Create a Vector Home Cinema Design

Teaser: Create a Vector Home Cinema Design

Modern electronics have a cool factor that you can take advantage of. They are often made up of multiple basic shapes that you can create with the pen tool and shape tools.

Learn how to make illustrations in perspective in Illustrator. It's not that difficult to draw a Home Cinema. You can then use these skills to create other home electronic illustrations. Or turn them into shiny icons.


Setting Up Our Perspective

I imagined where the Vanishing Point would be for this illustration using 1-Point Perspective. This type of perpective is simple enough to not have to work off guides. Though you could physically place the Vanishing Point in Illustrator, and draw guides if you prefer. A demonstration of how the Vanishing Point looks in relation to the final image is below. The following article reviews how to create perspective in Illustrator. The article is from a tutorial site by Kevin Hulsey. There are many good resources on this topic there.

Create Our TV Screen Console

Let's get started. First, you have to use the Pen Tool(P) to make the console. We imagine our perspective point is off to the right. We aim our angles at that distant point. Make a Gradient, like the one shown below.

Create the Base for the TV Screen

Use the same perspective, with the Pen Tool (P) draw a rectangular box under our screen.

Give the Elements Some 3D

Add a couple of layers behind our main layers. I used the Pen Tool (P). Though you could certainly use the Rectangle Tool (M) and then manipulate the points with the Direct Selection Tool (A) to put the rectangles in place.

Create the Back of TV and the Screen

Draw the back of the screen as shown below. Use a Dark Grey Gradient for the back. Draw the TV Screen. Then fill it with a Blue Gradient. Remember to continue to sue the same perspective for all your elements.

Add Reflections and Shadows

Make reflection on the top of our TV screen. Give it a light Gradient, as shown below. Then set the Opacity to about 40 Percent.

The image below shows where to add reflections and shadows. These are white reflective shapes and black shadow shapes. Opacity is given to each element so that it blends into the design. Giving the illustration both reflections and shadows gives it a more 3D look. It also makes the design more interesting.

Create the Speakers in the Base

(1), grab the Ellipse Tool (L) and draw an ellipse. Notice the angle it is at. Give it a Gray Gradient, as shown below. (2), Add another ellipse inside the first one. Make this second one smaller. Have it's Gradient run opposite the first gradient. (3), Copy the inner ellipse and move it up a little. (4), Use the Pathfinder Tool to break a copy of these shapes apart. With the shapes selected go to Effect>Pathfinder>Divide. Then give the shape a white fill. Then set the Transparency to about 20 percent.

Place the first speaker bottom left in our Base. Then make a smaller copy and place it bottom right in our Base.

Create the Standing Speakers

First, using the Pen Tool (P), make a shape similar to the one shown below. Then add a Gray Gradient fill.

Grab the Ellipse Tool (L) and make a flat circle shape. Line it up, as shown below. Use a lighter Gray Gradient here.

Make a little leg of our speaker. I used the Pen Tool, but you could also draw some basic shapes and use the Pathfinder Palette to combine them. Then add that same Gradient like in the last step, but with an Angle of 0.

Now make the big speaker shape using the pen tool. You can see that its made up of three shapes. It's drawn in a similar fashion to how we did our TV screen. First the front is made. You can use the Rounded Rectangle Tool and then manipulate the right sides to match our perspective angles, or just draw the shape with the Pen Tool.

We create the back of the speaker on the left next. Notice the Gradient goes from dark at the top to light at the bottom. Then we create the Front Panel of our Speaker. We conform this shape to the perspective as well. The Gradient used on this shape is shown below.

Now add a little reflection and shadow to the Standing Speakers, as shown below. This gives the image some final polish and shine.

Conclusion

Place a copy of the Standing Speaker on each side of our TV. It's finished now. It looks clean and sexy. You can make more illustrations based on this tutorial. Remember to use consistent perspective, make good use of gradients, and show light through the use of reflections and shadows. The final image is below.

Nice

Hey, nice tutorial! Thanks. I'm working on making a tutorial myself. do you know of any tutorials on how to make a good tutorial?

Simply

Thanx for this tutorial simply and clean.

Post

STUMBLED!

What a fantastic post, thanks for sharing.

VOTED for this post at:
Newsdots - Home Cinema Design

Tutorials

@DAT - I wrote an article Criteria that Make a Great Tutorial. It's helpful. It does use Photoshop examples though.

I learned by looking at great tutorial examples. Collis at PSDTUTS and Veelre where big inspirations.

@Arnaud - Thx for stoppin' by.

@Geoserv - Thx for promoting the article. Always appreciated.

Wao great tutorial ,so

Wao great tutorial ,so amazing ,thanks for sharing :)

o very very nice thank you

o very very nice thank you very much

thank you

thank you very much .ai is part of my new hobby and these tutorial you have a just great!

Thank You. it looks like

Thank You. it looks like natural

Really nice work!!1

Really nice work!!1

Nice tutorial. i was always

Nice tutorial. i was always wondering how to make a perspective....

Great Work..

WOW... THis is great work.. I am amazed..

Dish Network, Sirius, and TiVO Join Forces

Not only that, but Dish Networks is going to focus in SIRIUS radio.

DIRECTV and TiVo will work together to develop a version of the TiVo® service for DIRECTV's broadband-enabled HD DVR platform.

So, you've got Dish focusing on SIRIUS while DIRECT TV goes the TIVO. Route.

Thanks for your article. It was very informative.

So it's all about angle.

So it's all about angle. Finally I understand this!. Thanks for sharing.

Yup its all about the

Yup its all about the angle.. Hope you got it to work.

Nice!

I just love running across blogs that are filled with information. I consider myself a new user when it comes to the creation of blogs and I just want to thank you for posting your knowledge to help us newbies out. Thanks!

Awesome

That was one of the most informative tutorials in graphic arts that I have seen. I learned more right there! I can't wait to try that out for my clients. I didn't know Vanishing Point worked like that.

Nice Tutorial

Thanks Tom for walking us through this tutorial. You make it look so easy using Illustrator. Now I have to give it a shot!

I can't do graphic design

I can't do graphic design very well, or really...at all, but one thing I really like to do is see how you start from sketch to final. And the finishing touches really make the difference!

Cool tut

Thanks for this cool tutorial. I'm just getting into vectors so not sure whether I can pull this off but I will give it my best anyway.

Simple and Easy to Understand

That has got to be the best non-video tutorial on any topic I have ever run across. I will definitely be referring to this post again.

great post

This is a great tutorial. It is because of posts like these that I manage to get things done in terms of graphic design.

not only..

is that an incredible tv setup.
i wouldn't mind having one of those,
in my house, that'd be very nice.

on top of that,
could do some work with that,
and have text inside the television,
and could be used for a header too.

i think soo.
great work again.

Vector graphics rock

I have been using Photoshop for years, but I have just recently gotten into using vector graphics to. This is the second time I have stumbled onto your site for an excellent tutorial. I'm sure I'll be back soon for a third.

Hmmmm...

Why is it that every tutorial that I read from yours, makes everything seem so easy to do. Well, thats definitely a good thing. So keep up the excellent work with the guides.

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