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Last week I posted the Designious 5 Free Vector Pack Giveaway and today I’m happy to announce the winners! There was tons of great comments, but only five were chosen. Look below to see if you are one of the winners! If you are, I will be contacting you shortly. Even if you did not win, check out some of the great Designious Royalty Free Vector Packs!
WinnersThanks to everyone for contributing in this giveaway & congratulations to winners.
The first time I saw artwork by Aidan Hughes, I was in the local record store (Back when you still purchased CDs) and came across an album by KMFDM. I studied the artwork. I loved the dynamic black, white and red illustrations. It was one of my first inspirations into exploring illustration. Aidan, a experienced illustrator, provided an interview for Vectips with Illustrator, style and industry insights.
About Aidan HughesAidan Hughes is a commercial artist, born in 1956 in Merseyside, England. In the 1980s, Hughes published a pulp-style magazine called BRUTE! which earned him notoriety as well as becoming an occasional pseudonym for Hughes. Aidan Hughes is well known for creating most of the album covers for the industrial band KMFDM. Two of KMFDM’s music videos (”A Drug Against War,” “Son of a Gun”) were animated versions of Hughes’s artwork. His other work has included outdoor murals, including the 75 meter mural in Barga Italy during 2003 which has since been covered over with an earth bank; and a wide variety of CD sleeves, computer games, clothing, furniture, storyboards, logos, tattoos and other multimedia.
Aidan Hughes Around the WebView Aidan’s art, buy prints, and more.
I’ve no design or graphic training as such, not even art school. My father was a painter and I learned what I know of lighting and perspective from him. He also filled the house with books on architecture, transportation and the human figure which I pored over a a kid. He taught me a lot of tricks. When I first left school, I’d wanted to become a printer, lured by the smell of ink and the big press. But I went into the fashion business for a couple of years before starting to design and illustrate on my own. I started mostly with things like portraits and business cards and then went into self-publishing my own short stories and comics. Since then, I’ve designed CD sleeves, computer games, clothing, furniture and created storyboards, logos and tattoos as well as the art and video stuff.
How has working in the music industry influence you artwork.No more than any other client who knows what they want. The only ways one client differs from another is the speed with which they pay and/ or get back to you.
Back in the day, it was from TV, magazines, drugs, socializing, listening to people talk, looking at cars and posters and digging other people’s work in the glossies. Now, of course, I get asked to design something specific and I’m on Google Images straight away. I used to have a library, loaded with dusty old art books and movie magazines, which I used for inspiration and research. No longer necessary. Working in advertising helps you think up things quickly and I normally will have three or four rough ideas sketched out for the client by then of the day or sooner, if need be. So I need to know quickly where to go to get the images needed for the job without having to flip through endless hard copy. When I was working for a company in Seattle, I once inked 250 pictures in a week and had to learn to draw using my other hand.
What is your favorite and least favorite thing about the design and illustrating industry?(Least favorite) The money. It doesn’t seem to have gone up much in the last couple of years and I’m sometimes struggling to get some companies to commit to even those prices. In 1985, I was getting ÂŁ4-5000 an illustration. Now, I’m getting paid the same to do two or three.
(Favorite) The money. And the chance to have your stuff published in some thick glossy book that smells of ink.
Could you describe your typical workflow for an illustration?The client normally has a few ideas or specifications that they want included in the illustration so we email each other a few times before I work on a few roughs. These are a mixture of marker sketches and Photoshop filtered backgrounds that I put together and they either pick one or they want to mix elements of each. If the latter, I’ll swap layers, move things around and render a new version. If it’s OK, I consider that a ‘green light’. I then pencil and ink out the different layers, scan the black and white art into Photoshop (I normally only use things like Cut-out and Poster Edges) before vector tracing it in Illustrator. After making a rough trace, I’ll then tweak anchor points and work on it with Brushes to get the corners nice and tight. That’s about it. My stuff is pretty basic so I’ve been using the same techniques for years.
