Hot answers tagged illustration
18
I'm primarily a web developer and designer, so I do most of my work directly in Photoshop/Gimp cutting and clipping and filtering. I eventually stumbled upon the opportunity to purchase a very inexpensive reconditioned Dell Latitude XT, and my experience has been pretty positive. It allows me to much more easily create masks, draw layers, make my selections, ...
10
Couple months back I bought myself Wacom Intuos4 (Large - A4 size) and I absolutely love it.
For photo editing in Photoshop, it's huge difference. It will allow you to a lot of things which just aren't possible with mouse, which is basically any manual editing.
My biggest issue while working with Photoshop was, that I just didn't like the way I had to ...
8
Funny as it may sound, I've heard nothing but good about Wacom's Bamboo tablet, which is in the $100-200 range. Other than that, I've seen people offer used previous-generation Intuos tablets in that range before as well.
8
For twigital the designer(Chris) used Illustrator, a grid and the 3D Rotate tool. Notice it has presets for isometric rotations.
If you need more than what Illustrator provides by default, try the CADtools plugin for Illustrator, which provides tools for isometric drawing and dimensioning.
I've got a few more resources to share.
Based on this tutorial ...
6
Without resorting to much trickery I would use colored pencil for the sketching.
Lets say you'd use for example a blue pencil for sketching and your regular black ink for line work.
Then you can use
(top menu)
Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Black & White
or
Image > Adjustments > Black & White
And slide the Blues and/or Cyans ...
6
Tracing software may help getting started, but then there's still a lot of illustrating craft there. Photoshop and Gimp does not sound like the right tools for the trade, Illustrator and Inkscape are more like it. IIRC both should have embedded tracers.
6
It's easy to over-think design. The hilariously overwrought and over-intellectualized b***sh*t that was revealed when the new Pepsi logo went public (great article and the actual document here) gave rise to much rofling, deservedly so. It's a fine example of the "baloney baffles brains" approach to design. It produced a monstrosity, and I was not in the ...
6
According to the Creative Director of Mozilla here, the two companies responsible for the current design are Delicious Design League and Royal Order.
6
Lollero's suggestion is a good one. It doesn't help much if everything's gray and black, however.
Here is a technique that takes a little finesse and some practice, but is your best general approach without changing your initial workflow:
Scan in the usual way, and use a Levels adjustment layer to make the inking fully black (RGB 0,0,0) by dragging the ...
5
I agree, wacom bamboo. But be sure to pick the so labelled "medium"(I think, not sure, is A5, and small is A6(the larger the number, the smaller size)) , not the "small" ones. Here the size does matter. It does have direct relation with fluid and good stroke. I rather prefer the Intuos gamma, and XL or L formats, (even being pricey) but that's me.
Beware, ...
5
There is no way automated digital way to completely eliminate the pencil lines without doing some damage to the quality of the ink lines. However, it is possible to get close—probably close enough that you could manually fix the problems in a few minutes using a graphics tablet.
Looking at the sample image, it appears that there are two characteristics that ...
5
I'd call it a bricolage.
In the visual arts bricolage is the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, or a work created by such a process. The term is borrowed from the French word bricolage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricolage
Other names it may be known by:
Merz
Polystylism
Collage
...
5
They both fall under the Swiss Style of Graphic Design
History of Visual Communications from Citrinitas
Lessons from Swiss Style Graphic Design from Smashing Mag
Swiss / International Style Lecture Slides from Parkland College
4
Not sure there's a specific style name for that, but some terms that could be applicable:
flat
iconography
isometric
vector
infographic
Many of the stock art sites will have collections of all sorts of illustration styles for use. Veer.com is a popular vendor.
4
Significant or not really depends on the user but the intuos4 certainly has changed a bit since its previous version.
increased sensibility (2048 levels instead of previously 1024) I'm not noticing this much. But might be just my blunt nature.
The design and button layout has changed a lot. Now it is useable for both left and right handed people. The ...
4
Yep, that's a drill.
A ray gun is not "newfangled and
risky." It's either "dangerous
assault from outsiders" or
"futuristic protection against
dangerous assault." I am a Trekkie.
