Learning Illustrator

I have heard many people in my design class say at one time or another that they are Illustrator experts but they can’t even use Photoshop.

I am the total opposite.

I can do almost anything in Photoshop, even use the Pen tool like it’s used in Illustrator. I just have never needed Illustrator to do my design. I haven’t needed it, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t have used it to make things easier or to create something in vector rather than raster. So today, a day after receiving an email from a design firm that I want to work for this Summer, I set out to illustrate a guitar using Adobe Illustrator. The email I received inquired about my illustration skills. I know the concept of Illustrator, even the pen tool is easy to me, but actually creating things in Illustrator is something I’ve never done.

My freshman year we had to do a tutorial and create robo waitress in Illustrator, this thing was the demise of almost everyone. We were then threatened to have to airbrush this same image… If you’ve ever used an airbrush, (a real one, not a paintbrush in photoshop), you know how crazy this would be to do. So, I guess I found this tutorial unhelpful, since it told you exactly what to do and how to do it.

This is a side-by-side of the guitar I made tonight. It was a 3 hour job. I used the Gradient Mesh tool. for the body of the guitar and just other basic shapes.