Building A Building - Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

Jacquelin Vanderwood January 1, 2004   1 It's easy to build a building in Illustrator. Come along and follow me as I show the way. To start, begin with a generic rectangle constructed by using the Rectangle tool. This building will be tall but you can create any kind you desire.   2 Open the Appearance palette and select the Stroke layer. Change it weight to 5 pt. Duplicate that Stroke layer. Change it's weight to 1 pt and it's color to white. Select the Fill layer, click on the Gradient tool and create a 3 color gradient light to dark. Use the Gradient tool and apply a vertical stroke to the rectangle.   3 Create a window with the same process we used in the previous steps above.   4 Adding to the window, begin by drawing out a rectangle horizontally and changing it's color to black. The highlight is created by drawing out a vertical rectangle then selecting the two bottom points, then while holding the Shift down, dragging them left. Duplicate.   5 At the bottom of the window create a new rectangle with the same color hue as the base of the building. This is the shadow.   6 Select the window and it's shadow. Group. Duplicate three across.  Select All and using the arrow key, tap to center the windows on the building.   7 Grab all three windows, hold the Alt and Shift keys down and drag below the current windows. This will duplicate the windows below the current ones.   8 To draw the door use the same methods used above but change the colors. 9 Duplicate a window by Alt dragging. Resize it and then duplicate it. Use the Direct Selection tool to change the bars on the door to white and to change the shadows size and color below the door windows.   10 For the canopy of the doors, use the Pen tool and draw a horizontal line at the bottom and then a vertical line. To duplicate the stroke and fill use the Eyedropper tool with the half selected and click on the door background. Next, meet the two end points but do not let go of the mouse. Drag down to create a curve at this point while pressing the Shift key. (Check the Appearance palette to see if the stroke weights have changed. If so, click on each stroke and specify 5 and 1 as we had before.   11 Use the Reflection tool to create a duplicate. Press Control+Y to view in Outline mode. Make sure the two lines meet exactly. Use the Add to Shape Area Pathfinder button to merge the two halves. Press the Expand button.   12 For side windows duplicate a window again and then resize it then duplicate it.   13 For the top of the building, duplicate the top of the door. Resize it and check the Appearance palette to make sure the strokes have not changed again.   14 Create a rectangle then duplicate it across. If it doesn't meet the exact size of the building, select all of the rectangles and then resize. Group the rectangles.   15 Open Warp Options and choose Arc. set the Horizontal to 47% respectively. When you are satisfied, choose Expand Appearance to make it permanent.   16 Use the Direct Selection tool to change the stroke and fill.   17 Group the building. Duplicate it. Flip it vertically. Use Expand Appearance twice. Change the size to look like a shadow coming from the building. Use the Pathfinder Add to Shape Area button to make one piece. Fill with a transparent 50% gray. Send to back. Select all and group. Hit Control+H to see the building better. Open Warp Options and select Bulge. Set to Horizontal and 71% to give the building more dimension. In this instance, the building will have an oval shape. Select Expand Appearance to make permanent. Remember to hit Control+H again to see the selection. At this point after you have duplicated the buildings you can use the Direct Selection tool to change colors including shadow colors.     Copyright 2004, Jacquelin Vanderwood, All Rights Reserved