Adobe Illustrator for Mobile Game Art - A Beginners Guide

Welcome to the course!

And Congratulations on taking action and enrolling in my class.
You are sure to get its full benefits as I will lay down real world concepts, workflows and best practices in detail here. For the entirety of the course I will go over the concepts and tool you only need to know and start creating your own game art.
I will teach you from theory to application, from planning to execution and create professional looking mobile game art. You can follow along as I implement the concepts and workflows, and I will provide actionable materials and resources which you can use to practice every skill I will teach.

After this lecture you will be able to:
-Understand what the course is about and what it is not

-Know how we will go over the course and what to expect

In this lecture, you will get to know me and my creations.

In this lecture, I will go over what will be your new skills and understanding on making mobile game art. You will be efficient in using illustrator, skip through all the clutter and have full understanding of the only tools you need and that you can implement them right away after or even while you

In this lecture, I will introduce you to core of Adobe illustrator what to expect upon completion of this section.

After this lecture you will be able to:

Understand more about Adobe illustrator, and what are the concepts you need to know and have full understanding first before making your own game art.

In this lecture, I will explain what makes a vector shape in illustrator. And why understanding this property will make you more efficient in creating mobile game art. And with this knowledge you are on your way to creating your first vector shapes, and eventually your first game art.

After this lecture you will be able to:

Fully understand what are fill and strokes and that shapes created in Illustrator are either a mix of both or created by each of this property.

In this lecture, I will introduce our main weapon for creating game art. This is an important tool everyone should master, as it will be easier when you make more complex shapes and your own mobile game art.

After this lecture,

You will be able to understand the full potential of the Pen Tool, paths in illustrator and its advantages and disadvantages.

In this lecture, you will understand the concepts of layers and the difference of the layer panel with the actual layers of the shapes you create.

After this lecture you will be able to: Know the difference of the layers panel and the actual layers of shapes in illustrator.

This quiz aims to validate what you have learned so far in the section.

I will explain the importance of this section and why you need to master this workflows upfront.

In this video we will learn how to create and set custom keyboard shortcuts for our workflow.

Ok so to start with the shortcuts I use.

• P - Pen Tool
• D - set any shape to default white fill and black stroke
• M -for drawing squares and rectangles
• L – for drawing circles/ellipses
• Shift +M - to access shape builder tool.
• R – to enter rotate mode and rotate my shapes

• Ctrl + 7 - for masking shapes

• Ctrl + D - to duplicate any action.

Custom Shortcuts

• Shift + S - for screen blending mode
• Shift + D - for multiply blending mode.
• Ctrl + R for if I want to reflect or flip some shapes.
• U – for rounded rectangle
• Keys 1~10 to give set my layer transparency in increments of 10.
• So in my setup its 1 for 100%, 2 for 20%, 3 for 30 % and so on.
• Ctrl + 2 to lock any shape.
• Ctrl + Alt + 2 to unlock any shape
• Ctrl + 3 to hide any shape from the artboard,
• Ctrl + Alt + 3 to unhide shapes.

In this new lecture I will be discussing the smooth too. This tool is really essential if you are doing "quick fix" on your shapes and you don't want to redraw them. I also included a review of the core tool "pen tool" so that we can lessen the instances where we need to fix our shape and save more time in the process.

After this video you will learn how to use and when to use the smooth tool. And a review of the pen tool and the mindset you need inorder to predetermine the placement of your anchor points. This is a response lecture to one student who had created his own game art but struggled a bit on the curves part (which is ok for anyone starting out. Again I am here to help everyone, and feel free to post your questions in the discussion boards. And I will do my best to answer it fast or even make a brand new lecture. Just like this one :)

In this lecture I will teach you how to export your artwork. And some more tips on how to export artwork for different purposes.

This section aims to validate your understanding of the proven workflows in creating mobile game art.

In this section, we will now create our first mobile game art.

In this video we are gonna layout the basic design and proportions of the barbarian axe

In this lecture we are gonna start from our blocked out design and shade it for the final look.

Its all about the details indeed and in this video we are gonna discuss how to do just that.
In this video we will be reapplying our knowledge of creating art brush to make the detail scratches for the Barbarian Axe.

Also please note that some type of game themes do not require much details and its your call to make the game art more cartoony(less detail) or more realistic (more details) and each style will be perfect for the theme that requires it.

In this video we will finalize our game art and add chipped/dents to the blade and handle, overall border and shadow.
This are essential techniques which you need to learn and you can apply them to any of your next game art.

You will learn how to use masking to make worn out effects, use the offset feature in illustrator and add shadows the quick and easy way to your game art/prop

This quiz validates your knowledge of real world mobile game art creation which you have applied in the previous videos of the game art creation series.

In this lecture, we will be going in-depth on how to create materials that we usually see and can use for your next mobile game art. We will be discussing how to create wooden material.
And after this video you will be able to confidently create any wooden themed interface, weapon or prop.

In this video, I will go in detail how to create rocks material and how to populate your scene just by using one asset for fast start your game art creation process.

You will be more confident in reusing your assets after this video and will see that you can finish them in faster time.

In this material design study we will go in detail how to easily create gold coins by just using simple shapes, a bit of shape builder tool blending modes. I'll also show how easy it is to create a variety of color scheme from just one artwork. You just need to keep in mind the tips I will discuss in this lecture.

After the lecture, you will discover more ways to make artwork faster, confidently create different versions from it by just tweaking its color and have a keen eye for detail

In this final leg of material design study, I will go over and explain how to create metal looking materials for your mobile game art. The concepts I will discuss can be implemented on any kind of vector or game art that includes metal materials or other very shiny surfaces.

After this lecture you will be able to create your own metal materials in 2d style. And render metal properly.

Now that you have learned how to use adobe illustrator for game art, we will now put everything to that test.
You will now make and submit your first mobile game art. I am confident in your skills especially if you have gone this far. And I know you can now create one your self from scratch! And do not worry, just post any problems you might face in the discussion board, ill be hanging in there like a monkey waiting for your questions. - Rafael

Thank you for taking my course on Making Mobile Game art. And as a special exclusive bonus for you,
You can get access to one of my top ranking Game Character Creation Course!