth curve on your next path here.
And then continue this to close that up like so I'm going to use the Node Selection tool
because I need to refine this even more since I can see that it needs a bit of a work.
So I'm just going to spend some time here alone and refine this even more so I have
a smooth and organic shape for my floral drop cap.
Now let's go ahead and continue tracing our floral motif drop cap and I'm just going to
focus on the left side so I'm just going to rotate the canvas here like so and then take
the Pen tool again so we're going to tap and drag, tap and drag then I'm going to tap one
figure of the canvas to change the direction of the path.
Continue drawing those wonderful little curves here we've got, another curve here and maybe
another one there.
OK, so with the Node Selection tool just refine everything because we're going to actually
reflect this to the other side.
OK I think that looks good and under the Settings Inspector here and under the Snapping tab
I'm going to turn on the Smart Guides so with the Node Selection tool marquee select this
anchor point here, this node and make sure it snaps to the node on the top, like so.
OK so marquee select that path and on the top Actions bar here tap to Copy and then
tap to Paste so now we have two identical ones and let's see under the Edit Inspector
and under the Arrange I'm going to flip this Vertically, I'm just going to move this to
the other side, like so.
Marquee select those two and then under the Path tab join those two paths, there you go,
that looks good, we have a nice curved Floral motif here.
What I can improve actually, I'm going to go to this top node OK because I have a little
bit of a corner here as you can see.
So here's the trick, I'm going to double tap on this node here with the Node Selection
tool and now we get the we change the type to a corner point so if you double tap again
then this becomes an asymmetrical node Bezier handle and that's actually a better curve for me.
OK so I'm going to...from here I'm just going to go and continue tracing the remaining of
the floral motif drop cap on my own since the techniques are pretty much the same.
Now that we have the floral motif drawn I'm going to work on this top floral path here
and give it a bit of a variable width.
Now inside vector later the way you do this is by going to the Path Inspector and under
the Path tab, tap on the Outline function and that converts the stroke of a path into
a new edible path with a Fill so after you do this tap on the Node Selection tool and
then tap anywhere inside and then you want to tap carefully on the Stroke around and
here again with the Node Selection tool tap and pull that in.
OK, so pull those in to your liking and see which ones you think might work for your designs.
Now another thing you can do is you can actually tap on one you just remove it, OK, because
sometimes you just have a lot and makes things a little bit harder to control, sometimes
you want to add, it depends...OK so I'm just going to spend just a little time here, let's
see maybe here on the top, there you go, definitely here, I can remove that but I need that one,
there we go, this one I can bring in, this one and I think that looks good, again you
can continue improving all this, once you're done, select that and then again under the
Path tab here on the Path Inspector tap on the Separate function and now we have two
different paths.
So focus on the one inside, so tap on that now let's give it another color, let's say
white, like so, you see so now we have a variable width.
So for this one go back to the Inspector, the Path Inspector and then let's see this,
tap to Outline and then immediately tap on the Separate function.
Because I'm not going to do any variable width here, just going to focus on the one inside
and then let's give it a color of white, OK and all I'm going to do here is just size
this down, just a tad, then you can slightly rotate it to something along those lines.
OK now the last thing I want to work on the floral motif drop cap before I export it to
InDesign just to add the letter E so tap on the Type tool, tap once OK, just make sure
you go back to the Node Selection tool here, I am just going to resize this and let's see,
let's give it another color, a Fill a color, black will be fine for me, going to position
this and then size it up even more, let's see perhaps even more something along those lines.
I'm going to have to do some shuffling here on the inside the layers so maybe I'm going
to bring this down below here OK and then I'll make sure that under the Path tab I'm
going to tap on the Create Outlines from Text so this turns into an object and we no longer
Edit that text by typing.
So I think I like what I see so I'm going to tap on the Export Inspector here and we
have some choices.
You can Send it to Illustrator which sends is directly to your desktop running Adobe
Illustrator, we can also send it to the Creative Cloud library or we can export it to other
various supported file extensions, basically Vectornator has you covered, its great about that!
So Vectornator 2 the file was exported perfectly fine into Adobe Illustrator as an SVG which
stands for Scalable Vector Graphics, preserving all layers so from there on all I'm going
to do is marquee select all the artwork, CTRL + C (Win) / Cmd + C (Mac), and I'm going to
paste this inside an open InDesign document so that will be CTRL + V (Win) / Cmd + V (Mac).
I'm going to resize this so use Alt + Shift (Win) / Option + Shift (Mac), I can actually
do this numerically here, there we go.
And I'm just going to place this in the beginning of this paragraph here and all I'm going to
do now is create a bit of a space around it so I'm going to use Text Wrap and the only
space that I want is a bit of the Right Offset, like so.
Let me zoom in 100%, there you go, and you know I can use this decorative floral Drop
Cap from EPUBs or any other digital publication for my work or clients, all designed and created
inside Vectornator 2.
Thank you for spending time with me, let me know if you have any questions below the comments
section, don't forget to subscribe to my channel and share the knowledge.
Elias Sarantopoulos.