Learning Illustration: 5 : Envelope Distort

I was supposed to write this on 14th June. These past two days I didn't get time to do anything nor to write this.

I found a Logo contest from IGG very late and the deadline was on the 16th. I made 4 logos and 3 slogans in different formats in the two days. Was such hectic. I'll write about that in the next blog.

For now, I shall write what I learned in the last class of Envato+ on the 12th and 13th of June.

It was all about Envelope Distort which can be found on the left side of the Illustrator in the toolboxes. First on texts and then on objects.

These tools are so unique and interesting. The first was being Liquify. I mean warp which can be used to give the effects of liquify.

                            You drag the text downward in a manner how a liquid would behave. 

Cool Ehh? The next tool was Twirl. Man, this is a live drilling machine of Illustrator. As you hold the effect, it keeps spinning and attracts the objects around it. My bad, not a drilling machine but rather like a tornado. It pulls in any objects it comes across in its way. You can also change the RPM and the size of the loop etc. You can make so many cool effects with it. It's all about how creative can you be. This is what I did with it.

While that was the most fun tool, the next pair of tools would compete to come for the next. It's Crystallize and Scallop. They are both the same, adding spikes to the outline but works the opposite way. While one adds to the outer side, the other does it towards the core. An image of them in action would describe it better.

             

I am sorry if the effect was not vivid and you had to zoom or look closely. The next pair of tools are pucker and bloat. I love the name. Pucker and Bloat. Sounds like a good couple. Their task is to retouch an object. One shrinks and the other expands in a circular area of the object.

With that, we reach the last tool for the day, the Wrinkle tool. As the name suggests, it adds wrinkles to the object. Noone wants wrinkle but they look good on texts/objects in certain styles. Think think.

Well, in my eyes, they almost work the same as the warp tool Liquify which I mentioned at the start of the blog. 

Yeah, I was soft with putting the effect and hence not much visible. Either way, to wrap all up, I tried putting all the effects onto the next text. 

Quite good, right?

The envelope distort can be accessed even from the effect window on top. This will open a popup window with a variety of options from the arc, wave, flag to fisheye etc. An object can be given thousand of transformations using this tool. We were asked to make a cool little thing with a box of colours and text. And I did this.

That's all for the class. As I was making this flag thing, I came across an idea for my next illustration.

I started making the illustration on the same day of the 13th. Now, what could the illustration be that formed from making this flag here. Stay tuned for the next blog. I'll see you there.