Illustration

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  • Creating and Applying Color Palettes to Vector Illustrations
    PLUS Teacher Illustration

    Creating and Applying Color Palettes to Vector Illustrations

    Camipepe teaches you to create color palettes in a way that's fast and easy, and then how to apply them to your illustrations in a single click Plus, find out how to select the right color palette, shapes and other details that make vector illustrations work. Sometimes, selecting a color range for a project is something that comes naturally, but in other cases you might need inspiration from photos or images to convey the right mood for the project. To make this process easier, Chilean illustrators Camipepe (@camipepe) teach you to create, select and apply color palettes to vector illustrations in Adobe Illustrator in a way that’s effective and simple:

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  • 6 Tips for Starting Out as an Illustrator
    Illustration

    6 Tips for Starting Out as an Illustrator

    Discover the essential tips for getting your illustration career off the ground Over the course of her career as an illustrator, Carla Berrocal from Üstudio Mol+Carla has faced all sorts of challenges. For her, the biggest one has been starting out as an illustrator. Carla knows all too well how difficult it can be to take that giant leap and so, as an act of solidarity, she has decided to share her essential tips for getting your illustration career off the ground.

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  • A Quick Guide to Sharing Your Creative Work on Instagram
    Illustration

    A Quick Guide to Sharing Your Creative Work on Instagram

    Discover the best times to publish and other key tips for creatives looking to improve their Instagram page Nubia Navarro, better known as Nubikini (@nubikini), is a Venezuelan graphic designer and lover of typography, letters, and photography. Since discovering her true passion while taking a course in experimental typography, she hasn’t stopped experimenting, working on projects for Adidas, Coca-Cola and UNICEF. Instagram has become her favorite platform for sharing her lettering work, given that the social media network allows her to show her creative process and passion for letters, and connect with her followers. Standing out on Instagram isn’t just about creating quality content, you also need to know which are the best times to publish it, and familiarize yourself with the different formats you can use to generate engagement. Drawing on her own experience, Nubikini has created a list of her top tips for presenting your creative work on Instagram:

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  • Challenge: Draw Marina Abramović in 10 Minutes
    Illustration

    Challenge: Draw Marina Abramović in 10 Minutes

    Artist José Rosero accepts Domestika’s challenge to draw an express portrait of the famous conceptual artist José Rosero (@rosero) has faced many challenges over the course of his career. He is a renowned illustrator who has had work published in various magazines, newspapers and other publications. He is also the director of CasaTinta (Bogotá), a space dedicated to illustration and visual arts. The task we challenged him to was just another excuse to pull out all the stops. Will he manage to draw the famous conceptual artist Marina Abramović in 10 minutes? In 5 minutes? In 1 minute? Find out by clicking on the following video!

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  • How to Install New Brushes in Adobe Photoshop
    Illustration

    How to Install New Brushes in Adobe Photoshop

    Here, we explain how to install new brushes in Adobe Photoshop so that you can expand your collection Photoshop is the go-to program for editing images, given its wide range of tools and options for improving and adding effects to your photos. That said, it is also among the most popular software tools for digital illustration. The Brush is perhaps Photoshop’s most useful and versatile tool. While the program offers a great range of default options, once you discover that you can load and create personalized brushes, the possibilities become endless. This means you can expand your library with more options, different thicknesses, brushstrokes, tips, opacities, and even textures–your drawing options are infinite. Installing new brushes in Adobe Photoshop is extremely easy. Here we explain how it works, step by step:

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  • Exercises for Working with Volume in Photoshop
    PLUS Teacher Illustration

    Exercises for Working with Volume in Photoshop

    Gemma Román gives you the secrets to testing the opacity and flow of Photoshop brushes and improving volume. Photoshop has become a tool that’s very helpful for digital illustrators thanks to the amount of options that it offers and their potential. One of digital artists’ favorite tools within the program, are its brushes. Although the default brushes might seem somewhat basic, they have incredible potential. Gemma Román (@gemmaroman) shows us a clear example of this in this series of exercises for working on depth, color and shadow through flow and opacity with Photoshop brushes. By observing the global value of the brushes and how they behave, you can study the parameters that you need to keep in mind to create gradients in your illustrations that will make them infinitely more interesting and give your work a professional finish.

