This tutorial was made in another version of Illustrator, but it could still be made in CC 2015. I, however, used the new automatic pattern functions. I thought the pattern shown was too busy, so I made a simple pattern. I am not totally satisfied with it, but got tired of working with it. You are shown how to make the owl and other autumnal elements in Illustrator: berry twig, leaves, acorn and mushroom (which I chose not to use in my final design).

I used the owl and other design elements to make a new Facebook cover and profile.

NOTE: I often had trouble reaching the Zombie Dream web site (technical memory problems), so I finally made a pdf of the tutorial. Remember, this tutorial is the property of Zombie Dream.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I have a subscription at Envato Tuts+ (tutsplus.com) where there are a lot of really good tutorials and courses. The course “Cartoon Creature Design” consists of 11 videos that teach you how to create a set of fancy cartoon characters with various facial expressions and body shapes. This is my first first friendly monster after completing lesson 2.1 and 2.2.

The course continues by showing you how to create two new monsters, and then how to create new monsters from the faces and bodies created in the first lessons. Finally, the course gives some tips on recoloring the monsters. I will post my new monster in my blog. :)

As mentioned in Cartoon Creature Design: 1st Monster, the course “Cartoon Creature Design” consists of 11 videos that teach you how to create a set of fancy cartoon characters with various facial expressions and body shapes. This is my second friendly monster after completing lesson 2.3 and 2.4.

Only one more left, and then I plan on getting my creative juices going and make my own designs. :)

This tutorial took some time to complete but the final result made it worth the time. I didn’t, however, follow the tutorial for the beach background. I used an action by PSD Dude that you can find HERE in the Envato market.

This was a fun and fairly quick tutorial. I’m not entirely pleased with the colors from the original tutorial, but after playing around with them I decided not to change them.

Right now at work I am truly as busy as a bee, as we are in the midst of arranging exams. I am truly thankful for all of the room invigilators that we have. Without them, I would not survive this time of the year.

As mentioned in a previous post, Laura Coyle’s tutorials are very good. She is truly a great teacher. Both her classes and tutorials are free at Illustratoring.com. The following is the introduction from the class:

Learn about Calligraphic Illustrator brushes, the Paintbrush Tool, and the Blob Brush Tool. You’ll learn the settings for getting the most out of these tools with a pressure sensitive Wacom tablet. Create a set of Illustrator brushes to use for linework and coloring, then follow along as Laura guides you through a complete, fun, floral art project, complete with tracing art and a custom color palette. Get into freehand drawing in Illustrator with this complete project!

Subscribe for password access (The password unlocks all of our classes), then you can watch the video lessons and download the files on our Ink & Paint private class page. Pay What You Wish if you use the classes.

I have a subscription at Envato Tuts+ (tutsplus.com), where there are a lot of really good tutorials and courses. The image above was the final product from the course “Creating a Retro Illustration in Illustrator”. The course consists of 7 videos showing you all the details for creating the image while teaching you important skills that can be used for creating other artwork.

This course has enough details so that you can easily follow along. As usual, I had to rewind a lot, but that’s how it is with video tutorials. Most of this course was a review of what I already knew, but I did learn about using the “roughen” effect (under “Distort & transform”) both when creating a brush and by applying it to existing strokes. The use of the roughen effect helps create a more organic look to your artwork.

This is part 1 of the course, where the goal is to make a line art style portrait. That is, all of the details are drawn either with the pen tool og brush tool. The only coloring is the background and eyes for contrast. In part 2, which I will soon start, the goal is to color this line drawing and add simple shading.