#Vectips RSS Feed Vectips » Create a Grimy Text Treatment with a Pen Tablet Comments Feed Vectips Shiny Buttons Without Blends or Transparencies in Illustrator Illustrator CS5 New Features Weekly Vector Inspiration #66 * Home * About * Resources * Contact * Shop Vectips Illustrator® tips, tricks, and tutorials * Tutorials * Tips and Tricks * Interviews * Inspiration Create a Grimy Text Treatment with a Pen Tablet Tutorials | April 15th, 2010 Grimy Text Illustrator Tutorial In this tutorial I will show you how to create a grimy text treatment utilizing Illustrator’s Blog brush, Live Paint, and a pen tablet. You can easily apply these techniques to other illustrates, type treatments and logos. Final Image Below is the final type treatment we be working towards. Final Illustrator tutorial image Tutorial Details * Program : Adobe Illustrator CS4 (This tutorial uses the Blob Brush, a tool specific to CS4. If you have an earlier version of Illustrator, refer to the Alternate Tutorial Methods step at the end of this post.) * Hardware Needed: Pen Tablet (I used a Wacom Intous4 for the tutorial. If you don’t have a pen tablet, refer to the Alternate Tutorial Methods step at the end of the tutorial for other methods for creating the tutorial.) * Difficulty: Intermediate * Topics Covered: Blob Brush, Live Paint * Estimated Completion Time: 1.5 hour – 2 hours Step 1 Create a new document and type out some text with the Text tool (T). Change the fill of the text to a light gray. Step 1 Step 2 In the Layers panel, rename your layer to “Template” by double-clicking on the layer and changing the name in the Layer Options dialog. Next, lock the layer. Create a new layer by pressing the Create New Layer button from the Layers panel and rename this layer to “Artwork”. Step 2 Step 3 For drawing the outlines and contours of the treatment, we are going to use the Blob Brush(Shift + B) and a pen tablet. First, you need to set up the Blob Brush (Shift + B) to use the pressure sensitivity of the tablet. To do this, double-click on the Blob Brush (Shift + B) in the Tools Panel. In the Blob Brush Tool Options, you really only have to change: the Fidelity to 1, Smoothness to 0, Size to 2, select Pressure from the size drop-down menu, and change the Variation to 2. Now with these settings, the Blob Brush will utilize the pen tablet’s pressure sensitivity. Moreover, adjusting the Fidelity and Smoothness creates a brush stroke with a hand-drawn feel. Step 3 Step 4 Zoom in really close to you first letter and start tracing it with the Blob Brush (Shift + B). When tracing, vary the pressure on your pen tablet to get a hand-drawn type of stroke. Also, use multiple brush strokes in your trace, don’t just trace the whole letter with one brush stroke. I also like to start each brush stroke very light and end very light, creating tapered lines. Step 4 Step 5 Once you are done tracing the first letter, create some more Brush strokes within the letter making it more grimy! Step 5 Step 6 Now that we have our brush strokes, we can add some color to the letter. First, select all the letter artwork and select the Live Paint Bucket (K) from the Tools Panel. The Live Paint Bucket (K) converts the artwork to a Live Paint object. Now you can simply hover over the area you want to fill, cycle through your swatches with your arrow keys, and click the areas to fill. Step 6 Step 7 Select your Live Paint object and go Object > Live Paint > Expand. Next, ungroup the object (Command + Shift + G) a couple of times. Step 7 Step 8 Select your main letter color and go Object > Path > Offset. In the Offset Path dialog, change the Offset to -3 px. This value might be larger or smaller depending on the original size of your artwork. Fill the offset with a lighter shade of color from the original. Step 8 Step 9 We are done with the first letter! Now, repeat Steps 4-8 for each letter. It