I remember this guy from the art department watching me work. He asked me why I wasn’t working in Illustrator (this was back in 1995/6 and I hadn’t even got my head around Pshop yet). He explained to me the concept but I still really hadn’t opened it up until years later when I was working on a poster for an exhibition. It was amazing. No more messy pixels! Clean and pure, just like I’d always wanted to work. I even started to dream in vectors and I started to see anchor points on the corners of everything because I was working so much on it. I’d spend hours experimenting with fractal shapes for my cloud formations using the Transform All and Roughen tools. However, some clients complained that my work was getting too clean and minimal, saying my stuff had lost its edge and was looking more and more like logo design. So, I had to balance that with a more illustrative, hand-drawn look, which is what I do now.
What are some of the pros and cons of working in Illustrator for you?I miss Metacreations Vector Distort. Why did Adobe they buy it and then delete it? Plus, I miss the Graphic Pen feature of Illustrator 8. Outside of that, I love Illustrator. To me, an Illustrator file is more important than a painting. I love its purity and starkness. Painting is messy and uncontrollable. I’m like a big kid with my pen and tablet, especially if its an image using text. I guess the magazine I did years ago, BRUTE!, would have looked a lot different if I’d had Illustrator back then.
What is your favorite Illustrator Tool and why?That’s a hard one but I’d have to go for Scatter Brush, because I use it for spikes and architectural detailing. When I think of the years I spent drawing every window in a street scene…
One of the best and worst aspects of my job is that I rarely get asked to do things outside my stylistic range and that freedom enables me to explore the different sides of my personality, such as pictures of the countryside or of animals. The shapes of cars, buildings, weapons and women appeal to me more than hills and valleys (although, intrinsically, they are the same curves). There’s a lot of sexual tension in my work, I’ve been told, but I’m more interested in shapes and how to compose them: the curve of a car bumper or a woman’s hip, the glossy cylindricality of a gun barrel or megaphone, the flare of images in perspective. Cities appeal to me in many ways and the dynamic lines are important to the speed of the image. I have done some work outside of these themes but I rarely stray from what I do best.
What are you favorite sources of inspiration?Retro-futurist designers like Norman Bel Geddes and Alberto Saint E’lia, Russian Constructivist graphics, Communist propaganda posters of the 20’s, pulp paperback covers from the 1940’s-50’s, movie posters, 1960’s Space Race art from the USSR, the woodcuts of Lynd Ward and Frans Masereel, artists Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby of Marvel Comics fame, Kasimir Malevich, Alexandr Rodchenko, El Lissitsky etc. I also like the pin-ups girls of Elvgren and the paintings of John Martin. However, I would say that I derive 90% of my inspiration from the movies and having the ability to freeze frame certain scenes from a film is very useful indeed in creating my work..
Thanks again for the interview! Is there advice any that you could give for aspiring and professional illustrators and designer?Get yourself an agent.
There are a number of great tutorials, freebies, and articles related to vectors coming out on the web daily. Each month, I roundup some of the best posts that I have found useful. I can’t include everything I’ve seen throughout the month, but you can follow my Twitter feed to get all the daily links. Post comments with links that I have missed so everyone can see them!
Tutorials Character IllustrationA great character tutorial from sketch to finished vector.
Another great character tutorial.
A simple tutorial with some great results.
A nice roundup of some Vectortuts icon tutorials, including some of mine.
A handy tutorial for creating separations in Illustrator.
Draw A Realistic Vector Guitar in Inkscape
Turn a Boring Bar Graph into a 3D Masterpiece
Adobe Illustrator Tutorial Create Vector Metal Icons Buttons
Create a Checkered 3D Chess Figure Scene
Using Adobe Illustrator to Draw in Perspective
Vectips Tutorials on VectortutsCreate a Swirly Type Treatment
Tips and Tricks 3 Ways to Apply a Line Pattern Effect on Text in IllustratorSome great Line Pattern tricks.
I talked about these scripts in a previous post, but if you have Illustrator CS4, these scripts are essential.
A very comprehensive Type Tool article.
I use offsets all the time, if you don’t, read this post.
Even if you are an advanced Illustrator user, you can always find something useful in these videos.
Mordy Golding Review: Adobe Illustrator CS4
Illustrator Trick #7: Aligning to objects
Illustrator Trick #8: Scaling Strokes & Effects
20 Exceptional Websites for Learning Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator Tutorial - Offset Path tool
Illustrator Tip :: The Tools You Need Where You Need Them
Vector Freebies Feed Me Animals: A Free RSS Feed Icon SetCute icons set from Smashing Magazine.
