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About this lesson

Now we will focus on adding a few more details to help push our sketch further.

Quick reference

Fourth Pass

Now we will focus on adding a few more details to help push our sketch further.

When to use

Once you have traced all of the main elements of the sketch, you may find that you want to add a few extra details to help push the design further. This lesson will focus on adding a few of those extra details.

Instructions

  • Open the Fourth Pass - Exercise.ai file in Illustrator
  • Make sure that the 'Second Pass' layer is unlocked and zoom in to focus on the mouth area
  • Grab your Pen Tool (P) and create a point by the lower part of the mouth and then create a curve that goes up and to the left, and then close the shape (this should resemble a sliver of the moon) 
  • We want to do the same thing on the opposite side so that we now have two upward curving shapes that will replace the mouth we had traced earlier
  • Unlock the 'First Pass' layer or the layer where your original lines for the mouth were
  • Select the mouth lines and press Shift+X to swap it from a stroke to a solid black fill color
  • Draw a solid black shape with the pen on top of the corners of the original mouth that we want to get rid of
  • Hold down the Shift Key and select both shapes
  • Open the Pathfinder from the panels to the right or by going to the Window menu and choosing 'Pathfinder'
  • Once the Pathfinder is open, choose the 'Minus Front' option (second icon from the left in the top row of icons)
  • This should knock the top shape out from the solid black fill that we had created for the mouth
  • Now when you select the mouth and change it back to a stroke (Shift+X) you should no longer have any overlapping lines where our new mouth lines are placed
  • Repeat this for the opposite side of the mouth 
  • Use this technique to knock out any other shapes such as above the eye as shown in the video
  • Create a new layer called 'Third Pass' and use this layer for any extra shapes you would like to add to the design
  • Add a shape over the eyes that will serve as a shadow using the boundaries of the original eye as a guide
  • When you are happy with all of the details, double click to the right of the 'Third Pass' layer in the Layers Palette to change the label color to red

