ANgiE tAYLoR 🧷

Tag: free tutorials

  • Illustrator CS6 – Learn by Video

    Illustrator CS6 – Learn by Video

    I’m very pleased to announce that my new workshop – Adobe Illustrator CS6 – Learn by Video – is now available to buy directly from the web store on my videos page. I’m also featuring some free example movies from this workshop right here so you can try before you buy.

    Newsletter subscribers can also benefit from a 20% discount code off the price of the entire workshop so if you haven’t already subscribed you can do so now to take advantage of this and other special offers only available to my subscribers.

    This Learn by Video course offers in-depth training on the interface, workflow, and features of Adobe Illustrator CS6. Amongst other things you’ll learn my own techniques for drawing characters including my “Illustrator” superhero. Here’s the intro movie where I tell you more about the course.

    The contents of this course include:

    Introducing Illustrator CS6
    In this chapter you’ll be introduced to Adobe Illustrator — what it is and what it does — and get an overview of what will be covered in this course. You’ll also be taken on a tour of the new features in Illustrator CS6.

    Illustrator Fundamentals
    This chapter explores two concepts that are crucial to an understanding of how Illustrator works: the difference between bitmap (or raster) images and vector images, and the concept of paths.

    Exploring the Illustrator Interface
    In this chapter you’ll learn how to work with important elements of the Illustrator interface like panels, the Application bar and frame, artboards, and workspaces.

    Navigating and Using Views in Illustrator
    Being able to easily move around your documents and see them in different ways can be a big help in your work. This chapter will explain how to navigate in Illustrator CS6 and use the different viewing and screen modes.

    Working with Documents
    This chapter shows you how to efficiently create, modify, and view documents. You’ll learn how to use templates, guides, grids, Adobe Bridge, and more.

    Creating and Working with Shapes
    Shapes are a very important part of Illustrator, and in this chapter you’ll learn about the various tools available for creating and modifying shapes.

    Transformations
    You can transform objects in a variety of different ways in Illustrator CS6. This chapter shows you the various methods that can be used to transform and modify objects, including how to use the Transform panel.

    Understanding Objects and Layers
    This chapter shows you how to select and modify objects in Illustrator CS6 and explores the multitude of options you can use to create artwork. We’ll look at saving selections, grouping items, layers and stacking order, and Isolation mode.

    Drawing
    Drawing is at the heart of the work you’ll do in Illustrator. In this chapter you’ll learn all about the tools, techniques, and features related to drawing in Illustrator CS6.

    Using Symbols
    Symbols are a handy feature in Illustrator, and in this chapter you’ll learn how to create them, move and rotate them, adjust their size and color, and apply graphic styles.

    Color
    Color makes a big difference to the appearance of your artwork. In this chapter you’ll learn how to work with color-related features in Illustrator like the Colors panel, swatches, gradients, Live Paint, and more.

    Typography
    In this chapter you’ll learn how to add text to your documents, format that text, create styles, and more.

    Working with Images
    In this chapter, you’ll learn how to place graphics and see all the tools Illustrator offers once they are there to help you get great results in your designs.

    Working with Effects
    With effects, you can apply a look to a path that doesn’t alter the path at all. It will print like what you see on your monitor, but in reality, it’s all just an illusion…a very powerful, editable, printable illusion that can be saved as a PDF, placed in Photoshop and InDesign, and more. You’ll learn all about this incredible technology in this chapter.

    Graphs
    If you have information you want to convey as a graph or chart, Illustrator has the tool. The chart and graph tools in Illustrator aren’t new, but they are very powerful and allow you to present data in a more interesting way, as you’ll see in this chapter.

    Beyond Illustrator
    Eventually there will come a time when you want to save your Illustrator work as a PDF or in one of the common web file formats, or output it for use in an animation. The videos in this chapter will show you how.

    Project Explorations
    In this chapter you’ll apply the skills you’ve learned in this course to some projects that give you an idea of just what Illustrator is capable of.

    Closing Thoughts
    In this chapter you’ll get a brief recap of what’s been covered in the course and a few final thoughts from the author.

    The lessons are wrapped in a feature-rich interface that lets you jump to any topic and bookmark individual sections for later review. Full-Screen mode provides a hi-def, immersive experience, and Watch-and-Work mode shrinks the video into a small window so you can play the videos alongside your application. Also included are exercise files that give you an easy way to try out the techniques you learn and a 48-page guide containing supplemental material.

    Click here to subscribe to my Newsletter and enefit from a 20% discount code off the price of the entire workshop.

  • Typography Video Training

    Typography Video Training

    Creative Graphic Design: Essential Typography

    – a typography video-training workshop on the principles of designing text.

    Design Essentials for the Motion Media ArtistI’ve just finished recording my latest workshop with the fantastic team at video2brain. It’s a workshop with a difference.

    If you want the salient points delivered to you quickly so you can get on with your work, this product is perfect for you. It’s a series of short videos that form an educational and enjoyable workshop that you can sit back and enjoy – imbibing my knowledge as you go!

    It’s based upon the Typography chapter from my book, Design Essentials for the Motion Media Artist. Not everyone likes to read books or needs the level of detail covered in Design Essentials so this provides an alternative.

    It provides a quick-reference guide in the format of a video presentation. All the essential key principles of Typography that every designer needs are covered. And it won’t bog you down with too much detail (that’s what the book is for right?) it’s fast-paced and illustrated throughout with helpful animated diagrams and examples of work.

