Learning Illustrator

I had a crash course in Illustrator when I did Level 2 in college years ago and I hated it. By that I mean I was taught the hardest thing (In my opinion) first, that being the pen tool. I just couldn't grasp it at all, but since coming back to college I've been looking forward to using it more.

Fortunately this time round we started off with the basics. I was tasked with creating and moving shapes! Considering it has been a few years since I have since been at college I've also learnt how to use Photoshop independently. This has come in really useful when using the other Adobe software because its very similar, because of this I've been able to take to it like a duck to water.

Instantly wanting to jump into the deep end I decided to recreate one of my favourite logos, the Watchmen logo. It took me a few attempts trying to get the shapes right and the blood splatter took me a few times, but I achieved what I wanted and I really like the finished product! (Ignore the blue line, it's from the software when I screenshot it)

In the next lesson we did a recap on creating the shapes and my tutor gave me a handout and asked me to create this key. It was very straight forward and not being contempt with just that I wanted to give it different effects. I made one that is just a black stroke. I duplicated the original two other times and used the Warp and Twirl tools to manipulate the keys. This ended up really cool looking, the warp key looks like it would belong in a Disney film. Where as the Twirl key looks like it's from some kind of Japanese RPG game.

We then got shown how to use the text tool and then turn it into an object to be manipulated.

My tutor then displayed how to create patterns, as you can see here I duplicated my initials several times and distorted them.

I'm really enjoying using Illustrator now, its a complete 180 from my original opinion on it. I'm looking forward to developing my skills further.