Trust me on this.
"Science" would be represented by a beaker or a flask. What about a beaker with a question mark in it?
4
Stripes, stars (come to think of it, on Independence Day, a certain flag comes to mind), spots (e.g. polka dots) ...
"Sensory Bias Theory" posits that ornamentation takes as its point of departure the way nervous systems are wired. The research usually focuses on animal courtship displays (peacock tails, bird songs, etc.), but much of it carries over to ...
4
You could use a Gradient Mesh.
With Illustrator CS5 or newer you can apply transparency to gradient mesh points. Then you would need a clipping mask to remove the "glaze" from over the hole in the donut.
Gradient Mesh:
I've used a gradient mesh for the basic shape and transparency of the glaze. Then I added a clipping mask to the mesh to remove the ...
4
There is an easy Illustrator trick that'll get you 3/4 of the way, but relying on tricks like this might not be the best way. You will need to do at least some hand-drawing, for the bits that stick out from the sphere (unless you use a serious 3D application... but that might not match the cartoony aesthetic so well...), and it might turn out to be better to ...
3
Here my two cents...
Typically, there's some sort of agreement or contract laid out. If there is no contract, legally, I don't believe there's anything the client can say or do. I mean, there's nothing to prove anything.
Often times an artist may also specify that they may use the work as part of their portfolio. Other times a client may buy exclusive ...
3
If you have Adobe Flash it has Trace tool in it's Menus (Modify -> Bitmap -> Trace Bitmap). Change it's parameters to get the best result. The good thing is despite Adobe Photoshop it will return a vector image. if you need a vector image I think it is the best way.
3
First of all having a tablet for drawing is a step too far for you i guess, i you are used to using it, then its fine but a step backward and using mouse for starters will make you more comfortable on vector drawing. I personally find drawing vectors with mouse more controlled.
Main method - not a mistake - with tablet is using it as a brush, think of it as ...
3
Always get a Wacom. Other brands are just not worth it. The construction is shoddier, and they usually have big unwieldy batteries in the pen. Wacoms on the other hand are practically indestructible. My first tablet was purchased in highschool, and I kept using it until I had to replace it in grad school because my new computer no longer had a serial port. ...
3
A good logo is one that is easily identifiable and visually conveys meaning quickly, often through group association. Unfortunately, when applied to the human form one often winds up with a stereotype. At its best it is benign, but even benign stereotypes are easily seen as racist. (see: Land O'Lakes; Aunt Jemima; Alfred E Neuman; Notre Dame football)
...
3
I have a cheap graphic tablet that works reasonably well on Windows 7 and earlier on Vista. My problem was not the functionality of the tablet but trying to use the stylus while looking at the monitor. I found that personally a tablet PC was much easier to use. I like the iPad but without a stylus, it may be no good for serious graphic design. My own ...
3
I don't tend to find it terribly useful unless I'm actually doing something requiring that kind of input. I mean, it doesn't have to be an actual illustration, but that kind of fine grained input. Really just the kinds of things you'd expect. When I'm doing those kinds of things, though, I definitely prefer it to a mouse. I used an old wacom that I've had a ...
3
In my opinion, the best size for drawing tablet is one that at least
covers the area that you are used to in traditional drawing.
It is important to take into consideration the actual size of the area that you use per drawing usually because you may draw into A4 size paper, but you might not draw one drawing per one A4. Digitally you can always use bigger ...
3
Illustrators are people who do illustration, like how designers are people who do design.
If your question is essentially "What is 'illustration', and how is it different to graphic design?", that's a good question. It's a difficult one to define. Most people just have a gut feeling for where the line is between graphic design and illustration. My ...
3
The short answer is: no. “Light” is not universally just thinner/inset incarnation of “regular”. It might be, but not necessary (if it would be then each “regular” version should be taller than “light”, because top and bottom curves would be moved to the inside too). “Light” version can sport some changes in shape when compared to “regular” (e.g. they can ...
3
This is dodging the intent of the question a bit, but you could use the original Gray's Anatomy illustrations sources at Bartleby and Wikimedia. They're from the 1918 edition and are generally regarded as being in the public domain (IANAL).
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