Astute Graphics has done it again. In what seems like a quest to put all of Adobe Illustrator’s native tools to shame, they’ve released a new plugin suite called SubScribe. Included are tools for drawing circles based on 2 or 3 points, connecting and straightening lines, drawing arcs, rotating and orienting artwork and drawing tangents and perpendicular paths (as shown in the video above).

Time to reassign some hotkeys.

SubScribe is free and exclusive to all Astute Graphics customers.

Dave Correia wanted a print of the Assembly Illustration from Hell to hang by his desk, but couldn’t find a source or a decent image. So he took it upon himself to redraw it and share with anyone that might one as well. Click above for a 17″ x 11″ print-ready copy.

Thanks, Dave. Happy Friday!

Illustrator Ray Frenden was disappointed with his Wacom Cintiq 20WSX and had reservations about giving the company another stack of cash for a “sluggish, incremental, trivial” new generation model:

The last generation of Cintiqs based on Intuos 3 tech had some significant issues with display quality. They used cheap TN panels. They looked muddy and washed out. An anti-glare coating on the back of the plastic screens worsened an already low contrast ratio and robbed the colors of what little vibrancy they had. The newer Cintiqs, like the 24HD, have IPS panels similar to the Apple Cinema Displays. Others have said the display quality is a vast improvement over the last-gen models. That said, the new 24HD has a lower PPI than even my older 20WSX, so I’m healthily skeptical. [...]

I’d be less harsh on the Cintiqs if Wacom weren’t demanding such a hefty price for what amounts to little more than an Intuos digitizer with a cheap LCD slapped atop. [...] I felt I should at least look into other options when buying a new tablet monitor for a second machine.

Not finding many reliable reviews, he took matters into his own hands. He ordered two models made by Yiynova, the $299 10.1″ DP10 and the $499 19″ MSP19, and extensively documented his experience.

From my read, the hardware was better than he expected, though he did get one dud which the distributor replaced. Both had flaky driver support, and neither worked well in Mac OS. But they worked passably in Windows, with the DP10 performing better than the MSP19.

Given the price point, less than half Wacom’s comparable models, these devices might be attractive to students or illustrators who want to try out a tablet display. Either way, it looks like Wacom has some competition and might have to up the ante.

Click through for Frenden’s full review, unboxing and demo videos

Wacom, the undisputed champion of professional-grade input tablets, has outdone themselves with their new Intuos5 line.

They’ve simplified and refined all aspects of the Intuos4 to focus on productivity and a tidy workspace. Gone are the distracting OLED screens, the glossy finish, and all wires. Replacing them are an intuitive, customizable on-screen menu system that keeps your eyes on your work instead of your hands, a smooth, uncluttered and durable matte finish that Batman himself may have designed, and an optional wireless kit that consists of a transmitter, a USB receiver and a Li-ion battery with a 6 to 16 hour charge depending on the size of the tablet.

They’ve also added multi-touch sensitivity and gesture recognition, so you can use the ten pens you were born (up to 16, if you’re some kind of freak) or their now-standard stylus that offers 2,048 levels of pressure sensitivity. A button toggles between pen and touch modes to avoid accidental input.

US prices range from $230 to $470 depending on size, and they should be shipping very soon.

For more info, check out Engadget’s hands on, and Wacom’s product page.

Thanks to Larry for the tip!

When we set out to bring textbooks to iPad, there were really three areas we focused on: we wanted to have really fast, fluid navigation, we wanted to have beautiful graphics, we wanted to create an easier way to take notes.

—Roger Rosner, VP Productivity Applications, Apple

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJxZG2Nv4KA

Apple also released a free iBooks authoring suite, iBooks Author. This application enables anyone to write, design, create interactive modules, and publish a book to the iBooks store for sale.

While I’m not sure that the iPad is a more durable medium than paper for kindergardeners through high school students (could you see yourself in your garage with a iHaynes manual?), this is certainly an encouraging development for our trade. It demonstrates that people learn best, are enthusiastic about learning, when information is presented in a highly visual, immersive way.

The choice of graphics shown might also be a signal that if you’re not dabbling in 3D, motion and interactivity yet, it might be a good time to start. Remember, every threat is also an opportunity.

• Part 1: Hans Jenssen
• Part 2: Frank Soltesz and L. Ashell Wood
• Part 3: Yoshihiro Inomoto
• Part 4: Stephen Biesty
• Part 5: Graham Bleathman
• Part 6: Christopher & Matt Cushman
• Part 7: Richard Chasemore
• Part 8: The Das Brothers & Roger Stewart

Brett wrote in looking for a way to accomplish a diamond grip pattern wrapping around a cylinder, like the one shown above. It’s easy enough to trace a photo, but what if you didn’t have one, or it wasn’t at the right angle?

The technique I’d use is similar to mapping a label to a can.

1. Create the artwork you’ll need. The diamond pattern matches the angle and density of the original. The black circle is the same diameter as the reference part, and is filled with no stroke.

2. Make the pattern a symbol. Drag the pattern into the Symbols palette.

3. Extrude the circle. Go to Effects > 3D > Extrude & Bevel. Click the Surface dropdown at the bottom and select Wireframe. This will help you orient the cylinder to the desired angle. I usually start by entering 0° for all the rotation angles, then rotating one axis at a time by grabbing the edges of the preview cube.