might take some time, but you will start to get quicker once you have done it a couple of times. Step 9 Step 10 Now that we have all the letters, we don’t need the “Template” layer anymore. Simply press the Visibility icon in the Layers panel to hide it. Next, Group (Command + G) each individual letter’s artwork. It makes it easy to modify the letters in the coming steps. Step 10 Step 11 Use the Selection tool (V) to move and rotate each letter. Use the Illustrator’s Arrange functions to bring some of the letters to the front and some to the back by Going Object > Arrange. Step 11 Step 12 To give the treatment a little more depth, we can create some shadows. To start, select the first two letters, Copy (Command + C), and Paste in Front (Command + F). Select the first letter’s copy and press the Unite button from the Pathfinder panel. Select the second letter’s copy and again, press the Untie button from the Pathfinder panel. Select the first letter’s copy and move it down and to the right. Select both copies and press the Intersect button from the Pathfinder panel. Change the fill of the new shape to a light gray, set the Blending Mode to Multiply from the Transparency panel, and Arrange the shape so it is behind the first letter, but in front on the second. Step 12 Step 13 Repeat the previous step for each letter’s shadow. Step 13 Step 14 To make the treatment a little more grimy, use the Blob Brush and create little specs around the text. Use the same Live Paint techniques as discussed before to fill in the speck shapes. That is it, done! Step 14 Final Image Below is the final type treatment again. Try using the Blob brush and pen tablet on other illustrations and type treatments, it’s fun! Final Illustrator tutorial image Alternate Tutorial Methods Calligraphic Brush If you don’t have CS4 but you do have a pen tablet, you can use a Calligraphic brush instead of the Blob Brush (Shift +B) for the outlines of the type treatment. If you have CS3, you can use the Live Paint technique or you can just create shapes of color with the Pen tool (P), Pencil tool (N), or another tool of your choice. To set up a Calligraphic brush with the same settings as the Blob Brush settings in this tutorial, click the New Brush Icon in the Brush panel. When the New Brush dialog opens, choose New Calligraphic Brush. In the Calligraphic Brush Options, change the Angle to 0, the Roundness to 100%, the Diameter to 2 pt, select Pressure from the Size drop-down menu, and change the Variation to 2 pt. Now you can outline the image with the same pressure sensitivity as the Blob Brush. Calligraphic Brush Art Brushes If you don’t have a pen tablet, you can always use an Art brush for the outlines instead of the Blob Brush (Shift +B) . Art brushes are still very versatile, but they will not use you pen tablets pressure sensitivity. Still, you can find a brush that has similar tapered lines. My previous article Create Sketchy-Style Vectors will help in finding and creating Art brushes. Art Brushes These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. * Digg * del.icio.us * StumbleUpon * Design Float * Facebook * Mixx * TwitThis Visit the Vectips shop! 45 Responses to “Create a Grimy Text Treatment with a Pen Tablet” 1. InkSketch says: April 15, 2010 at 8:11 am This is great. Thanks for sharing! Though it’s now obvious to me, I didn’t even think to use a pen tablet with illustrator. I’m so focused on using it with ps. thanks for the eye opener. Reply 2. Grafiko says: April 15, 2010 at 8:25 am Great tutorial, thanks for sharing. I will definitely try it later Reply 3. sidney ganho says: April 15, 2010 at 8:43 am Very cool tutorial, really nice. Reply 4. Jack says: April 15, 2010 at 8:59 am This is awesome! Just got a Intuos4 large as a birthday present which is a major upgrade over my little A6 Graphire so this tut is ideal for a little practice. Really