I got this great new Plug-In for Illustrator 10. It’s called ISOMETRIC LINE TOOL and it’s available at the link below.
The programmer who designed it used it for building train track plans. I downloaded it along with everything on his site. I didn’t think I would use it SO I made myself play around with it so I knew WHY I wouldn’t.
Well, that did not work out because after the first 10 lines my brilliant strategic mind told me to design building facades with it and them use the FREE TRANSFORM tool to shape the buildings into perspective.
The top picture is black and white is how the Iso plug-in drew straight lines at right angles wherever I laid them down.
The light blue is on a layer below my buildings and it’s used to block out the background. On the page I would color it white to blend with the page.
The darker blue color is on a layer below where I drew out the backsides of the buildings after I stretched them into perspective.
What a dream come true this is because I really love adding detailed realistic backgrounds but I hate making grids and then erasing them and all of that. Now I don’t have to.
Why is anyone using PAPER?! This plug-in is fantastic as well as everything on this site… http://rj-graffix.com/software/plugins.html#IsoLineTool
I also spent last weekend (my Birthday) downloading a ton of Plug-INs for Illustrator. One dream Plug-In allows me to quickly make speedlines and more. That Plug-in alone is worth all the money I spent on every single plug-in I bought.
I can’t wait to show you what I have been up to. I’m leaving notes on all my Iron Man pages so after the books come out I can show you waht I was doing…and so I can remember. LOL
I’ll get to that promised COMPUTER TERMINAL tutorial as soon as I can.
WOW! I still can not get over the new feature I’ve been playing around with in the previous post. I don’t think I have drawn a page yet since discovering this little gem without using it on each page.
One problem I have had working from Adam Warren’s layouts for my Iron Man book is to create brush like speed lines and motion blurs like Adam does. Problem solved!
Here’s what I do.
Create a CIRCLE. Any size will do. Hit the E button and hold the CTRL (on a PC) and stretch that circle to a real long shape. Now hit the E button again and shrink it down to a smaller size. Now repeat the stretching process again and shrink it down again. Now you have a really long ellipse. THAT LOOKS LIKE IT WAS MADE WITH A BRUSH!
Duplicate these but shrink some even smaller and place them right next to the large ones. This makes a really cool combination. Once you have a whole stack of them you can select “e” again and hold CTRL to stretch these brush looking speed lines into a perspective. I did it in the background behind a race car and it looks great.
I also duplicated these once they were in perspective and shrank them down even more. I colored them white on a black background and it created a “spacewarp” effect like in Star Wars or Star Trek.
I’ve also created one slightly bent line to match the perspective of a curved street. Then I duplicated that line into about 20 lines on top of each other. keeping them really close together, by the way. I used the “e” and CTRL to distort them. Once they started to distort they kept the curved shape but did it IN PERSPECTIVE. I just laid it down on top of my street scene and it looked like speed lines with a french curve. Something that would have taken a long time by hand was done in a few seconds with this feature!
A NOTE ABOUT LAYERING–
When I drew the street scene I had my street and background buildings on one layer. Above that layer were my curved speed lines. Above that layer was a layer I call WHITEOUT, which I use for small white dots and street cracks to break up the speedlines. Above that layer was the shadow of my car, including the wheelwell Above that layer was the rims of the car’s wheels. I did the rims with circles and then distort them, (Again using the “e” CTRL but holding down SHIFT as well to keep the distortions horizontal line straight with the other side.) The rims I am using on every page that the car appears on and just distort it to match the perspective of the car! The layer above that has the body of the car and the layer above that has the shines and white dots of streetlights on the glass.
Pretty cool feature! I can’t believe how much I use it now and how much I wish I knew it a long time ago! 
ta-Da! A new tutorial entry. yeah!
The picture to the left is a way to make bricks in perspective, but if you just need grid lines follow along…
PERSPECTIVE GRID LINES
1.-Draw one line. Make a copy on that line directly under it by Holding ALT (on a PC) and pulling it down.
2.-Keep it selected and hold CTRL+D and everytime you hit “D” it will duplicate the line as many times as you need.
3.-After you have as many lines as needed select all of them with the BLACK ARROW (Direct Selection Tool) , PRESS THE “E” KEY, and hold CTRL and pull them anyway you need perspective lines.
4.-Duplicate steps 1-3 and make new lines in perspective going the opposite direction. You will then have a criss-crossed, “x” shape pattern great for using for perspective guidelines in the background.
Pro artists don’t always draw perspective lines all the way to the horizon line. You need only have some criss-cross for your panel.
Here is a shot of how to make a picture out of some bricks. This spacewalk shot took less than 10 minutes. The squares were WHITE FILL and BLACK STROKE. The background was a black square on a lower layer. The lines in the back were created with my new buddy; the DASHED LINE.
Next time, I will show you how to make some crazy computer terminals with that little gem!
I got this great new Plug-In for Illustrator 10. It’s called ISOMETRIC LINE TOOL and it’s available at the link below.
