Low Poly

Low poly art creates pictures using simple triangles (polygons) instead of lots of tiny details. It's a cool and minimalist style often used in video games and digital art.

Your task is to make your own gem-like design of an animal. You will be using Illustrator's Pen tool to draw the polygons. Your design will be printed as stickers using Rolanda.

How To

Setting Up your Project File:

A) Create a new document in Illustrator.

File Name: 09LowPoly

Units = cm, Width= 15cm, Height=15cm

Artboards = 2 (one is for your sticker sheet)

Raster Effects = High (300ppi)

B) Paste in your reference image.

C) It may be easier to work on if your photo is a bit fainter. Find the Transparency window and reduce the opacity to your liking.

D) Lock the layer with your reference image. Create a new layer to work on.

You can also get ready-made palettes from the Color Hunt website!

Ideate:

For this design, you are not choosing just any animal. You are making an emblem of your familiar, your kindred spirit, your patronus... a creature who resonates with your personality.

To find your animal, complete this personality test. A personality test is not the end-all description of who you are, but it is a helpful tool for discovering more about yourself.

Its fun and takes some of the pressure off choosing an animal. BUT if you already have an animal in mind, you may go with that instead.

Prototype:

How do you want to portray your animal emblem? Head-on? 3/4 view? Just the face or the full body?

Make a drawing of your animal or find a stock photo to work directly off of. When looking for photos, avoid Google Images. Unless the creator states otherwise, making work directly from another person's art/photography is considered copyright infringement and theft of intellectual property. Instead, use a website that offers free-use stock images, such as Pexels or Unsplash.

Test:

In the time-lapse to the right, I start off by planning my polygons in Photoshop. I found it helpful to plan where I wanted my details. If you want to dive right into making your polygons in Illustrator, you may.

Before you get too far along with making your polygons, ask yourself:
Is it recognizable?

Will this look good as a sticker?

Make:

Use the Pen tool to create your 3-sided-polygons.

Click once (no dragging!) to create an "anchor" on your first corner.
Click where you want your second corner to be.
Click where you want your third corner to be.
Close your polygon: Click on your first anchor again.

The vertices (corners) of a polygon should meet with other vertices. Aka, the vertice of one polygon should not poke the side of its neighbour. You can use your white arrow tool to move your vertices.

Colour. Use the black arrow tool to select your polygons and change their fill colours. Be sure to vary the tints/tones/shades of neighbouring polygons. Your polygons may be solid colours.

You can use Adobe's Colour Picker to create a harmonious palette. Take a screenshot (WindowsKey+ Shift + S), paste this onto your low poly file, and use the eyedropper tool to select the apply the colours to your triangles.

If you want an added challenge, experiment with using gradients.

Video Guides

Hand-In Checklist

Below is an exemplar project layout:

Left Artboard = Working File

Where you build your design

Right Artboard = Print Sheet

Where you resize, duplicate, and apply cut-lines to your design for sticker production.

To Set up Your Print Sheet:

Copy your design onto the right artboard.

#1

Select it with the black arrow tool.

Go to Object > Expand (or Expand Appearance then Expand)

This is VITAL. Skipping this step will result in disproportionally thick lines when you shrink things.

Have Stroke,
No Gradient

Strokes + Gradients

First: the Strokes

Select it with the black arrow tool. Copy it (Ctrl-C)

Make a new layer. Paste design in the same spot on this new layer(Ctrl-Shift-V).

Lock the bottom layer.

Select the top layer. Set the FILL to null (white square with a red line through it)

Go to Object > Expand (or Expand Appearance then Expand)

Rejoin with the gradient:

Lock the top Layer.

Unlock the bottom layer. Select the design. Remove the Stroke.

Bring them back together:

Have both layers unlocked.

Select everything.

Group it.

#2

#3

No Stroke,
Have Gradient

Go to Step 3.

#4

Resize your design to be the size(s) of sticker you want.

Minimum 2cm in any direction.
You can resize using the Transform options in the top bar (with design selected)
OR make a rectangle that is the size you want, and resize your design by dragging its corners to match (rember to hold shift to lock the aspect ratio)

To duplicate, hold alt and click+drag your design.

Make your cut lines after resizing.

See Rolanda's page for how-to.

LowPolyChecklist