how to make isometric drawings

Instead of having to draw all your lines at 30 degree angles or use an isometric grid to aid your drawing, Illustrator has a feature that will calculate and draw isometric shapes for you by converting 2D shapes into isometric ones. In this guide I will show you how to draw out a simple isometric house.

1) Open up a new document and select the rectangle tool in the toolbar. Click anywhere on the canvas and type in 100px for both the width and height. Set the fill colour for the colour you want for the house and set stroke to NONE.

2) Whilst the square is selected, Go Effect > 3D > Extrude & Bevel…

3) On the 3D Extrude & Bevel options window, set the Position drop-down option to Isometric Top. Then, in Extrude Depth, set it to 100 px and tick Preview to see the results before you hit OK.

4) Once you've hit OK and the isometric cube has been drawn, deselect the cube and select a colour for the roof. Then select the Polygon Tool in the toolbar and click anywhere onto the canvas. Set the Radius to 70 px and Sides to 3.

5) Afterwards, while the triangle is still selected, on the Menu goObject > Transform > Scale. On the popup window, selectNon-Uniform and inVertical write70% then pressOK.

6) Like before with the square, have the triangle selected and select Extrude & Bevel. In the option window select in the Position drop-down menu,Isometric Right.

Set the Extrude Depth to 100 pt and press OK.

Position the new roof by eye and make sure the edges on both square and triangle front faces line up to each other.

7) Deselect the roof. Now select in the colour fill a pale blue colour for the windows and select the rectangle tool. Press onto the canvas and on the popup window write 20 px for width and 25 px for height.

Repeat this to produce a second rectangle. Then deselect and in the fill colour select a brown colour for the door. Select the rectangle tool again, press onto canvas and write 20 px for width and 40 px for height.

8) Select all three rectangles and select Extrude & Bevel. In the option window, make sure the Position drop-down menu is set to Isometric Right and then you will need to change the Extrude Depth to 0 px. Press OK. Now position the windows and door to the front face of the house.

Tip: You can use the line tool and create a line at a 30 degree angle to use as a ruler to make sure each window is isometrically in-line with each other.

Now that you've drawn a simple isometric house, you can get a good idea how the Extrude & Bevel tool can be used to make isometric illustrations. With some practice and experimenting with this feature, you can eventually produce more detailed and complicated objects.

You can also watch the tutorial on our Youtube Channel:

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