Again, ColorBurned comes out with an awesome brush set. One of many this month, but this one is my favorite
Nice illustration of a mixing console with many great individual elements to use.
Yoda and Bobba Fett vectorized!
This was my favorite free font that I ran into this month.
17 Free Water Color Blob Brushes for Photoshop & Illustrator
VECTORTUTS Freebie: Exclusive Illustrator Watercolor Brushes
Free Vector Icons Pack, 85 Icons Set
Vector Inspiration The Office - VectorizedI’m a fan of The Office and love this illustration! ASTRODEVIL has some other great illustrations in his portfolio.
Some great portrait illustrations.
Some real nice vectors from Jared.
Inspirational vectors on skateboards.
Some photo realistic vector illustrations.
25 Powerful Non-profit Logos, Deconstructed
This is one of those tricks that I felt stupid I didn’t know after I learned about it. I’m sure others out there know about it, but there must be some that don’t. This transform function works in CS3 and CS4. I’m not sure about earlier versions of Illustrator, so if anyone knows, post a comment. I came across this trick when watching episode 58 of Layers TV, a great Adobe videocast.
Transform ToolI’ve always been envious of Photoshop’s Transform. When transforming an object in Photoshop, it is easy to quickly shear, add perspective and distort the element you are transforming. I thought you couldn’t do this as easily in Illustrator. I thought you had to rely on the Free Distort Effects or Mesh distortions. I even remember trying over an over again to get the Transform Tool to work in this fashion. Now I realize I was just doing it wrong.
First, use the Transform Tool (E) and select an object. Click and hold on one of the corners and then press the Command Key (Ctrl for Windows). Now you can easily transform the shape like in Photoshop. Make sure you click and hold on the area before you press the Command Key, or else it will not work. While using the Command Key, You can also use the Shift Key to constrain moments, use the Alt / Option key to constrain the transform to a perspective transform, or use the Shift Key and Alt / Option keys simultaneously!
Again some of you probably know about this function, but for those of you that don’t, this trick should be a welcomed one!
Mordy Golding, author of the Real World Adobe Illustrator series (I can’t wait for his Real World Illustrator CS4 book), has posted a couple of amazing Illustrator CS4 scripts from Shane Stanley to his blog. Mordy was the Product Manger for Illustrator from 2001 to 2004, so you know these will be quality scripts. Upon using the scripts, the usability of Illustrator CS4’s Multiple Artboard function skyrockets.
Artboard Coords ScriptAlthough there are multiple artboards in Illustrator CS4, there is only one ruler. This can get a little cumbersome when precisely placing objects in different artboards.
Thanks to Shane Stanley, the Artboard Coords Script creates a mini Transform panel that displays the coordinates for objects, relative to each artboard. Pretty handy!
Download the script from Mordy’s post.
Another slightly annoying factor of the Multiple Artboards feature is that you can’t import a multiple page PDF to a single Illustrator document with multiple artboards.
Again, Shane Stanley come to the rescue with his PDF Pages to Artboards droplet. Simply drag and drop a PDF on the droplet to convert the PDF to single document with multiple artboards. When the droplet opens, you are given arrangement, spacing, and columns options.
Download the script from Mordy’s post.
Designious is giving five free Vector Packs to five Vectips readers! It is easy to participate and these Vector Packs are essential tools for any designer. Moreover, Designious Royalty Free Vector Packs are full of vector wings, patterns, skulls, scrolls, buildings, florals, halftone elements, grunge elements and more! These are great for designing t-shirts, websites, print collateral and more.
How You WinAll you have to do is leave a comment on how you will use the Vector Pack if you win one! I’ll select the five most creative and compelling comments. Winners will be notified via email, so you MUST enter an email address while commenting.
The contest will run until the end of Monday November 3, 2008 and I will announce the winners on Wednesday November 5, 2008 ( I’m going to wait to announce the winners until after the US presidential elections, because some might be busy voting or watching voting coverage).
What You Will GetIf you win, you can choose one of the Simple Vector Packs (not the Mega or Giga packs) from Designious.
About DesigniousDesignious is a design studio that creates great vector illustrations and design elements. All their work is hand draw and most of all is original. Their studio creates designs for web, print and apparel like t-shirt templates. To create their designs, They use professional Wacom Graphic Tablets and Adobe Illustrator. Every piece of work is vectorial.
