Ai Part I: Layers & Placing Images

Many people have been asking for more basic tutorials, so guess what? The squeaky wheel gets the oil. This is the first in a series of beginner tutorials for people just starting out in Illustrator. This one covers the layer palette and placing your pencil sketches in Illustrator.

The first thing you need to do is open a New document. Go to File > New… or use the keyboard shortcut, Command (the Apple key) and N on a Mac or Control and N on a PC.

Next, you’ll want to place your pencil sketch. Go to File > Place. A dialogue box will pop up and just find your sketch file on your hard drive. I usually scan my sketches as grayscale jpegs at 72 dpi.

Here’s my leaf guy that I’m working on for the series.

Now you’ll need to open your Layers palette. Go to Window > Layers. If it has check mark by it on your drop down menu, that means it is already open.

Here’s what the Layers palette looks like. On a side note, you’ll notice that the Links palette tab is also attached to the Layers palette. You can drag and drop the different tabs to different palettes to organize the palettes the way you want.

Double click on the Layer name. I think the default name is Layer 1. A dialogue box will pop up. Here you can change some of the Layer preferences like the name. This is my sketch layer, so I changed the name to sketch.

Next, I want to lock my sketch layer, so I don’t draw on it. To lock a layer, click on the area to the left of the layer name. A lock will appear. This isn’t permanent, so you can always unlock it by clicking it again. FYI, to the left of the Lock is the Visibility. This makes the layer visible or invisible.

Finally, you want to create a second layer to draw on. Click on the icon at the bottom that looks like a sheet of paper. A new layer appears. You can click on the name to change the name or other preferences.

Now, you are ready to draw. Feel free to post any comments or questions below. [This post was written on IllustrationInfo.com. Content copyright 2009 Cory Thoman.] > Illustrationinfo <