Iain begins this course by expanding on your knowledge of Layers from his previous tutorial by revealing some of his professional tips and tricks. He then shows how to Place external artwork into your Illustrator document while explaining the important distinction between externally linked media versus embedded media.

From there Iain explains how to use Illustrator’s Isolation Mode to “protect” your existing work from accidental mistakes! He also shows you how to keep your project organized by incorporating different Artboards.

From there, Iain explains how to add and subtract drawing objects in a variety of ways using the Pathfinder Panel and demonstrates the Shape Builder tool.
Following this, Iain demonstrates the power of Clipping Masks, before moving on to everyone’s favorite: Effects! In this section, he highlights many exciting effects, from Distortion and Warp Effects to the more Photoshop-like Blur effects now available directly in Illustrator CS6.

With the Appearance and Graphic Styles panels, Iain shows us fast, easy ways to duplicate fills and strokes and how to create and apply graphic styles in order to help you work faster and more efficiently. After covering the Blend Modes available in these panels, Iain then shows you the Blend Tool and its unique capabilities to combine several objects in various ways.

Finally, Iain gives a fascinating explanation of how to use Envelopes with Warps and Meshes to produce more interesting transformations of your drawing objects. To consolidate your learning, Iain wraps up this tutorial with another “mini-project”: A fun, quick map of Australia!