I love vectors, and if you are reading this, I’m pretty sure you love them as well. Show how much you love vectors by getting a geeky Vectips t-shirt. Sport your favorite tool or let everyone know that rasters suck! If you haven’t checked out the shop lately, now is a good time. There are more t-shirts in more colors. Also, get 20% off purchases of $30 or more until the end of October!
How To Get 20% OffFirst, go to the Vectips Shop and pick out some gear.
Then, simply enter the below code in at checkout and receive 20% off your order! Offer valid until October 31, 2008. Minimum $30.00 purchase required. Shipping costs do not apply.
US: FALL28
CAD: CADFALL28
There is a bunch of different tees with different colors, so search through the pages.
Need a costume still? Show some vector love and go as a Pen Tool. Check out the t-shirt below. Order now to get it for Halloween!
I have been working with the new Illustrator CS4 everyday for the past week. To test out the functionality and new features of CS4, I worked on logos, illustrations, web designs and more. There are some great improvements in the CS4 version of Illustrator. What are the new functions? How do they work? Is it worth it to upgrade? I’ll answer these questions in my review of Illustrator CS4!
Adobe Illustrator CS4 ReviewIn the review that follows I highlight some of the new and most prominent features of Illustrator CS4. It is broken down into Workspace Tools, New Drawing and Coloring Tools, Improved Core Functionality, and Enhanced Integration at Export (these are the new feature listed on Illustrator CS4 help site, accessed through the New Feature link on Illustrator CS4’s Welcome Screen). After the short description of the new features in each category, I give you my take on it. Further down the review you can also see my concerns, performance review and if you should upgrade.
Below is a breakdown of the system that I installed Illustrator CS4 on. Also, the type of work that I have been creating when reviewing it.
Replacing the Crop Area tool, multiple artboards can create documents that contain up to 100 artboards of varying sizes. The artboards can overlap, appear side-by-side, and even stack on top of one another. You can also print, save, and export these artboards independently or together.
I have to say that I rarely used the Crop tool. So I am happy with the Multiple Artboard replacement. Having multiple artboards makes it much easier to work with multiple documents compared to previous versions of Illustrator. I usually need multiple documents for a project or illustration series. Being able to have these documents on one artboard is great. It is easy to create new artboards with the Artboard tool, adjust the size and placement and quickly crop the artboards with the Control Panel.
The only problem I ran into with the multiple artboards (I just might be missing the solution), is that you can’t change the numbering on the artboards. If I wanted to make the first artboard the third one, I can’t. Granted, you can drag the artwork from one board to another, but it would be easier if I could just number them differently.
In the new CS4, you can display multiple documents in a tabbed view or orientate the documents side by side from the Arrange Documents window.
This new feature has drastically cleaned up my workspace. Before, I would have many floating windows all over my screen. Now I can navigate the tabs of my open documents or even display the open documents in a nice arrangement of my choosing.
In the new CS4, there is an application bar. With the application bar you can quickly jump to different workspace configurations depending on your needs. You can also access Adobe Bridge from the application bar.
I have always liked using different workspaces for different projects. I have workspaces set up for illustration projects, logo projects, web design projects and so on. Placing the workspace switches on the Application Bar is a slight change, but it is a welcome one. It might just save you a few clicks, but over time that can amount to minutes or even hours. I can see how some people might not like the extra space it takes up , but you can easily remove bar if you want.
In the new CS4, the smart guides are more practical. The appearance and behaviors are more unobtrusive and pop-ups will appear with alignment and measurement information.
The updates to the Smart Guides are great. Before the CS4 version the smart guides could sometimes get confusing and diminish my focus, but the new guides help in this respect.
The new CS4 provides you with quick access to the key alignment option. A key object is the object you want the other object to align with. To specify and key object, select all objects and select the desired key object again.
Alignment is important for me when working in Illustrator. I’m glad Illustrator makes it easier to designate a key object to align the other object with. Ultimately, this has sped up aligning objects in Illustrator for me.
With the new Blob Brush you can draw paths that merge with existing artwork and draw paths that are fill only.
I was very excited when I learned about the Blob Brush after Adobe announced CS4. It has lived up to my expectations except in a couple regards.
