Computerized Technical Drawing (Week 7)

SHAPE MODES & MANIPULATE TECHNICAL DRAWING WITH PEN TOOLS 

Hi guys, in this week lesson, I learnt how to manipulate technical flat template by using Adobe Illustrator. Well, for those who do not know what is technical flat drawing, here is the description about technical flat drawing.

Technical Flat is a black and white fashion technical drawing that shows a garment as if it were laid flat to display all the seams, topstitch, and any other fashion details. Drawing a technical flat is not just draw a garment, instead, we need to know how to draw the details, as well as which is overlap with each other, and etc. For instance, if we want to draw a collar, notched collar or high stand collar, we must draw the collar sit on the shoulder, so that it does not look strange. Therefore, knowing how the garment's details are the first step to understand for decent technical flat drawings.

Well, in my opinion, drawing technical flat in Adobe Illustrator by using Pen Tool is not as hard as what I think. Unless you do not really know how to use pen tool, then I think it gonna be quite difficult. Here is what I did during my Computerized Technical Drawing class!

First thing first, I did use technical flat drawing template at the first layer, and I add another layer to draw on it with pen tool. 

Basically, before you start drawing technical flat with Adobe Illustrator, it is a must for you to understand what is the function of Shape Modes in Pathfinder. I will talk about the function of each of the Shape Modes, which consist of unite, minus front, intersect, and exclude. Each mode has 2 ways on how to apply it, which is:

a. Select the shapes and directly click unite. 

b. Select the shapes then press Alt and click unite.

Open Pathfinder from Window - Pathfinder (Shift + Ctrl + F9)

1. Unite 

Here I'll do the first way by just select and directly click unite. (a)

First, I drew two different shapes with different fill color and arrange them overlap with each other because it is easier to look what is happening after we apply the shape modes.

Second, select both shapes by using Selection Tool (V). Click and drag your cursor to select both shapes in once or click one of the shape then, press Shift and click on the other shape. 

In this step, click Unite and see that both shapes being merge together and the red square changed into yellow color following the star's color. 

After you click unite, then you can see that the shapes were merge together and when you move the shape, both of it will move together. 

Here is the explanation of the other way of applying unite, which is select shapes and press Alt + unite. (b)

Again, the same step with previous one, draw 2 shapes and fill in the color and then select both shapes by using the selection tool (V).

After selecting both shapes, press and hold Alt while clicking unite. As you can see the difference, by pressing Alt you still can see both selected shape even though it was merged. 

After you merged the shapes, try to double click on the shape. Then, you can see the word Compound Shape at the top of your canvas (the one that I draw a red square).

After you double click at the merged-shape, then click on one of each shape. In my case, I clicked the star then it means that I'm working on the star, not the square and move the star wherever you want overlapping the square. 

Lastly, after you arrange the position, click Expand which is in the pathfinder column, then you will see both shapes are merged together and will move together if you move each of the shape. 

In conclusion, if you press Alt + unite, you will be able to rearrange the shape's position even though you already merged the shape and press Expand to officially merge both shapes, so that you can't rearrange the position anymore. 

2. Minus Front 

(a) By directly clicking unite mode.

 

First, create 2 shapes and fill in with different colours, then select both shapes.

In this step, directly click the minus front mode and here is the result. Minus front mode is a mode which the shape in front will disappear and also deleting the part which is overlapped. In this case, the polygon is in front so it disappeared and cut out some of the circle.

(b) By pressing Alt + Minus Front mode

In this step, press Alt + Minus Front mode and you can still rearrange the shape's position.

Then lastly, click Expand to apply the minus front mode without able to move the each of the shape.

3. Intersect

For intersect, it eliminates all part of shape which is not overlapping with each other, while the overlap part stay still.

4. Exclude

In case of Exclude mode, it can be said that it is the opposite of the Intersect mode. Unlike intersect mode, exclude mode deleting the part which overlapping with each other. 

Well, for Alt + Shape Modes (unite, minus front, intersect, exclude), the method are all the same like what I did for both unite and minus front mode. In short, it just adding Alt before you click the Shape Modes, then lastly press Expand.

Next, for drawing technical flat with pen tool, it requires lots of practice, so that you will get used to it and find it very easy. Therefore, I did some practice with using technical flat template which I searched from google, then drew it with pen tool. The are two things which is the most important in this method:

1. Always remember to change your fill in colour with "No colour", which means transparent.

2. Always remember to draw on the second layer if you are using template. 

Well, this is the end of today's entry

Thank you!

Computerized Technical Drawing (Week 6)

Hi guys, I'm back again after Chinese New Year HAHA! Well, start from this week I'll no longer posting about Photoshop cause this week I started to learn Adobe Illustrator. As well as photoshop, adobe illustrator also new for me and I heard from my friends who took Graphic Communication major that Adobe Illustrator is quite more difficult than Photoshop. Truthfully, I didn't expect that I'll learn Ai cause I thought we'll just use Photoshop for our projects. 

