Technique Thursday - Illustrator Pencil tool Part 2

Hi again!

This is part 2 of how to use Illustrator to create fun doodles and turn them into a Photoshop template.

So we left off with out little happy flower doodle.  Miss Bailey thinks it needs a lady bug to be truly happy… but she also thinks it should have a smiley face. ;)  "We'll see Miss Bailey." I say to her as she's sitting on my lap here wanting to draw a happy face. :D

There are several ways to create your mask items for a template depending on if you want the doodle lines or not.  I prefer to keep my doodle lines in case I want them for later to use for an overlay, pattern or just as is for a doodle.  Can you tell I like to multi task?

If you want to save your doodle lines for use later. 

Step 1 - Wanting the doodle lines.  If you don't care about the lines, skip this step.

The first thing I do is select all my layers together and dragging them into the New Layer icon at the bottom of the layer panel.

Then I take those copied layers and merge them into one by selecting and clicking on the Layers Panel menu and clicking Merge Selected.

This is now a layer with all my black lines of my doodle.  I temporarily turn this layer off by clicking the little eyeball next to the layer icon.  This way I won't be selecting as I work. 

Option 1 - Simple fill

You could just select each part of your flower and fill path using the color fill with the piece selected from the menu.  

Select your petal piece using your Selection Tool (V) by dragging your mouse curser over a part of the petal.  Then click on the tiny arrow in the menu bar on top to pull down your options and pick a color to fill the petal. See below.

Do this with each part you want a different color… OR cheat like I do!  I select all at first by dragging over all the lines and I color the color that has the most pieces. (The petals in this example).

Then I unselect all by clicking off to the side.

Now I click on only the lines I want to change the color like the center of the flower.  Go up to the menu and change to orange.

Then I drag my mouse over the stem and leaves and change to green.

Here's the result.  Cute little flower with color fill.

Option 2 - Creating a Live Paint object 

This option is good for when you are just wanting the color fill and will use the object as a whole and not as a template with individual pieces.

Select all of the paths by dragging your mouse over the whole flower.

In your top menu bar, OBJECT> LIVE PAINT> MAKE

Now everything is put onto one layer as a group.

Select your Live Paint bucket from your side menu bar.  Select the color you want the fill in the top menu bar again like we did for the pieces above.  And click inside every area you want that color to fill.

Do with each color of your flower change your colors as you like.

Almost the same results… but do you see the difference?  Look at the center of the flower.  You have the doodle lines of the petals showing.  That's the difference.  And there are things you can do to avoid that, but that is a more in depth lesson for later.  But that is why I prefer to fill as in the first option with layers.  You'll see another reason in a second here.  

Now all that is needed is to export our happy flower into a photoshop file so we can work with it.

First turn back on your doodle lines layer so it gets saved also.

Next go to FILE>EXPORT   

When the dialog box comes up, pick Photoshop to get a PSD file.

Then you will get another dialog box for options as shown here to the right.

Use the settings I have shown here.

The important part is 300ppi, Write Layers and unclick Maximum Editability or you will get all the paths too which we don't want for this.

Open the new PSD file in your Photoshop program.

This is now the layers you have.

Doodle on it's own layer on top.

Center of flower, petals and the stem with Leaves.

Now you can recolor, clip papers to each or leave as is.

If you don't want the petal lines to show up on your flower center, simply drag that layer above your doodle lined layer.

I decided that I didn't want the paper center and instead used a button for my flower center.  Here is my finished happy little flower with my papers and button from Emerging Spring kit.  And since Bailey wants her Lady Bug, I also brought in Betty Jo's cute little lady bug from her new release Ladybug Pink Mini Kit. :) 

The best part is, the original PSD can be used over and over as a template.  Now I can add shadows, burn the leaves and petals using my burn tool (As I showed you how to do in another Technique Thursday tutorial here.) 

So here it is with some quick brush strokes just to give my flower some depth. :)

Like this?  If you visit us at the DDS forum you can get the Happy Flower template for free in the Artist Studio under Mini Tutorials forum as a download. :)  You have to be registered in the forum and logged in to see the Artist Studio to get it.  Just click on Categories tab at the top and scroll down.  Can't miss it. Look for the thread with "Happy Flower" as the title. 

And be sure to visit the shop tomorrow Friday for our Friday Freebie and all new releases will be on sale.  And can I just say WOW, there's some nice products for tomorrow! Spring is definitely in the air! 

Till next Thursday!