First off, the ability to draw filled paths has sped up my work flow. Before I would create a Calligraphic Brush, draw the path, expand the appearance, and clean up the paths. With the Blob Brush, I only have to draw the path. Used in conjunction with a pen tablet, you can create some great fluid elements.
The only part of the Blob Brush the sometimes creates problems for me is the merging feature. With a Calligraphic brush, I can draw a bunch of overlapping paths and still be able to rotate, size and edit the path. With the Blob Brush, the paths are merged so I can’t change the size, orientation, and so on. I can still use the Calligraphic Brush in CS4, but it would nice to have the option of no merging with the Blob Brush.
The new enhanced Gradient tool lets you interact with gradients on the object itself by adding or changing color stops, applying transparency to color stops, and changing the direction or angle of a linear or elliptical gradient. The Gradient panel has been updated as well. The Gradient panel now provides a menu of saved gradients, directly access color panels, and apply transparency to individual color spots, among other things.
The new Gradient tool and panel are amazing! These expanded features take a great deal of the guess work that came with creating and editing gradients in previous Illustrator versions. The ability to interact with the gradients directly on the object is more intuitive then playing around with the location and angle previously. Moreover, the Gradient Panel has the same great feature of editing that the tool does.
In the new CS4, you can define the opacity of individual colors in a gradient.
This is one of the most welcome improvements to Illustrator. Being able to create transparency in gradients makes it easier to create compelling drop shadows, vignettes, and more. Because of the updated Gradient panel and tool, editing the opacity of a certain color stop is easy.
In the new CS4, you can now preview separations before printing. Helping avoid color output errors, unexpected spot colors and unwanted overprinting.
This is another new feature that has finally came to Illustrator. No complaints here, the feature does what it says and has already helped me with a couple of projects. Having this feature saves me the trouble of opening an Illustrator file in another program just to see the separations.
Clipping masks in CS4 now displays the masked area while you are moving and transforming a masked object. Double-click the masked object for isolation mode, where you can edit, and views the mask independently of all other object.
The updated clipping masks has already greatly improved my productivity and quieted frustration. If you have worked with multiple clipping mask objects and tried selecting object around them, you know what I mean. The isolation mode is a great feature as well. It makes editing the masked object much easier than before.
With the updated Appearance panel, you can view and use the enhanced full-featured controls including: effects, strokes, fills, and visibility.
I wasn’t excited about the updated Appearance Panel until I actually had time to play with. Now you can do a great deal of object editing in one panel. This helps the bouncing around from the stroke panel, to the color panel, to the swatch panel, and back and forth. The Appearance Panel is quickly becoming my favorite panel to work in.
The updated Graphic Styles panel provides you with a quick and easy way to view and apply styles to objects. You now have options to view the thumbnail preview as it would appear on text or on a selected object. Effect-only styles now display the outlines of the object on which the style was created.
Sometimes I have a Graphic Style with many effect-only elements. I love the fact that I can actually see the outline of the original object that it was applied to now. The thumbnail previews are a nice extra bonus I found myself using when applying Graphic Styles to text.
Efficiently deliver more editable, workable content to developers for web, interactive, and RIA projects.
I haven’t had to use these feature yet, so I can’t speak to the added functionality it brings. Still, added functionality is usually welcomed.
Multiple artboard Export SupportMultiple artboards now makes it easy to export multi-page documents. You can export artboards to any of the following formats: PDF, PSD, SWF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF or import a multiple artboard Illustrator file into Adobe InDesign or Adobe Flash.
The multiple export support is great. Testing the different formats I did not run into any problems. Exporting multiple artboards to a multiple page pdf has already saved me time and headaches. Moreover, when you save down to an earlier version of illustrator you can save each artboard as a separate file.
I did not do any benchmark testing with the new CS4 and older versions of Illustrator. However, I did not see any boost in speed when launching the application, opening documents, and overall performance. Likewise, didn’t see any downgrades in the performance. I am using a Mac so I would have loved to see the 64 bit integration that occurred in the Windows CS4 version. If any of you are working on Windows, have you seen a difference in the performance?