Therefore, I did some research on what is the difference between Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator and basically, the difference is that Photoshop is a pixel-based format which when you draw a line in Photoshop and enlarge it, you will see a line of pixels on it, which means there is limited enlargement size for Photoshop because Photoshop can lost its quality very quick. On the other hand, unlike Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator is a vector-based software which a line is composed of two dots connected by a computer algorithm. Due to the vector graphic which was created through Adobe Illustrator, it allows us to scale up and down without any limitation because vector graphic will never lose its quality. In the case of function, Photoshop usually used for web graphics, photo editing, and designing, while adobe illustrator was used for creating logos or anything that need to be printed out or displayed with different sizes.

This week I learned how to use pen tool on adobe illustrator. I'm so sorry I can't put any screenshots here cause I haven't downloaded the software yet, but I'll update this entry ASAP after I download it. In fact, I've tried pen tools in other software which also had pen tools and in my opinion, it was so hard to control! Well, it's not going to be hard if you are used to it, though. For me, I think it is quite difficult to create a curve or even a circle perfectly because if we don't click on the right place or we drag it slightly off, then the circle will not gonna be perfect. Although I find it quite difficult, I'll try my best! ^^

Well, this is all about this week and I'll make sure that I post the screenshots ASAP.

Thank you for reading~! 

Computerized Technical Drawing (Week 5)

Hi, guys I'm back again to post what I did in class this week. Well, this week I had my photoshop quiz which was to follow exactly the same (if possible) with the one that my lecturer showed to us. Fortunately, there was nothing strange happened when I was doing my test. However, I did save my photoshop quiz into my flash disc just in case if there is something happen during the submission. If you are curious about what I did during my quiz, then here it is! 

In my opinion, I thing the most complicated one is to do the sakura tree (at the left corner). I don't know whether I used the complicated way or it was actually complicated. Well, I didn't copy the original picture of the sakura tree, but I'll just explain how I did it, hopefully you can understand! HAHA.

From the original picture of the sakura tree, I selected the background with the Magic Wand Tool and I unselected the small background area between the leaves by pressing Alt + Magic Wand Tool. I did it repeatedly and sometimes I tried to hide selection from layer mask options, and if there were some part that I needed to unselect, then I went back to my previous work by pressing Ctrl + Z (same with Microsoft) and unselected it again. Well, I think there is no problem with the rest of it.

However, I did research on how to use the Smudge Tool and here it is!
The function of the Smudge Tool is to spread and mix the content colour from one tone to the other tone.

First thing first, I insert the a colour scheme so that it will be easier to see the effect of the smudge tool.

Well, this is what happen after I used the Smudge Tool. As you can see in the picture, the black color spread and mix to the grey colour, as well as grey to white, white to red, and red to blue. Smudge Tool can be used in any direction and you also can change the strength of the smudge tool which means how far will the color spread when you click and drag by using Smudge Tool. 

Like what I mentioned before, in order to change the strength of your smudge tool, you can go to the strength options -the one with the yellow circle- and put your cursor at the word "strength" which later on two arrows will appear at the both left and right side of your cursor. When the arrows appear, you can just directly drag your cursor to the right-hand-side to strengthen the smudge tool effect, and to the left-hand-side to weaken the strength. 

As you can see in this picture, I tried with different strength in order to look at the differences. Well, if you look at the 92% strength, the color spread and mix longer compared to the 64% strength. While for the 7% strength, maybe it is quite difficult to see the effect, but if you carefully you will be able to see only a little bit of colour which spread to the other colour tone. In a nutshell, the bigger the percentage, the longer the color will spread, and the smaller the percentage then the shorter it will spread.

Besides changing the strength of the smudge tool, you also can give other effect which is by clicking the "Finger paint with foreground color"  -the one with yellow circle-. As you read the name, the effect is when you click and drag your cursor, the first colour to be shown is the colour which applied to your foreground colour. Foreground colour is the 2 color boxes at the tools panel on the left-hand-side. In my case, my foreground colour is the light green colour, while yellow is my background colour. 

Well, this is what happened after I turned on the "Finger paint with foreground colour" options. As you can see in this picture, the one that I pointed with a yellow arrow is the affect after I turned on the option. Because of my green foreground colour, whenever I click and drag my smudge tool, the first colour to appear is green colour. On the other hand, if you want to change the green colour into the skyblue colour -well, I just changed my background colour into skyblue- whenever you start using the Smudge Tool, you can just switch the colour by pressing X or by clicking the small arrow at the edge of the box in tools panel and start clicking and dragging your cursor. 

Well, this is all about the Smudge Tool in photoshop, and for other tools, I'll write it again in the next entry. Thank you! ^^