Pen Bootcamp

The goal of this project was to get used to the pen, shapes, shape builder tools by creating "simple" images. However, I may have messed around with the pen tool before I started this project, so I jumped at the opportunity to try more difficult designs when my professor mentioned that his examples are a tad high level for the class.

I am not great when it comes to quick sketches, but I would like to believe that I'm quite creative. However, that is only what I want to believe, not sure how that stands out the older I get.

I started off with simple images and moved into more complex images and then back to simple images. First image, the pumpkin started off with ellipses and used the direct selection tool in order adjust the curves into positions for the body. Once the lines were in order, I used the shape builder tool to get rid of the extra lines. The eyes and stem were a similar experience but with the addition of the pen tool to connect the ellipses. I have noticed that lines make images more easily recognizable, however again, it makes the image flatter. Throughout the images I try to not use strokes unless it's part of the design like the cacti's spines. Moving on to the lotus flower. Started off as an ellipse per petal and used the pen tool for the edge of the petals. For the coloring, it was a radial gradient where I adjusted the location of the center and the notches. The cactus didn't used any shapes, I did it all with the pen tool and colored it similarly to the pumpkin. The mountain didn't have rhyme or reason when I worked on it and by that, I mean I didn't see shapes, so I didn't use shapes, I used the pen tool. I'm certain I would just be repeating myself if I continued with the explanation, so I'll just start on my troubles, or rather, my lack of understanding what to do on the strokes that didn't separate anything, so I tried my best with custom gradients, but I lacked the knowledge back then. This project was done before I did the pink car project and now understand better how to apply shadows and highlights.