Bugs, Concerns, and HeadachesFrom using Illustrator over the past week I have only run into one little annoyance. I run into this problem when I use the Subtract and Intersect functions of the Pathfinder Panel. It used to be that I could create multiple objects, group them together, and Subtract or Intersect the group with another object. CS4 won’t let me do it. Illustrator will now subtract just the bottom most shape, not the grouped shape. Still, I have found a way around it. Instead of grouping the object together, I create a compound path out of the objects. Now when I Subtract or Intersect, it works fine. This is a little annoying because it adds an extra step. But, the new pathfinder panel takes out the step of having to expand the the shape after pressing one of the pathfinder functions. So I guess it equals out.
I’m happy with the upgrades and new features of CS4. In particular, the Gradient tool and panel upgrade, multiple artboards, and Appearance panel update have impressed me. These new functions have improved my productivity significantly, making it an essential upgrade for me.
Should You Upgrade?illustrator CS4 has many compelling reason to upgrade. If you are a productivity freak like me, it will be worth it to upgrade. After only using CS4 for a week I have become more proficient in Illustrator. If you don’t care about speeding up your work flow, you might want to upgrade because of certain features. If you use gradients all the time in Illustrator, you should upgrade. If you work with projects that require a couple of documents, you should upgrade. CS4 has a little something for everyone, just check out the feature and see if it has something for you!
But…
If you are a “light” user of Illustrator, you are not clamoring for one of the new features in CS4, you don’t care about proficiency, or you do not have the money, you will not fall behind the curve if you don’t upgrade. If you are still using Illustrator 10 and below, now is a great time to upgrade.
Are You Going to Upgrade?I’m curious to see how many readers are going to upgrade. Are you?!
Last week I posted the UPrinting.com 5,000 Business Cards Contest and today I’m happy to announce the winners! There was tons of great comments, but only five were chosen. Look below to see if you are one of the winners! If you are I will be contacting you shortly. Even if you did not win, check out the business cards printing services of UPrinting.com.
WinnersThanks to everyone for contributing in this giveaway & congratulations to winners.
Chirs Leavens is an amazing vector artist who produces most of his art, from start to finish, in Illustrator CS3. This includes all the fantastic textures and tones in his illustrations. Chris’s art incorporates absurdity, anthropomorphism, and a healthy dose of humor. Chris was kind enough to provide Vectips with an interview with insights on his style, Illustrator, and the design and illustration industry!
About Chris LeavensBorn in Pennsylvania, Chris graduated from Penn State University with a degree in Film and Video. A few months after graduating, Chris moved west to Los Angeles to work on commercials, television, motion pictures, and his directorial debut, I Don’t Know Jack, a feature documentary about Jack Nance, star of David Lynch’s Eraserhead.
Chris decided to take a break from the film biz and began working as an illustrator, graphic designer, and web designer, focusing primarily on educational material for children. This “break” has more than outlived Chris’s Hollywood career and continues to this day.
Chris Leavens Around the WebView Chris’s art, buy print, and more.
Thank you for taking the time to interview me!
I don’t come from a conventional artistic background. I didn’t go to art school and quite honestly, if you would have told me fifteen years ago that I’d be working as a designer and illustrator, I don’t think I would have believed you. Art has played a big role in my life, though. I was a consummate doodler throughout my entire educational career, but I never really took my artwork seriously. I guess I just didn’t think I was that good. Then, near the end of college, something strange happened. I took a few art classes and a Photoshop class as electives (I was at Penn State studying film and video) and when my teachers saw my bizarre doodles and sketches, they were impressed. Surprised the heck out me, for sure. I never thought my work would be considered “art,” but my professors literally gave me free reign to do whatever I wanted to do. It boosted my confidence and helped me to realize that my absurd, humorous tendencies were allowed in the world of art.
After college, I moved to Los Angeles to work in the film industry and almost immediately, my minimal Photoshop experience, artistic sensibilities, and computer skills opened doors for me. I worked as a video editor and quickly transitioned into motion graphics and graphic design. Without a doubt, my twisted take on things carried me farther than my technical skills in the beginning. If I could offer one piece of advice to folks looking to work as illustrators or designers, it’s to focus your attention on cultivating your sensibilities, your angle. Too many people spend too much time trying to hone technical skills. Those come with time and experimentation. If you’re inquisitive, you’ll want to see how far you can push the tools you’re using. Your art, your style, they’re driven by your sensibilities, not your technical knowledge.