like the overall effect and it is a good use of the pen pressure so I’ll be sure to give this a go (and get into the habit of using Illustrator for these kind of things more often). Thanks, Reply 5. Lam Nguyen says: April 15, 2010 at 10:46 am oh oh. Great, the final result is very impressive. Thanks, Rype! Reply 6. Marek Rutkowski says: April 15, 2010 at 1:20 pm Wow! One of the bests tuts! Reply 7. Craig Dueren says: April 15, 2010 at 2:25 pm Cheers Rype great tutorial! I’ll be using this on my future t-shirt and poster designs Reply 8. Nick says: April 16, 2010 at 2:51 am Thanks Ryan – another great tutorial. I really have to stop using the Wacom tablet as just a large wireless mouse pad! Reply 9. Ron says: April 16, 2010 at 7:04 am Great artwork! Great techniques! Reply 10. Theo Hodkin says: April 18, 2010 at 10:29 am Some great techniques in here! Love the end result. Gonna try later. Reply 11. Laurie K says: April 19, 2010 at 7:11 pm This is a great tutorial! I can’t wait until I can get a new Wacom so I can try it out. Reply 12. priandhani says: April 20, 2010 at 3:20 am Great job…!!! Reply 13. Josh W says: April 20, 2010 at 10:32 pm Great tutorial! What font is the type in? Reply + Rype says: April 21, 2010 at 6:10 am It is Museo Sans. Reply 14. Daniel says: April 21, 2010 at 9:28 am Nice tut. But I cant create the shawdows, Pathfinder says the paths dont intersect on the intersect-command. :-( Any hints? Reply 15. Robert says: April 23, 2010 at 6:34 am This one left me with a hungry feeling. It looks like sweet beer battered and fried alphabet chips to me. Reply 16. Rondal says: April 26, 2010 at 6:55 am Great tutorial! I was actually just looking for something similar a week or so ago and could not find a single article or tutorial online. Many thanks for the instruction! Reply 17. Brandon says: April 29, 2010 at 10:42 am Amazing….the shadowing really adds a lot! Reply 18. pratham says: April 30, 2010 at 12:46 am great vector text tutorial.fantastic artwork web designer http://www.scrapsforever.com Reply 19. Vishal Gupta says: April 30, 2010 at 4:08 am Loved the way to use pen tablet. Reply 20. Joe says: May 8, 2010 at 2:24 am One thing extra thing I did to the letters while I was tracing them was when I was done I would use the eraser and would trim some of my strokes. I personally think it helped it quite a bit. Well anyways… great tutorial! Reply 21. kyle says: May 9, 2010 at 7:33 pm Really great tutorial, thanks! I’ve got a pen tablet, but CS3 so I used the calligraphy brush and it worked well. I’m really glad you added that tip. With CS4 (and now CS5) I find some articles which i can’t really relate to because they use features I don’t have. Here’s what I made http://www.kyleism.com/?p=114 Reply 22. soumyajit says: May 12, 2010 at 5:15 am Nice effect . If possible add more stuff like this .Your readers will be helpful .Thnx Reply 23. timbradley says: May 25, 2010 at 8:40 pm Brilliant tutorial – love the look! Reply 24. Arts Stock says: June 25, 2010 at 3:51 am Great tutorial! Reply 25. Koshary says: July 11, 2010 at 11:39 am Helpful tutorial. I’m doing it in my design now. Thanks a lot for sharing. Reply 26. Will creare says: July 16, 2010 at 12:52 am Nice tutorial! i find good art work isn’t easy wen using a tablet but this was really easy to follow. loads of really useful tips. thanks Reply 27. bonsaifoi says: July 28, 2010 at 2:49 am I can’t believe I have been using Ilustrator for 8 years now, and this is the first time I have realised how to use the blob brush! BIG THANKS VECTIPS! Reply 28. Blogger Seo says: July 31, 2010 at 4:00 am thanks for tutorial Reply 29. Antor says: August 22, 2010 at 3:56 pm This one is (like always) really tight!! Reply 30. crusher machine says: September 10, 2010 at 7:16 pm Cheers Rype great tutorial! I’ll be using this on my future t-shirt and poster designs Reply 