Created with Adobe Firefly by James Turner
Shape Tools
Manipulating the stroke of a path is how you draw what you want. The mouse is an imprecise tool to draw with, but since you can easily change anchor points, you can get exactly what you had in mind. There are also a number of ways to automatically distort what you see on the screen based on your path.
Transforming Your Path
Make a new file called Shape Sampler using today's date code as a place to try out these tools the way I did here. Your doodles could be the seeds of a design you turn into true vector artwork - keep track of everything!
Emojis
Almost everyone uses graphics to add an emotional dimension to our written communication. They function as a kind of shorthand for emotional concepts in our instant messages. You've used them, but have you considered making a set of your own? We'll start off by turning our Sample Graphics circles into the parts of a face, then go from there.
BEFORE YOU START - open your Sample Graphic file and use File --> Save As to create a copy of the sample graphic called:
231114 Emoji 1 - Firstname Lastname
We will use the circles from our sample graphic to make your first emoji. Make the largest of your circles the color of your emoji's face and enlarge it as much as you can leaving just a little bit of a margin. (Shift-Alt works best for scaling without moving the center of an object) You can re-color, re-shape and re-size the other circle to create one eye. You do NOT have to keep the colors the same as my example - just keep the contrast so we can see all the details of your emoji's face.
Make sure you rename and organize the layers as you go. This is essential! When you bring your artwork into another program to animate it, the names of those layers will show up and make it incredibly easier to work there. Besides, it's not just a good idea... it's required.
Circle Recycling
Updated version - using the circles from Sample Graphic to construct the face of an emoji by renaming and resizing each one. Use the Recolor Artwork method instead of editing the gradient as I did here, if you prefer.
New Eye, New Layer
If both eyes are on one layer, you could make your emoji blink. If each has it's own layer, you could make it wink OR blink one eye. I use the Object --> Transform --> Reflect to make the eyes exactly symmetrical... very handy thing to know how to do!
Eyebrow Effects
There are many ways to change what a stroke looks like - here I show the Roughen and ZigZag distortion effects to turn a boring straight line into a feature showing more character.
Curvature Smile
Sure, you can create a shape for the mouth, but a simple width profile can make a sharp looking smile or frown in a fraction of the time. Changing the curve of a stroke is much quicker than moving multiple anchor points of a mouth shape.
Pencils and Brushes
When making custom shapes from scratch, it's a mistake to "scribble" with the wrong tool. To create a path that encloses an area, use the Pencil and move anchor points around after. (The Pen can be hard to master). If it's something you would use a crayon or marker for on paper - it's the Blob Brush tool you want!
OPTIONAL: Fancy Eye
This outside tutorial is one of many on YouTube that demonstrate methods of adding detail to the iris of the eyes on your Emoji. Not required, but fun if you want to give it a try.
There are so many tools you can use to be a digital artist. These tutorials touch on some really important ones, but don't be afraid to search the web for additional resources if something interests you. Especially since they are constantly adding new features!
The title above is a link to the old website page on using the FreeForm gradient tool - you are no longer restricted to linear or radial gradients. If customizing the colors in your fill is of interest, you'll find a lot of information and several tutorials there.