On your site, you talk about how you used to work in the film industry. What made you break away from the film industry to focus on design and illustrating? How has working in the film industry influenced your designs and illustrations?Honestly, I just burned out on the film industry. I worked on too many projects that I had little to no interest in. Also, people at the lower levels of the film industry have a bizarre contempt for their audience. It seemed a little too cynical and self-serving to me. I met a lot of great people, had a lot of great opportunities and experiences, but in the end, I don’t think it was for me.
My experience with motion graphics, graphic design, and animation helped me transition into design for print and web. I focused heavily on animation in college and the character-design aspects of that helped quite a bit when I started my current job which involves a lot of illustration for educational materials. I taught myself to use Illustrator as drawing tool for my last TV job, a TBS special called “War Games,” and that, without a doubt, has had a giant influence/impact on what I do.
My favorite aspect of working in design and illustration is that you get paid to be creative. It’s also really nice to be able to use your job as an opportunity to experiment and hone your skills.
As for my least favorite aspect of working as a graphic designer and illustrator, that’s easy: you’re beholden to someone else’s vision. Before I started working full-time in design/illustration, I would draw and paint my own work quite a bit. Soon after I made the transition, working on other peoples’ projects and dreams became such a draw on my own creativity that I stopped creating my own personal work for nearly seven years. Seven years! Recently, aside from my full-time job, I’ve stopped taking on other peoples’ projects and bringing other peoples’ dreams to life so I could focus on my own artwork and my own aspirations. I’ve actually got to credit my wife, Adriana, for encouraging me to create my own work again. It’s amazing because I had all of this latent creative energy building up over the past seven years and when I started seriously creating my own artwork again about a year ago, it sort of exploded out of my head and I haven’t been able to stop since. It’s great because it’s led to gallery shows and moderately steady sales. People hang my art on their walls now, which is bizarre beyond belief.
Could you describe your typical workflow for an illustration?I generally start by thinking through my ideas while running or hiking. I run three times a week and it helps me clear my head and focus on my bizarre ideas. Occasionally, I’ll sketch out some ideas with pencil and paper to better realize what I’m trying to create, but usually I go straight to Illustrator and start with the big, blank, white page. I try to have a rough sense of the colors I’m going to use and I draw outline shapes of the objects I intend to put in the frame. Using bright, bold colors, I lay out the composition, playing with placement until I get everything in the frame the way I like it. I use a lot of layers and label them clearly in order to make isolation and detail work easier. After the composition is complete, I add shading and details (faces, windows, items, accessories, etc.), tweak the colors and tone them down a little bit. The final element I add is the texture, mostly because it slows my computer down more than the other elements do. Sometimes the textures I create make my computer virtually unusable, but the end result’s always worthwhile.
Your illustrations contain wonderful textures. Do you create these in Illustrator? If so, do you have specific techniques for creating certain textures?I create everything — start to finish — in Illustrator. I like retaining the scalability of the vectors and I like the challenge of creating all the elements with vectors and scalable effects.
For the most part, I use custom brushes to create my textures. When I create a brush, I use 100% black and set the mode to “tint.” This allows the brush to employ whatever color you choose for the stroke (as you know already). I feel like this is one of the most overlooked and under-used features in Illustrator. It’s really useful and powerful. I like to create art brushes and stretch the hell out of them — that’s usually how I texturize my skies. For fur, I use triangular art brushes, expand them, and add custom styles (usually gradients with the mode set to multiply) to help them blend into the main object. More recently, I’ve come back to using scatter brushes (something I used to do all the time) to create speckled, stipple-type textures. The great thing about using the scatter brushes is that you can set them up to control the density using a Wacom pad’s pressure sensitivity. I like to set the size, spacing, and scatter in such a way that it intensifies as the pen is pressed harder on the pad.