31. Brett Widmann says: November 30, 2010 at 8:24 am This is a great tutorial and just what I was looking for. Thanks for sharing. Reply 32. krissy says: December 28, 2010 at 12:51 pm To the one having trouble making the shadow, I was having the same problem. After much experimentation I found if I followed the steps but before intersecting, right clicked on the letters and ungrouping allowed it to work. Reply 33. blue vivaldy says: August 25, 2011 at 10:09 pm thank you, good skills fo coloring Reply 34. wim says: June 12, 2012 at 8:10 am whit step 3 i cant shange it to presure pls rply Reply 35. Sergio Arboleda says: July 1, 2012 at 2:02 pm This is my version… http://goo.gl/c4xpD Reply Trackbacks/Pingbacks 1. Mikey Promo Blog » Vector & Pen Tablet Tutorial says: April 24, 2010 at 3:02 am [...] at the finished design how to achieve that result on my own. However… the other day I found this tutorial over at Vectips.com. Vector design is still a field I try to develop and I love the fact that this [...] Reply 2. Best Of Web And Design In April 2010 | Creative Nerds says: April 28, 2010 at 5:02 pm [...] Create a Grimy Text Treatment with a Pen Tablet [...] Reply 3. Creative Bookmarks: Best of April 2010 | Tutorial9 says: May 4, 2010 at 6:01 am [...] You’ll learn how to use graph tools and other techniques that will definitely come in handy.Create a Grimy Text Treatment with a Pen TabletIn this tutorial, on Vectips, you’ll learn how to get grimy and create a text treatment using [...] Reply 4. 60+ Useful Tutorials From Around The Web | designrfix.com says: May 5, 2010 at 7:36 pm [...] Create a Grimy Text Treatment with a Pen Tablet in Illustrator Create a Grimy Text Treatment with a Pen Tablet in Illustrator [...] Reply 5. 21 High Quality Illustrator Tutorials to Follow | Flash, Design, Vector, Photoshop, Adobe Tutorials | GraphicMania.net says: May 7, 2010 at 5:38 am [...] Create a Grimy Text Treatment [...] Reply 6. 30 + Tutorials That Will Teach You Illustrator | Arbenting says: May 9, 2010 at 1:10 am [...] Create a Grimy Text Treatment with a Pen Tablet [...] Reply 7. Best Illustrator Tutorials from 2010 - Noupe Design Blog says: December 21, 2010 at 4:12 am [...] Create a Grimy Text Treatment with a Pen Tablet In this tutorial the artist will show you how to create a grimy text treatment utilizing Illustrator’s Blog brush, Live Paint, and a pen tablet: [...] Reply 8. Ultimate Roundup of Illustrator Tutorials from 2010 | Vectorious.net Blog says: January 4, 2011 at 10:01 am [...] Create a Grimy Text Treatment with a Pen Tablet [...] Reply 9. 50 Excellent Text Effects Tutorials In Adobe Illustrator says: December 20, 2011 at 2:01 pm [...] 29. Create a Grimy Text Treatment with a Pen Tablet [...] Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. ______________________ Name (required) ______________________ Mail (will not be published) (required) ______________________ Website _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ Submit VectorMill * ____________________ Submit Subscribe to a feed * RSS Feed * Email * Twitter Links What is RSS? Learn More Community Images via Flickr Berries of The Dead POLAR BEARS (URSUS MARITIMUS) VYIN-SYANG Object 704 Ballerina Walpaper Ballerina El Fulgor del Sol / AYU Captain America Jumping Jack Template Part of me Join the Vectips Flickr group! About Vectips Vectips is a site dedicated to Illustrator tips, tricks, and tutorials. It was created by Rype (Ryan Putnam) of Rype Arts an exclusive vector art contributor to iStockphoto. Learn More Write for Vectips Write a tutorial or article for Vectips and get exposure while giving back to the community. Learn More Work With Vectips Like the design and illustrations on Vectips? Hire Rype Arts for your next project! Learn More Connect with Vectips * Twitter * FriendFeed * Flickr * Facebook * Vi.sualize.us Rype Arts Copyright © Rype Arts 2011