Deke's Techniques 225: Animating Bird Wings with Puppet Warp
Deke uses the Puppet Warp feature in Photoshop to duplicate and animate the wings of a bird of prey.
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Deke's Techniques 225: Animating Bird Wings with Puppet Warp

Submitted by colleen on 21 May 2013 - 1:30am.

In this week's free Deke's Techniques episode, Deke begins the process of using the Puppet Warp feature in Photoshop to animate the wings (and comic balloon speech, of course) of this fierce bird of prey.

Puppet Warp allows you to bend and twist parts of your image whilst leaving other parts in place. By applying incremental warps to the wings on multiple copies of this bird, he sets up the flapping wing animation (and bird squawking) that he'll put in motion in next week's episode. 

Meanwhile, I have three key takeaways from this week's movie: Read more » 

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Deke's Techniques 222: Creating a Protective Aura around Your 2D Character

Submitted by colleen on 15 May 2013 - 12:15am.
Deke's Techniques 222: Creating a Protective Aura around Your 2D Character

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 » 

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The Long-Awaited Illustrator CS6 One-on-One: Mastery (Now with Free Samples)

Submitted by colleen on 14 May 2013 - 1:15am.

This week, I bring you one of the best things on earth: free samples. And I don't mean samples of some disgustingly healthy, fat-free, high-fiber cardboard-esque reconstituted potato-chip substitute; no, today, I've got full-flavor, indulgently informative free videos to whet your appetite for Deke's new course at lynda.com---Illustrator CS6 One-on-One: Mastery. Both good for you and truly delicious. And calorie-free, if it comes to that.

Mastery is the fourth level in Master Deke's One-on-One series, so this course covers some powerful vector-wrangling features. But don't be daunted, these helpful features are explained with Deke's usual care and clarity. Don't just take my word for it, savor the delicacies I've spread before you here. The folks at lynda.com always make a percentage of each course free for the sampling, and I've included many of those treats here. (And if you'd like the full meal deal and you're not a member of lynda.com, you can get a free week's subscription by going to lynda.com/deke.) Here's what you can expect:

Chapter 33: Using Smart Guides
You probably sense that Smart Guides are convenient for aligning aspects of your work on the fly, but in this chapter, Deke reveals some of the hidden ways you can exploit Smart Guides to create finely crafted artwork. For your consideration, check out this movie that not only helps you draw custom letters, but also is part of a heart-warming story of a man trying to create a logo for his son: 

Free Sample: Hand-drawing letters as stroked paths

Read more » 

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Deke's Technique 220: Creating a Distinctive 2D Video Game Character in Illustrator

Submitted by colleen on 7 May 2013 - 9:15pm.
Deke's Technique 220: Creating a Distinctive 2D Video Game Character in Illustrator

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:  

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

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Photoshop Creative Cloud Made Slightly Clearer

Submitted by colleen on 6 May 2013 - 10:59pm.

The key topic of discussion at tonight's LA Web Professionals Group meeting, where Deke was presenting some live Deke's Techniques, was Adobe's announcement about the Creative Cloud. The upshot: Rather than release Creative Suite 7, all updates to Photoshop and its creative cousins will now come via a Creative Cloud subscription. In other words, if you want the new features in the latest version of Photoshop, you're going to get them delivered via the cloud. 

This is necessarily causing some confusion and questions for Creative Suite users. I've got two useful sources for information on "Photoshop CC." If your questions are primarily about obtaining, installing, and using Creative Cloud, check out this FAQ from Photoshop's Chief Customer Advocate (and friend of dekeOnline) Jeff Tranberry. If you want to know why you might care to obtain, install, and use Photoshop CC, then check out Deke's new Preview of Photoshop Creative Cloud's new features at lynda.com. If you're not a member of lynda.com, you can get a free week's trial to check it out at lynda.com/deke.  Read more » 

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