You may need to reposition your cylinder to line up better with a reference image. To do this, Click OK, move the cylinder as needed, then open your Appearance pallete and double click on the 3D Extrude & Bevel item. You may need to turn Preview back on.

When you’re happy with your geometry, click Map Art…

4. Map Art. Click through the Surfaces to find the rectangular side surface. Then select your pattern from the Symbol drop down. Next, select Scale To Fit at the bottom and check off Invisible Geometry. Click OK.

5. Change Surface to Flat Shading. Click OK. You can now edit the artwork as needed by going to Object > Expand Appearance. In my example, I changed the yellow fill to white, then drew the rest of the lineart on another layer.

Have a common problem in Illustrator? Let us know in the comments, or email it to suggest@technicalillustrators.org!

Often the most difficult and time consuming part of technical illustration is finding good reference material. While the internet serves up a limitless selection of images, finding one at an appropriate size, fidelity, viewing angle, and unambiguous copyright status, can be next to impossible.

Sometimes it’s much quicker to simply step away from your desk and go snap a photo of whatever you need. Of course, this isn’t practical if you’re drawing a submarine or a satellite, but it can help if you’re trying to fill a scene with commonplace objects.

Where it gets tricky is matching your photo reference up to the rest of the drawing. We’ve all seen drawings badly traced and assembled together from photos taken at different angles. We can recognize this because we understand perspective. So let’s apply that understanding when shooting our own photos.

Shooting Isometric Photos with an iPhone

They say that the best camera is the one you have with you (You can’t take a photo with a camera that’s not with you). For me, that’s my iPhone. But the other reason I’m using an iPhone is that it’s a smart phone and, of course, smart phones have apps.

One app in particular, BlendCamPLite (Free!), makes this process easier. It’s intended to composite multiple photos together like layers in Photoshop. But it also lets you load a photo from your library and use it as an overlay while shooting a new photo. There may be similar apps for Android, or better iPhone apps than this one, let me know!

1. To begin, get the app, then load this isometric grid into your iPhone Photo Library. You can do this by creating a folder, then setting iTunes to sync that folder in the Photos tab. The images in the folder will then appear on your iPhone in the Photo Library.

2. Next, launch BlendCamPLite and press Add New.

3. Select Load from photo albums.

4. Select the isometric grid in your iPhone photo library. Then press Add New again.

5. This time select Take a photo.

6. Set up your object. Because of its irregular shape, I placed a card under mine to help align it to the grid. Select Overlap.

7. Select either Overlap a photo or Overlap a thin photo. The difference is the opacity of the overlay.

8. Voila, you can now move your camera (or object) around until it matches the grid. Press the camera icon to take the photo.

9. The app will return to the main screen and the results may not be what you expected. Select the top layer.

10. Select Darkness priority. This acts like Multiply in Photoshop.

11. That looks better. If you’re happy, select Preview & Save.

12. Select Save.

13. The photo AND the composite will be saved to your Camera Roll. Press OK.

And there you have it:

Of course the photo isn’t truly isometric, things still converge into the distance out here in meatspace. The iPhone’s wide-angle lens will emphasize that perspective, so for the best results move back as far as possible from the object and then zoom in. You should be able to get a close enough angle and then correct for any distortions when you start tracing in Illustrator.

Shooting On-Angle Photos with a Point-and-Shoot or DSLR

The same thing could be accomplished on a point-and-shoot camera or DSLR by printing out our handy isometric grid or your perspective lineart onto tracing paper, then taping that to the LCD screen. You may have to tape the tracing paper to another sheet of paper to get it through the printer in one piece. (Frankly, I’d rather stand outside shooting 100 photos and hope one of them matches than do all that.)

UPDATE: GazVezir wrote in to tell me that this can be accomplished on Android devices with Camera Zoom FX ($4.99). I don’t have an Android to test this, so your mileage may vary.

Do you shoot your own reference material? Any tips or tricks to share? Let us know in the comments! 

Iaroslav Lazunov has a great tutorial over on Astute Graphics’ blog on how to create proper gears in Adobe Illustrator. This tutorial makes use of the plugin VectorScribe, but the same results could be achieved with Illustrator’s default tools with some extra steps.

An important distinction is made here: Proper Gear. Most gears that show up in illustrations and icons would not work with any efficiency and some would just shred to bits. While you wouldn’t necessarily 3D print these and use them, you’ll end up with something that at least looks like it would work (unlike the failboat below).

Also included in the tutorial is a way to accomplish conical gradients in Illustrator (unfortunately the technique is extremely convoluted).

Check out the tutorial!

I thought I’d share what I’ve learned using Astute Graphics’ VectorScribe plugin for Adobe Illustrator (previously) over the past few months. I’ve put together a bit of a demo video highlighting some key features of the suite that I’ve found helpful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AydOgXNnQjs

This only scratches the surface—As mentioned in the video, be sure to check out Astute’s video tutorials to learn about all the features in detail. I think this package is a great, feature-rich and intuitive extension to Illustrator’s toolkit.

If you’re using VectorScribe or have tried the demo, let me know your thoughts in the comments!