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Test driving & Review: Abode illustrator 2023 release by Brian Wood: 5 Lesson TRANSFORMING ARTWORK

5 Lesson TRANSFORMING ARTWORK


This is my result image and of course I changed some stuff to make it less boring. I do feel some options have changed even since the book is for Abode illustrator 2023 and I'm using version 2024. However I'm using the essential classic workspace which means tools don't change. 

picture of a caravan in a sunny place

This was the lesson menu and I have no idea why its blurred but this lesson was mostly about learning skills.
  • Add, edit, rename, and reorder artboards in an existing document. 
  • Navigate artboards. 
  • Work with rulers and guides. 
  • Position objects with precision. 
  • Move, scale, rotate, and shear objects using a variety of methods.
  •  Explore the mirror repeat. 
  • Work with the Puppet Warp tool.

Most of it was boring because I was working with demo files and just learning where things where and now they worked rather than doing much. I think it's a good reference chapter incase I wanted to do anything complicated. 

At this point, I feel the book is just more or less demonstrating the software or showing the functions rather giving solid projects. Does that make sense? I mean I would have liked to create this project from scratch, using all the tools to draw the images but  it's more getting a lesson file with images and using the functions on them to create the final project. 

lesson file



This is has been the case from lessons one to now. And looking at the lesson folder (zip file), I downloaded it seemed all the lessons are going to be like that. So I'm a little disillusioned with the process because I thought I would be doing projects from scratch, rather than just alternating images here and there. It means every lesson I start afresh rather than build on.

But given there are 16 lessons plus the extra tour one, and I'm only on lesson 5 I think I need to just keep focused not discard this book. But I do like working with projects from start to finish since that is now I learn. 

I would say it was a good reference book but it's a bit hard to use as a reference since it's based on lessons. Maybe it's too early to say and I need to keep on but also look for projects I can do- which kind of defeats the point.

I had bought it with an ebook cover project in mind for my book, but because of the way it was formatted, I just freestyled my book cover which I shall show when it is published - it is in review now. 

Overall 

I think it depends on your learning style. I would have preferred to have one large project which the book would have covered from start to finish rather than having different lessons for me to apply functions. 

These books look great but just ensure they cover your learning style in a way you can reapply otherwise it's just learning a bunch of functions. 




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