Hints & tips

  • The Pathfinder is a great way to add to existing shapes or knock shapes out
  • Adding shadows over the eyes are a great and simple way to add depth to the design
  • Notice how before changing the label color of the layer to red that our label and guides are yellow, which is a bit tougher to see. Try to use label colors that will make it easy for you to see your guides when working.
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  • 00:07 All right guys, so here we are, we have now completed our second pass to continue
  • 00:11 tracing some of the details of our sketch.
  • 00:14 Now, at this point, I'm going to go ahead and unlock the second pass layer.
  • 00:18 Just go ahead and zoom in for a moment.
  • 00:20 Now, I'm kinda thinking about what else I can do with this mouth here since we just
  • 00:25 kinda wanted to revisit that and maybe take another look at it.
  • 00:29 And I kind of have an idea for a way that we can fix this.
  • 00:32 So I'm just gonna go ahead and grab my pen tool.
  • 00:34 And I'm gonna start down here, right at this point
  • 00:38 that converges between this outer part of the cheek and the jaw line.
  • 00:42 And what I wanna do is kind of imagine this imaginary line coming down and
  • 00:46 curving out like this.
  • 00:49 I'm gonna make my first point, and then click and hold the pen tool and
  • 00:53 just create a curve kind of like this.
  • 00:56 Click on your second point.
  • 00:58 And then click and hold back on your first point to close the shape.
  • 01:02 And before you release the mouse just go ahead and try and
  • 01:06 get a nice looking shape like that, all right?
  • 01:08 And if you need to you can press A to get your direct selection tool and
  • 01:12 select the point, feel free to maybe move it
  • 01:15 down a little bit just to create a little bit of separation.
  • 01:19 And your imagination kind of connects these two things right here.
  • 01:23 So we're essentially going to do the same thing on this side.
  • 01:27 And we can go ahead and create kind of another line that will connect,
  • 01:32 very similarly to how we did to our first shape here.
  • 01:36 All right, just something like that.
  • 01:37 And it's okay if these things are overlapping because, again,
  • 01:41 once everything is kind of colored and
  • 01:42 filled in, we're not gonna see a lot of that stuff.
  • 01:45 So this piece over here, let me zoom in, these corners of the mouths over here,
  • 01:50 you probably won't see.
  • 01:52 And if we wanted to, we can actually unlock our first pass layer
  • 01:55 where we initially created this shape.
  • 01:58 And I can show you guys how we can tackle this, but
  • 02:01 assuming that you guys did see the Illustrator basics course,
  • 02:04 you should be pretty familiar with the path finder tool.
  • 02:08 And what we could do with the path finder tool is draw a shape on top of this and
  • 02:13 then knock it out from this shape.
  • 02:15 So it'll only leave what's inside here and we can do the same thing on this side.
  • 02:19 All right, so If I wanted to do that really quick, I can just press Shift and
  • 02:22 X to create a fill color.
  • 02:24 And then all I'm doing there, not to create a fill color,
  • 02:27 but basically to swap from a stroke to fill color.
  • 02:30 And then, I'm just going to create a point,
  • 02:33 basically follow the curve of that shape that we just created for the mouth.
  • 02:38 Close the shape on top, and now I can hold down the Shift key and select both of
  • 02:42 these, and I'll come up to the Window menu and choose path finder, okay?
  • 02:47 And then we should be able to just do a minus front like that.
  • 02:52 And now if I select my mouth here again and press Shift X,
  • 02:56 it will return it to just a stroke and no fill and
  • 02:59 you can see how we were able to successfully remove this corner.
  • 03:03 So let's just go ahead and
  • 03:04 do the same thing on the other side really quickly before moving on.
  • 03:08 All right, so again, hold down the Shift key and select both of those.
  • 03:13 And then press the minus front command and then Shift X to return to the stroke.
  • 03:18 Right, now we can zoom on back out, go ahead and lock your first pass layer,
  • 03:23 and we can just toggle the visibility of our second pass layer for
  • 03:26 a second to see which shapes are on in which layer.
  • 03:29 Now, at this point, we probably could group these together but let's just hold
  • 03:33 off on that from now, because I wanna modify few more of these shapes here.
  • 03:37 I think I'm going to do the same kind of thing that we did with the path finder
  • 03:41 before, to take a piece out of this shape.
  • 03:43 So I'm gonna select this piece right above the eye on the right and
  • 03:47 press Shift X to create a fill.
  • 03:50 Now, I'm gonna start maybe somewhere around here then click and
  • 03:54 hold my mouse, just follow the curve of the eye looking down.
  • 03:59 All right, now I can come up here, and maybe do something like
  • 04:04 this where I'll just be keeping this top segment of the shape right here.
  • 04:09 But everything else I wanna kinda get rid of so that they're not connected.
  • 04:13 All right, so again I'll try minus front, and there we go.
  • 04:16 Now I kinda have these two separate shapes,
  • 04:19 which I think will look a little bit better once it's filled with black.
  • 04:24 So now I can go ahead and close the pathfinder tool,
  • 04:27 lock my second pass layer, and go ahead and create a new layer.
  • 04:31 Let's just get this out of the way.
  • 04:33 And we'll call this our third pass.
  • 04:36 Now, this layer is basically just going to serve for any extra details or
  • 04:39 elements that we may wanna throw in here.
  • 04:42 We can turn our sketch back on to make sure that we haven't missed anything.
  • 04:45 And it looks like we've pretty much covered all of our bases so far,
  • 04:48 all right?
  • 04:49 So with the first pass layer selected, I'm just gonna come in here and maybe try and
  • 04:53 add a few more details or other shapes that we may want to play around with.
  • 05:00 But of course, we can do something like this where we maybe just create
  • 05:04 a few more shapes in here that we can use.
  • 05:07 Even if they're just shadows, highlights, it really doesn't matter.
  • 05:10 For now we just wanna try to get in there and
  • 05:13 add a few more details that we can use, right?
  • 05:17 And I'll see how this looks.
  • 05:20 Just to create a few extra shapes here to give us more options.
  • 05:25 Okay, and maybe I'll even go ahead and
  • 05:28 create a shape here that can serve as a shadow for the eye.
  • 05:32 All right, so if I zoom in, just make a shape here,
  • 05:36 follow the curve of the eye or the brow, right?
  • 05:41 And then I'll just close the shape.
  • 05:45 And I think this could be good because we can fill this shape with black and
  • 05:47 then just turn the transparency down so that it looks like a shadow.
  • 05:51 All right, and let's do the same thing on this side.
  • 05:56 Okay, just gonna create a curve on the inside of the eyeball here like that,
  • 06:01 it doesn't have to be too fancy, but
  • 06:04 little details like that definitely make a difference.
  • 06:09 And it just looks cool, it makes it look like the eyes are more sunken in instead
  • 06:14 of being on the same plane as some of the other features.
  • 06:19 All right, so something like that I think will work nicely.
  • 06:22 And then let's see if there's anything else we can do maybe for the nose here.
  • 06:28 All right, we could try something like this where it dips in a little bit.
  • 06:32 Let me zoom in here.
  • 06:35 All right, and you may notice that the yellow is a little bit hard to see.
  • 06:39 Those yellow guides there that I'm kind of using,
  • 06:41 so what I can do to fix that is just double click to the right of the layer and
  • 06:44 just go ahead and change the color to red like our others.
  • 06:48 Right, that will make it easier for you to see now.
  • 06:51 So if I wanna move just these center points over I'm going to press
  • 06:53 A to get my direct selection tool, click and drag around these points.
  • 06:57 And then just hold the Shift key and slide them over a little bit.
  • 07:02 Okay, then we can manipulate that, the points in that, using the handles here.
  • 07:08 To even that out a bit, like so.
  • 07:15 All right, and I think that's looking pretty good.
  • 07:18 And let's just go ahead and add maybe a few more shapes in here.
  • 07:22 We can do something like this, and basically I'm just kinda envisioning
  • 07:27 how this will look if it's joined with this shape here.
  • 07:29 All right and we can do the same thing kind of on this side if we want.
  • 07:38 It might make kind of a cool shadow and help define some of the features here.
  • 07:44 Or we may decide that we don't like it at all so, let's see how it goes.
  • 07:50 And then let's just add maybe a little bit more detail in here.
  • 07:59 That shape there.
  • 08:02 Something kinda similar on the side where I'm just following the curve.
  • 08:08 Right, and we can kinda do that in the corners up here as well,
  • 08:12 just to see how that looks.
  • 08:19 All right, and it doesn't have to be a perfect mirror image of our other shapes.
  • 08:25 We just wanna put it in here so
  • 08:27 we have something to play around with in the next part.
  • 08:30 All right, so at this point I've got my first, second and
  • 08:32 third pass all set up here.
  • 08:34 And what we can do now is start to adjust the thickness of some of these lines,
  • 08:39 the stroke perhaps, and we can get everything to feel pretty nice while
  • 08:44 still having a good amount of variety in terms of our line widths and weight.

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