Adobe Illustrator CS5 How-To Guide

Adobe® Illustrator ® CS5

How-To Guide

Rise Together Christian San Jose is a 20-year old graphic designer and illustrator based in Pasig, Philippines.
In 2007, he worked for Team Manila Graphic Design Studio Inc. as art director. His list of clients
by Christian San Jose include Nike Philippines, The Coca-Cola Company Philippines, ABS-CBN Broadcasting
Corporation, and OctoArts Films, among others.
As a freelance artist, Christian has collaborated on the branding
and merchandise of big-name bands, such as Paramore, Fall Out
Boy, Panic! At the Disco, Cobra Starship, Family Force 5, Worth
Dying For, Plain White T’s, and Forever the Sickest Kids.
He currently works full-time as a Senior Designer for Internet
Marketing at US Auto Parts Network (Philippines) Corporation.

How I work
I work mostly at home on a desktop computer, where I surround myself
with fun and colorful things that reflect my personality. I also work with a
Wacom Intuos3 6x8 tablet. At times I go out and take my work with me on
my notebook computer, likewise using the things I find around me for
new inspiration.

When I start new artwork, I usually grab a piece of paper and draw first. I
don’t do long planning and usually do little research, just creating with
what I have in mind about the subject at that moment. This keeps things
very fresh, creative, and spontaneous. I usually scan the rough sketch,
import it in Adobe Photoshop and adjust levels, then transfer to the image
to Adobe Illustrator to create vector shapes.

The inspiration for Rise Together

The Rise Together artwork stemmed from a recent calamity that forever
changed my country, the Philippines. Tropical Storm Ketsana ravaged the
Philippines in September 2009, bringing rains and floods in record
amounts. At one point, about 80% of the capital, Manila, was submerged
under water. Many were affected by the typhoon but it didn’t take long for
us, as a nation of Filipinos, to bring our country back.

The day after the typhoon, everybody went out and helped each other
through donations, relief and benefit projects—regardless of age or social
standing. The typhoon dealt a huge blow to our whole country indeed,
but the social action and togetherness it brought about among
countrymen was something never seen before. For me, the
camaraderie—everybody rising together out of such tragedy—was an
inspiring idea to focus on for the artwork.

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 Getting started
First I sketched my ideas on paper, then
I scanned the sketch in at 200dpi.

I opened the scan in Photoshop and

adjusted the levels to make the
lines cleaner.

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 I next placed the scan in Illustrator
and locked it onto a bottom layer. As a
guide,I added a new layer and created
blue stroked paths to serve as an
outline of the base typographic shapes.

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 I started tracing the scanned sketch using the
Pen tool with no fill and a 1-pixel weight stroke.
You can see here that I’m in Isolation Mode,
which makes working on this group easier.

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 Variable width strokes
Here is where I found a new Illustrator CS5
feature that’s perfect for me. I used the Width
tool to adjust the width of parts of my paths to
give the strokes variation and a more natural,
organic feel.

You can see that each side of a stroke can be

controlled independently at wherever point in
the path you want it.

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 At this point, I added more details to the
artwork using the Pen tool, and I used the
Pathfinder panel to merge and remove
shapes to get the look I want.

After I finished with the typography layer, I

set it aside by hiding the layer temporarily.
Next I started on the background.

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 The background
For the background, I wanted to illustrate hands
reaching out, so I found some stock photos. I
gathered these images and placed them on my
Illustrator artboard, locking them into place.

To sketch the hands and other background elements, I

created tapered paths using the Pen tool, and turned them
into Art Brushes by dragging them to the Brushes panel.

To make the brushes pressure sensitive for my pen and

tablet, I adjusted the Art Brush options the way I wanted.

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 I created 3 new pressure sensitive Art Brushes
to create the different varied strokes with my
tablet. I sketched around the hand shapes
until I was satisfied with the line art.

Using the same pressure sensitive Art Brush

method I created other elements for the
background of my artwork, such as birds.

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 For the other elements of the background and for
the composition of it, I drew a sketch on paper,
scanned it, and imported it into Illustrator. As with
the other reference images, I placed it on a bottom
layer and locked it down.

I traced over the background sketch

with new stroked paths, just as I did
previously with the typography layer.

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 I wanted to taper out the ends of some of these curved lines,
so I used the Width tool again to pull the open ends of the
path inwards to create the taper.

Another thing I used with Variable Width strokes is

the creating and saving of width profiles that you
can use again and again. I applied saved profiles to
the stroked paths in the background to add to the
level of detail in the artwork.

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 When all the background elements were created, I
placed them on one layer and locked them all in
place temporarily. And at this point, I removed all
of my scanned reference images and guides.

Next I brought back the hidden typography layer,

nudging it and adjusting the placement until it
looks good on the background and I feel I have
finished the composition.

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 Applying color
For applying the color, I created a
new layer right below the typography
layer. I added colors by filling the
paths I created with the Pen tool.

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 I then created paths for the 3D sides of the
middle line of text shapes and merged
them to create one compound path.

Using the new Drawing Modes feature in Illustrator, I

quickly changed this compound path into a Clipping Mask.
With the compound path selected, I clicked the Draw
Inside option on the toolbar. I then painted on the 3D sides
with my strokes automatically clipped by my mask.

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 The Bristle Brush
Here’s where I got to use the new Bristle Brush in
Illustrator. I wanted softness in the 3D depth shapes
and used the Bristle Brush to paint these tones. I
found I could make natural, fluid brush strokes that
felt and looked like traditional media such as
watercolors or oil paint. I tried a variety of brush
shapes, such as the Flat Fan and the Round Point.

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 After painting the letter depth, I adjusted the
opacity of the clipped group. I also created a
new filled compound path above and adjusted
the color using the Transparency panel with
the Color Blending mode selected.

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 Finishing up
After adding color to
the background, and
with several more
color adjustments, the
artwork was done.

Rise Together was commissioned by Adobe and created using

Adobe Illustrator CS5.
Christian San Jose has chosen to donate the proceeds from this
work to help rebuild his country, the Philippines.

For more information

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San Jose, CA 95110-2704
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