My Top Links of the Week for August 2nd 2013

I regularly post links to interesting design tutorials and articles over on my Twitter and Facebook accounts, but in case you missed them here’s a roundup of my top pickings from my recent browsing of the web. This week we have some great content from Vectips, PSDFan, Vectortuts+ and Codrops.

The Fundamentals of Shape Design in Adobe Illustrator

This second post of a two part series on Vectips shows you how to use basic tools and shapes to create various objects in Adobe Illustrator. Not only is this great for beginners, it’s also a good refresher for veteran illustrators and I personally learnt some fantastic time saving tips and techniques.

Learn How to Paint Difficult Metallic Surfaces

Despite having never taken the time to learn the skill myself I’m always fascinated by digital painting. If you’re a budding digital painter yourself this PSDFan tutorial on how to paint difficult reflective surfaces should be a real helper.

Create a Cartoon Bear Scene Using Repeating Shapes

I’m a big fan of stylised vector illustration with heavy texture use so this tutorial from Vectortuts+ was right up my street. Yet again I learnt some new techniques myself, particularly the use of default texture swatches found directly in Illustrator.

Create a Set of “Almost Flat” Modern Icons in Adobe Illustrator

Another recent tutorial from Vectortuts+ that really stood out to me was this guide to creating Flat style icons. Illustrator has always been a useful tool for constructing scalable icons, but the trendy flat style fits perfectly with the appearance of vector art.

On Scroll Effect Layout

I’ve seen this web design effect a lot recently where elements animate into position upon scroll, so it’s great to see how it’s done thanks to this downloadable template from Codrops.