    Learn about the history and anatomy of type as well as the terminology used to describe the components of text. Discover the difference between typefaces and fonts, glyphs and characters, serifs and sans serifs, kerning and tracking, leading and baseline shift. Find out when and why you would use specific fonts based on  aesthetics, cultural associations and characteristics.

    The anatomy of type

    This workshop expands on the content of the book with additional software exercises to improve your typographic software skills. You’ll learn how to apply the principles of typography in practical ways to graphic design projects. Software exercises will show you how Adobe’s Character and Paragraph panels can help make the most of your text, creating unique and exciting effects.

    I’ll also teach you lots of neat tricks like animating text along paths in After Effects and making text write on the screen. In Illustrator we’ll use operators to customize lettering, giving it a hand drawn look,. We’ll create 3D Text in Photoshop and add Layer Styles to brighten up our graphic designs. In InDesign you’ll make the most of its powerful Open Type features such as ligatures, glyphs and other special characters.

     

     

    With this comprehensive typography video training workshop you can simply sit back and watch as I present the principles for you. If you feel like following along, all the exercise files are provided. The videos are short and easily digested and you won’t get bogged down with technical jargon as I explain difficult concepts using easy-to-understand, real-world terminology.

    If you’d like to be notifies when this title becomes available please click on this link.

     

  • 20% off new Todd Kopriva After Effects workshop

    20% off new Todd Kopriva After Effects workshop

    This week I’m giving a 20% discount to anyone who wants to buy the fantastic new workshop on Motion Tracking & Stabilisation by Todd Kopriva which is now available to buy from my video training store. Just enter MOTION into the Coupon Code box when buying from my shop. It’s valid till July 15th 2011.

    If you want to check out some free samples before buying there are some links to free sample movies here, including; An Overview of the mocha-AE Interface and Workflow, Overview of Warp Stabilizer Effect and more details about the Warp Stabilizer controls and workflow

    This workshop covers all the tools and techniques used for motion tracking and image stabilization in After Effects, including the point tracker, the Warp Stabilizer Effects, and mocha-AE. The contents of this course include:

    Introduction
    This chapter introduces you to motion tracking and shows you frame-by-frame how manual motion tracking works.

    Motion Tracking with the Point Tracker
    Once you determine what kind of motion you want to track, you’ll need to decide what you will apply the tracking data to. This chapter explains your options and shows you how to remove tracking markers when you’re done.

    Motion Tracking with mocha-AE
    This chapter walks you through using mocha-AE, a standalone application that can export tracking data for use in After Effects.

    Stabilizing Motion
    Ever been frustrated working with shaky footage? This chapter shows you how to add stability to your projects by using the new Warp Stabilizer effect.

    The lessons are wrapped in a feature-rich interface that lets you jump to any topic and bookmark individual sections for later review. Full-Screen mode provides a hi-def, immersive experience, and Watch-and-Work mode shrinks the video into a small window so you can play the videos alongside your application. This course also includes project files so you can follow along and try out new techniques as you learn them.

  • Animated Character Design in Adobe Illustrator

    Animated Character Design in Adobe Illustrator

    I’m very pleased to offer my readers a couple of free tutorials from my very first video2brain workshop on Adobe Illustrator. This workshop will teach you how to use Illustrator’s tools and features to prepare 2D files for animation in Adobe After Effects.

    You’ll learn how to make the most of Illustrator’s drawing tools and Autotrace feature, and to how use Live Paint and Kuler to recolor artwork. You’ll also get tons of tips and tricks for giving artwork a hand-drawn look and find out how to set up layers, aspect ratios, and transparency options for importing into After Effects.

    I’ll share many of my techniques for using Illutrator’s extensive drawing capabilities to create characters for animation. Topics covered include:

    • Setting up your workspace for video and animation
    • Working with Autotrace, Live Paint, and Kuler
    • Using multiple artboards for creating storyboards
    • Taking advantage of views and workspaces
    • Drawing freehand in Illustrator using a variety of tools including the new improved Eraser tool and the Blob Brush tool

    Whether you’re a motion graphic designer, animators, storyboard artists, video editors or illustrators, if you want to create 2D animation from flat, vector-based artwork, this workshop will be an invaluable resource.

    The lessons are wrapped in a feature-rich interface that lets you jump to any topic and bookmark individual sections for later review. Full-Screen mode provides a hi-def, immersive experience, and Watch-and-Work mode shrinks the video into a small window so you can play the videos alongside your application. Also included are exercise files that give you an easy way to try out the techniques you learn.

    Click here to get an overview of the workshop and download free tutorials using the following links;

    Working with Live Paint

    Working with the Brush Tool

  • Adobe After Effects Training DVD and book

    Adobe After Effects Training DVD and book

    Well, it’s all happening this week! My new book, “Design Essentials for the Motion Media Artist” finally went on sale. I’m so excited and can’t wait to hear what people think of it – waiting for the first reviews is always an anxious time!

    As well as the book, I also have a new training DVD on the way which I worked on with the amazing Todd Kopriva from Adobe. “Adobe After Effects CS5 – Learn by Video” was produced by the brilliant team at video2brain and is available to pre-order now.


    As a little taster of what’s to come is available to view completely free now. Adobe After Effects CS5: Frequently Asked Questions – Zip Past Common Hurdles
    In this free course, Todd Kopriva, co-author of Adobe After Effects CS5 Learn by Video, helps you avoid common After Effects hiccups with a collection of answers to Frequently Asked Questions. Whether you´re having audio hiccups, getting pixelated vector graphics, or getting oversized files or jerky playback, Todd equips you to zip past these common hurdles and get back to creating great effects. I hope you enjoy these free tutorials and look forward to hearing your feedback.