How can I skew an illustration to give it a 3D shape?

[eCoverDesigner]

Hi folks,

With your help I was able to put a book cover
together in Illustrator that was originally done
in Photoshop. Thanks.

(I have great experience with Photoshop but I never
got much with Illustrator and I haven´t been using it
for the last 5 years so you can imagine.)

I did it in Illustrator because the author wants a big ad
to go on the side of a van.

Now I need to give the 2D cover the illusion of a real
cover in 3D so I need to skew the front and the spine.

I´ve been trying to do it but due to limited experience
it has been very frustrating to get it done and I see
my time going over board and not get it done.

Can you help? Can you tell me or refer me a tutorial
or something?

I have searched for it on the web but so far I didn´t find
a good one.

Thanks for any help you can send my way. :)

Paulo

[SharkFinStudios]

Paulo,

Select your item and go to:

Object>Transform>Shear

or...you can find it if you go to the tools palette, click and hold the Scale tool (6th one down) and go to the 2nd tool in that box. It is the Skew/Shear tool. Then you can click and drag wherever and however you want to skew it. Hope this helps!

Cheers!

[Broacher]

I'd use the Object/Warp or Mesh distortion tool instead. That way you can actually get a nice curve effect--and it's easily resettable. I use this a lot with my ads for catalogue distributions. You can even draw a shape as an envelope, and have the target object fit right into it. Works even on rasters (very slowly, however). Wish Photoshop had the same set of distortion tools!

[eCoverDesigner]

Hi guys,

I appreciate all your answers but I don´t seem to get it
to work with what I need to accomplish.

I tried everything you said and everything it has come
to mind but it hasn´t worked so far. Not giving up here. :)

I uploaded an image for you to see as it may help you
get a better idea of what I need to ge done.

On the left is the illustration and on the right the 3D ecover
effect done in Photoshop. (This is a reduced image)

Unfortunately for size matters (as this is for an ad the size of
the side of a van) I can´t do this in Photoshop.

Here you go:

http://pro-ezone.com/example.html

As you guys know, the front cover and the spine illustrations
of the book are made of many elements I have grouped together
to be able to move them around.

This seemed to me it´s a reason why the morphing direction
you gave me didn´t work. Not sure though.

I only wonder why Adobe don´t make program features
more similar between different programs. At least
between Illustrator and Photoshop it seems to make all
the sense. It seems they have other agenda.

After you see what I´m looking for I hope it´s easier
for you guys to help me get my sanity back. :)

Looking "anxiously" to hear from you soon.

All the best,
Paulo

[resdog]

Try using Illustrator's 3D tool. Take the vector items you've done, and make them symbols (drag them to the symbols palette). Then draw a gray rectangle. With it selected, choose Effect >3d>Extrude and Bevel. Tick the preview box, and adjust it until it looks how you want it. Make sure shading is set to plastic shading. Then click on that button that says Map Art, and choose the cover that you saved in the symbols, and choose the front surface. Resize the art to cover the entire "book" until it looks right in the preview. Do the same for the spine. That's it. Hope that helps.

[Broacher]

Yep. I'd go with the 3D for that one, now that I see what you're after. If I recall, the AI disk comes with a tutorial on the 3D tool that covers a basic 'packaging' job which could easily be adapted for this. The trickiest part will be the 'top' of the open pages which you might just block out to preserve the 'inset' of the pages from the covers.

[Ned]

Just make a selection in Photoshop, and Free Transform it (CTRL/CMND-T with the Move Tool active). Hold CTRL-ALT-SHIFT or CMND-OPT-SHIFT (ie, mash your fist on the keyboard), then click on a corner point to skew in a constrained perspective, or CTRL/CMND-click on a corner to transform it individually. Shouldn't take more than a minute to create the effect you're looking for. After you've got the skew right, use the burn and dodge tools to create your shadows and highlights (ie, dodge the high edge of the spine, and burn a line down each lowside of the spine, to give a curved look).

[eCoverDesigner]

Thanks YOU ALL for your great generosity in helping me out. :)

REALLY appreciated!

Paulo

[Broacher]

Ned-

I thought the whole idea was to avoid rasterizing (as it's large format). I guess I presumed that the cover was all vector--in which case an envelope distortion in AI is a lot easier to handle and tweak.

Or... I read into that wrong. (Wouldn't be the first time!)