I was creating a lot of illustrations for work using Illustrator and after a few years, I started to feel like my vector skills were out-pacing my traditional skills. I got to the point where Illustrator felt sort of like a musical instrument that I knew inside out. When I’m drawing and painting traditionally, my hand’s not always as steady as I’d like and I don’t have undo! Also, I love having the ability to work with and change colors at any time without hassle. Color’s really central to my approach, so keeping it mutable is really important to me. I’ve thought about using Photoshop as it’s a bit more akin to traditional drawing and painting, but I hate that it’s not scalable. The scalability and infinite, hassle-free changeability of vector art makes it an easy choice, in my opinion
What is your favorite Illustrator Tool and why?This is going to sound boring, but it’s true: the pen tool. I use it all the time. I don’t draw much with the pencil or the brush tools. The pen tool lends itself to a clean, precise aesthetic that’s really appealing to me. I’m convinced that a lot of the modernist illustrators of the past, like Jim Flora, would have gone crazy for vector art because it works so well with their aesthetic, approach, and style.
Other tools/features that I use a lot and like quite a bit: select –> same (great for changing colors en masse), clipping masks (I use tons of these to isolate areas and to mask off shading objects), feathering (to soften my shading), and gradients.
I know you didn’t ask, but I’m also going to offer up the features that I rarely or never use as well. One is the gradient mesh. I really, really dislike the way gradient meshes are controlled and altered in Illustrator. They just don’t seem quick or intuitive. Yes, I’ve used gradient meshes and yes, I understand how they work, I just don’t like them and rarely use them. Another feature I practically never use is the Live Trace function. It has its place, but it doesn’t really work with what I do and I feel like a lot of people who work with Illustrator are cheating themselves by using Live Trace as a crutch. Draw with vectors! Set yourselves free!
What is your favorite Illustrator tip, trick, or technique?I’d say my favorite technique would probably be creating shading using feathered, masked objects. It might seem simple, but I feel like it allows for a lot of flexibility and speed when shading an object. I usually create what I call shade objects on top of my primary objects, set the shade object’s mode to multiply, feather it, and then use a clipping mask to “chop” off the excess. If the shading isn’t intense enough, you can always step into the clipping mask and add more shade objects, layering them to intensify the shading. They’re easy to move, change, and manipulate.
I’m definitely going to upgrade to CS4. I’m really excited about the changes to the gradient features — I’m absolutely certain they’ll speed up my workflow. Also, I like the idea of being able to use a blob brush to create my shade objects, especially since you can have them inherit styles from the styles palette. Also, the changes to the appearance palette seem like they’ll really help speed up workflow in a big way.
Since you used to work in the film industry, what film has influenced you artwork the most?Honestly, I can’t think of a movie that influenced my artwork too much. Two recent movies that had great, inspiring visuals are “Hellboy 2″ and “Speedracer” (totally underrated and misunderstood — very true to the whacked-out spirit of the original cartoon). The cartoon “Samurai Jack” had a huge impact on me and what I do. I like the sans-outline aesthetic and “Samurai Jack’s” use of it really inspired me. I think a lot of the appeal for me lies in the modern illustration influence the show drew on. I grew up looking at and reading those children’s books with that bold aesthetic and it’s super-appealing to me.
What aspects, if any, of your designs and illustrations reflects parts of your personality?Certainly my absurd sense of humor (not so much reflected in this interview, but trust me, it’s a big, big part of who I am). I’m not really a pretentious or serious person, and I think that’s reflected in my work. I like watching people at art shows looking at my work. Most people get these big smiles on their faces and that’s exactly the reaction I’m looking for. Occasionally some snooty types pass by and sneer, which makes me even happier. One thing that can be somewhat annoying is the ever-present assumption that I use or need to use all varieties of illicit substances to create my artwork. Honest to God, I never touch the stuff. I rarely even drink and I never drink when I’m creating my work. I just have a crazy imagination that would probably make me into a crazy person if I didn’t have some sort of creative outlet.
What are you favorite online sources of inspiration?I love flickr. It’s a great, supportive community and there are loads of terrific artists who post their work on flickr. I check it multiple times daily and keep in touch with other artists that way.
Other than that, I like to look at websites with my favorite artists’ work on them. I’ve been a fan of Tim Biskup for quite a while and I like to check out his site occasionally for inspiration. Recently, a flickr contact of mine turned me on to Nathan Jurevicius, a vector artist whose work is absolutely incredible. Definitely something anyone interested in vector art should check out.
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The contest will run until the end of Thursday October 16, 2008 and I will announce the winners on Friday October 17, 2008.
What You Will GetIf you win, you can choose any of UPrinting’s Business Card
