In this tutorial we will create a crazy poster, illustrating a famous quote by Oscar Wilde – “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken”. We’ll apply various Warp Effects to create the elements easily. Learn to make a gentle grain effect to give our poster a vintage look and do some freehand lettering. Let’s get started!
1. Create a
Fancy Top Hat
Step 1
First of
all, create a New Document of 600x800px
size. Form the palette that we’ll be using in our image to make the composition vivid, yet preserving the consistent look of a retro-style poster.
Step 2
Start by
taking the Ellipse Tool (L) and draw
a squashed shape. Further, use the Rectangle
Tool (M) to add a rectangle shape and align its upper anchor points with
the middle part of the ellipse.
Select the
lower left anchor point and press the Enter key to open the Move options window. Set the Horizontal position value to 35px and Vertical to 0px, and hit
the OK button. Repeat the same with
the right anchor point, but this time move it to -35px.
Step 3
Keep our
rectangle selected and go to Effect > Warp > Bulge, setting the Bend
value to -11%.
Step 4
Go ahead
and add a narrow stripe with Rectangle Tool
(M) forming the hat’s rim. This time use the Arc effect, setting the Bend value to -20% and making the rim arced.
Step 5
Let’s form a simple ribbon to make our hat more saucy. Duplicate
the rim-shape and move the copy up a bit. Select both the middle hat shape and the rim copy and use the Shape Builder Tool
(Shift-M) to delete the unneeded parts by clicking them while holding the Alt key.
Step 6
Duplicate
the middle part of the top hat, make it narrower and set the Blending Mode to Screen. Repeat these moves once more and, finally, get rid of the unwanted parts, thus making a nice highlight
on the ribbon.
2. Style Those Crazy Round Glasses
Step 1
Let’s make
trendy round glasses to give our poster a unique and crazy look! Start by
forming an even circle with the Ellipse
Tool (L). Go to Object > Path
> Offset Path and set the Offset
value to -10px. Finally, select the
outer shape and change its color to orange, picking it from our palette.
Step 2
Add a simple highlight and a shadow to the frame. Let’s also create a shiny fleck on the
glass. Put a small white rectangle on the glass and Move it to 12px horizontally. Hit the Copy button to create the copy of the
rectangle. Add two more copies of the rectangles and place them under the first
two.
Step 3
Group the highlights and apply Arc effect with 20% Bend
value. Object > Expand Appearance
of the shape and apply another effect – this time Arch – with 23% Bend
value.
Step 4
We need to
add a reflection to make the glasses more glossy and vivid. Just copy the inner glass
shape, make it brighter and use the Shape
Builder Tool (Shift-M) to form a curved reflection.
Step 5
It’s time
to form the whole glasses! Add the second part of our glasses and connect them with a
narrow rectangle. Add a highlight and a shadow similar to those on the glasses’
frame.
Step 6
Group all
parts of the bridge together and apply the Arc
effect with 40% value to bend the
bridge upwards.
3. Style the Trendy Hipster Mustache
Step 1
We need to
make a simple brush in order to form curled mustache in a few clicks. Start by
making a circle and use the Direct
Selection Tool (A) to grab its side anchor point and drag it further right.
Click it with Convert Anchor Point tool
(Shift-C) to turn it into a sharp corner.
Move the shape that we’ve formed
onto the Brushes panel and create an
Art Brush. I’ve left the default setting here as I don’t need
to change the color or size of the shape later, however, you can return to this
menu and edit the settings any time by
clicking your brush twice in the Brushes panel.
Step 2
Create an
arched line with Pencil Tool (N) or Arc Tool and apply the newly created
brush. Go on and Object > Expand Appearance of our object. Select the Smooth Tool (or click and hold the Alt key, while the Pencil Tool (N) is selected) and stroke the shape to reduce the
quantity of the anchor points, thus making it
more smooth and neat.
Step 3
Add a
gentle shadow to the lower part of the mustache, picking the darker red color from our
palette. Place the mustache under the glasses and use the Reflect Tool (O) to make the second
half of the mustache by mirroring it over the vertical axis.
4. Render a Funny Smiling Mouth and Vintage Folded Ribbon
Step 1
To start
with, grab the Rounded Rectangle Tool,
set the Corner Radius to 20px and make a sausage-shaped object. Apply
the Arc effect to bend our object horizontally to -38%.
Step 2
Add a
second, smaller, shape to form the inner part of the mouth and to emphasize the
lips. Continue by adding two white circles in the corners of the mouth. Those will
shape the teeth. Select both circles and go to Object > Blend > Make, setting the Spacing to Specified Steps, 3 in the Blend Options.
Step 3
Select the Blend group with Direct Selection Tool (A) and edit the line, making it a bit
arched. Put a copy of the mouth inner shape above other objects and Make Clipping Mask to hide the unneeded
parts of the teeth.
Step 4
Add two
more circles to our mouth and hide them in the Clipping Mask as well, forming the tongue. Use the Paintbrush Tool (B) and make a smooth
stroke with the same brush as we’ve created for the mustache.
