In today’s Premium tutorial, I’m going to take advantage of the Appearance Panel to create a kitchen illustration. There are so many benefits to using the Appearance Panel and creating your own Graphic Styles. The big bonus for me is how much time can be saved when you can create a multi use style. Another great benefit is that it can help reduce the file size of your piece and if you’re similar to myself, that can be a huge benefit.
A Graphic Style influences the look of a shape. They are a ways of saving a set of options for a shape for later use. The options for a Graphic Style can be found in the Appearance Panel. You can start out with a shape and build up the look of it via the Appearance Panel; however, if you wish to use the Graphic Style again for future use, you’ll need to save it by adding it to the Graphic Styles panel.
Step 1
I’ve used a stock image from Photodune as a reference. The good thing about professional stock is that it usually requires little to no modification. In this case as I’m not working on a portrait (as I would usually), I’m using the stock image as a base for the dimensions of the overall layout and basic elements (sink, cooker, handles), but otherwise I can add what I wish.
So create a New Document in Illustrator and File > Place the image on the canvas, then resize with the Free Transform Tool (E). I’m going to set up my document as shown in the screenshot. Note that in the “BG” layer folder I’m going to add a Rectangle (M) with a white fill set to 30% Opacity.
Step 2
With scenes, I tend to draw the basic shapes by using the shape tools or using the Line Segment Tool (\) as I am in this instance. I’ve made the Stroke Width’s thicker to show you where I’ve drawn them. I keep them at 1pt and hold down Alt + Shift to maintain perfect horizontal and vertical lines.
I then use the Pen Tool (P) to add the line on the cooker and the Line Segment Tool (\) to add the diagonal lines on the cooker base.
Step 3
As there isn’t a great deal of perspective with this vector, I’m going to use a manual perspective guide. The two diagonal lines from the previous step will be perfect for me to find the “vanishing point” and from there I can use it as a guide for the rest of the line work.
