My dear dekeIpeds, imagine if you will, our curious, if unsuspecting necrowalrus, just trying to get through his day without being contaminated by random sprays of BLUDE, vee-OH-lence, or crud hue-MORE. The weight of the world, crushing his spirit. Boom-shaka-laka. If you don't know what the heel I'm talking about, you've completely missed or possibly ignored last week's Deke's Techniques post, in which Deke created this charming character and I shared a totally awesome promo movie for Battleblock Theater. 

Anyway, with all that crap going on, our guy needs a glowing red aura to keep evilness and incivility at bay. In this week's free movie, Deke shows you how do just that, using Illustrator's dynamic effects. 

You can adapt this relatively simple (once you get everything in place) technique to protect any creature you like:  Read more » 

In last week's episode of Deke's Techniques, Deke shared the prosaic, but presumably helpful, process of extending your Illustrator artwork all the way to the bleed. In the course of that video, however, he inadvertently introduced the world to his distractingly compelling character, the Necrowalrus, who happened to be the subject of the artwork in question. 

Just how attention-grabbing was the tangential introduction of Deke's elusive non-existent video game character? Well, I think this tweet says is all:  

@akacolleen is there any chance we can get a JPEG of the Necrowalrus? It'd likely end up on our site worldwidewalrusweb.com

— WorldWideWalrusWeb (@walrusweb) April 30, 2013

So this week, Deke reveals how to draw some key components of his delightful game-changing Necrowalrus in Illustrator. Read more » 

This week's Deke's Techniques episode explains how to create Illustrator artwork that extends all the way to the bleed.

Deke and I have been arguing (benevolently) about how to describe bleed. It's basically the allowance you put around your image to ensure that the ink goes all the way to the edge of the page---and does so even if the printer's registration is slightly misaligned. In other words, practically speaking, it's the allowance you put around your image to ensure the ink goes off the edge leaving not the slightest sliver of un-inked whiteness behind. 

This means you want both your purple background and your "necrowalrus's" costume to extend out beyond any bit of potentially crop-able space:

This means that you have to extend the edges of your image to include extra stuff: background and stretchable elements of your illustration that may or may not be included in the final print. It's an art. It's a science. And in Illustrator, it takes a little finesse to align the relevant bits of your document to and all the way through this safety zone. If you're creating graphics and you have any thought of ever printing them on paper, then this week's episode is definitely worth checking out.  Read more »