Step 5
Expand your
stroke and modify it by cutting off the unneeded upper part. Make the tip of
the tongue more realistic and smooth with the Convert Anchor Point Tool (Shift-C) and, finally, add a gentle
shadow with the Pencil Tool (N).
Step 6
The last
but not the least element of our composition is an elegant vintage ribbon,
which is very easy to make. Create two turquoise stripes with the Rectangle Tool (M) and skew them by
selecting side anchor points and dragging them up with the Direct Selection Tool (A). Add darker background parts of the
ribbons and, finally, use the Arc effect with -10% value to bend the ribbon slightly.
We’ve
finished with the face elements!
Let’s move
on to the letters!
5. Design
Your Whimsy Freehand Lettering
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken”
– Oscar Wilde.
Step 1
Arm with the Pen Tool (P) and start blocking
the first letter of our quote – the “B”. Make straight lines and cut out the center
parts using the Minus Front function
in Pathfinder panel.
Step 2
Let’s
decorate our letters with bright “bulbs”.
Put several circles in the corners of the letter and use the Blend Tool (W) to connect them into a nice garland.
Step 3
Form the
“E” letter in the same way and make the letters more dimensional by adding a shadow. Duplicate the basic shapes and move the copies a few pixels down and to the left.
Place the
letters on top of the hat.
Step 4
Now grab
the Pencil Tool (N) and freehand the
first part of our next word – “yourself” – in a simple cartoon handwriting.
Draw a
brighter yellow shape above the upper parts of the letters and edit them with
the Shape Builder Tool (Shift-M),
turning them into a nice highlights.
Put the
letters on the center of our cylinder hat.
Step 5
Use some
nice calligraphic font to depict the second part of the word. In this
particular case I use the “Adventure” font, but you can choose any italic
script to your liking. Expand the font and give it
a nice look by adding the highlights and the shadows. Use the Arc
warp effect to give the object a gentle bend, so that it fits the hat brim
perfectly.
Step 6
The next
word will be “everyone”. Let’s make a simple Pattern Brush for a whimsy writing. Create a stripe and put a
dashed line above it. Make a simple shape, consisting of circles, which we’ll use as tips of the letters.
Expand the
line, group it with the rectangle and create a Pattern Brush with default settings.
Take the Paintbrush Tool (B) and make a few
strokes to form each letter. Attach the circled elements to the tips of every
letter.
Step 7
There is
also a “lazy” way to create the whole word. You can add the circled tips to
your pattern brush as well. Just drag the element and its reflected copy to the
Swatches panel and then add them in
the Pattern Brush Options window as
the “Start Tile” and “End Tile”.
This way
you’ll be able to make a line with figured tips, but sometimes they become
deformed and don’t look quite nice.
However,
the scale of the word will be quite small comparing to the size of other objects, so it’s up to you to decide, which technique to use. Below you can see the
comparison of these two methods.
Put the
letters on our image and distribute them nicely around the glasses. Add a bright
shadow to separate the letters from the objects below and to make them more
noticeable. Further on, form the word “else” with the Pencil Tool (N) and place it on the mustache.
Step 8
Let’s try
out another handy Adobe Illustrator tool – the Blob Brush Tool (Shift-B). Check out my settings on the screenshot
below and form the word “is” on the tip of the tongue, decorating it with simple doodle
sparks.
Step 9
Finally,
shape out two last words – “already taken” – in the same way as we shaped
the word “your” with the Pencil Tool (N). Place the letters and rotate them a bit to fit the ribbon.
6. Give Your Poster a Vintage Grainy Look
Step 1
As far as
we’ve finished with the main elements of the composition, we need to add some
nice and simple background that won’t distract us from the picture and, at the same time, will emphasize the vividness of our poster. I’ve
played with the colors, changing some of them, so that they are clearly
visible above the background. As you may notice on the screenshot below, I’ve
changed the colors of the words “be”, “everyone else” and “is”, still using
the colors from our basic palette.
Step 2
Add a
rectangle of a size of our Artboard for the background and fill it with a
bright radial gradient from vivid yellow in the center to orange on the edges.
Step 3
It’s time
to make a vintage grainy look! Select the top part of our hat, Copy it and Paste in Front
(Control-C > Control-F). Fill the shape with a linear gradient from
white to dark red and switch the Blending
Mode to Multiply.
Finally, go to
Effect > Effect Gallery > Textures
> Grain and apply the effect with Sprinkles
Grain Type, setting the Intensity
to 72 and the Contrast to 55. You can alter these values anytime by choosing Grain in the Appearance panel.
Apply the
same Grain effect to other elements of
our picture, selecting the proper colors of the gradients.
Yay! Congratulations on Finishing Your Crazy Poster!
Great job!
You’ve just finished creating a funny retro poster with quirky lettering. I hope it has
motivated you for some new great art creations and gave you some useful tips
and tricks. Stay tuned and follow your inspiration!
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