Enjoy this beautiful day » Downloads

Under the sea

wendy — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:30:25 +0000

Do you remember when you were you were young, the smallest of spaces seemed the most cozy? Under chairs and desks, and behind the couch. We used to spend hours holed up under my dad’s desk with blankets, pillows, and books. Smaller people seem to find comfort in smaller spaces.

My mother, who has been a teacher for about a zillion years, created this great activity that takes advantage of this concept—building an ocean under your kitchen table! On these freezing winter days, we can always use an activity to keep us invigorated indoors.

Simply cut out fish in many different colors, create some underwater plants, and hang them from under the table. In our house, some of the kids are too young to cut fish, but they eagerly get involved in drawing eyes, fins, and decorating. Add other marine life if you feel inspired!

Cut. Decorate. Hang!

Once you’ve created your ocean, hunker down for some play. Sometimes the kids just like to hang out under there, on their backs, taking in the scene. Other times, everyone gets on bathing suits and suddenly we have deep sea exploration on our hands. Turning out the lights and giving everyone flashlights adds a whole new dimension of fun.

Think you’re incapable of cutting out a fish? We’ve included a template for big fish, little fish, and seaweed. For the seaweed, simply cut the spiral, and then pull one end to unfold. Create a bigger spiral for longer pieces of seaweed.

Then crack out your goggles—you’ve got an ocean to explore.

DOWNLOAD TEMPLATE: PDF format

Downloads: Arrows

glass — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 01:58:40 +0000

Whenever we encounter the need for arrows in a project (and what project doesn’t require arrows?), we reach for a little file we’ve kept over the years with a bunch of the pointy things in vector format. We’ll make fresh ones and add to the file when need be.

So today we combined all of our arrows (along with some vector cursors) and are posting them here for everyone. Sure there are others available around the web, but we made these from scratch and zoomed in real tight to get the details bang on. Feel free to use in whatever project that might need some… pointers.

DOWNLOAD ARROWS : Illustrator, Freehand and PDF archive.

These files are provided under a Creative Commons License!

How we isometric

glass — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:00:29 +0000

We’ve been asked more than once, how do we make those exploded line drawings for shirts like Incantor and the Tii-Shirt?

It’s isometric!

We start by drawing an object straight up in a vector program, then transform it with the methods below to extrapolate each element. (It’s always a good idea to copy your flat artwork off to the side while you work on the isometric piece. Just in case).

There are several ways to go about this:

The Easy Way (with Illustrator)

If you don’t have Adobe Illustrator or prefer more manual control, fret not.

There are other ways.

The Long Way

So that’s the basics. You can do rectangles and other objects this way. To make a cylinder it’s simply a matter of duplicating a top and bottom piece and connecting them with vertical lines.

BONUS LINKS:

Still using Freehand? See how to make isometric transformations in Freehand
Looking to get more advanced? Check out this extensive tutorial on VectorTuts