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  • How to Create a Pencil-effect Brush for Sketching in Photoshop
    Illustration

    How to Create a Pencil-effect Brush for Sketching in Photoshop

    We explain, step-by-step, how to create a graphite pencil brush for sketching in Adobe Photoshop Sketching is an essential part of the design process. Transferring your first idea to paper enables you to get a first glimpse of what will become the final work; make changes; and remove and redo parts of your design, illustration, artwork, or architecture plan. Every creative process related to drawing includes this essential step. With digital production booming, paper is almost becoming redundant, which is why professionals such as Mercedes deBellard (@mercedes_debellard) create ways to work in Photoshop using traditional processes. Mercedes is an illustrator with a passion for colored pencils who has developed a technique for creating digital textures that mimic traditional pencils. Here she explains how to create a brush in Photoshop that mimics the texture of a graphite pencil so that you can use it to sketch digitally:

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  • Free Download: Pencil Package to Illustrate Your Next Photoshop Portrait
    Illustration

    Free Download: Pencil Package to Illustrate Your Next Photoshop Portrait

    Illustrator Oscar Giménez shares a set of pencils with the Domestika community that will improve your Photoshop portraits considerably With 13 years of experience in illustration, Oscar Giménez (@oscargimenez) is passionate about music and the world of graphics; he combines these areas in his work, playing with different elements so that each of his pieces stand out. In recent years, he has specialized in portraiture in his personal project for concert illustrations compiled in the book Sold Out. He also often contributes to Yorokobu Magazine’s biweekly 'Rock n' Draw’ section in which he creates music-inspired portraits. He takes the essence of his characters from photos and other references and then transforms them into something totally different. His talent has secured him clients like Adobe, Playboy, Universal Music, Rolling Stone and Audi, and he has done everything from press pictures, TV and advertising, to murals, book and album covers, and posters.

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  • How to Illustrate a Great Children’s Book Character
    Illustration

    How to Illustrate a Great Children’s Book Character

    A few concepts that will help you create fascinating characters for children’s books Children are one of the most demanding audiences that exist. Dedicating your life to children’s illustration requires a mix of absolute passion and drawing know-how that will allow you to illustrate the stories that thousands of children will grow up with the way they deserve. But what are the most important concepts to consider when designing a character for a children's book? Teresa Martínez (@teresa_mtz), an illustrator specializing in children's and youth publications, shares her professional advice which will help you build attractive and charismatic characters aimed at children's audiences.

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  • 10 Incredible Illustrated Children’s Books for Kids and Adults
    Illustration

    10 Incredible Illustrated Children’s Books for Kids and Adults

    Among the classics of children’s literature, there are those titles that stand out for their illustrations Inspiration can be found anywhere but books are no doubt one of our greatest creative resources. That’s why we recently asked our Instagram followers to tell us their favorite children’s books. The response, as expected, was varied. Here is what we concluded were the top ten must-read books for any lover of illustration and stories. Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince), a book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was a pilot, creator, author and illustrator of one of the books that has captivated the most readers the length and breadth of the world. A story considered by many a children’s book but the background of which is a critique of adulthood through the meaning of life, loneliness, friendship, love and loss. In 1968, the Morgan Library in New York acquired the original manuscripts and drawings, over 30,000 words, original watercolors and coffee-stained sketches with cigarette burns through them.

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  • Illustration Tutorial: How to Tackle the Blank Page
    Teacher Illustration

    Illustration Tutorial: How to Tackle the Blank Page

    Adolfo Serra shares three drawing exercises that will get your pencil moving and help you to overcome a creative block Illustrator Adolfo Serra (@adolfoserra) insists that you should never obsess over what the final image will look like and, instead, keep trying until you achieve something that feels fresh. Here he shares three ways to unleash your creativity when you’re experiencing a creative block, let your pencil and mind soar free, and create something special.

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  • Domestika Creatives: Jordi Labanda
    Illustration

    Domestika Creatives: Jordi Labanda

    The renowned illustrator opens the doors to his studio to talk to us about his universe and creative process His first job in Spain was for the newspaper La Vanguardia was "a dream come true". The paper was iconic to him, a place where great illustrators lined its pages. This collaboration started in 1994 and continues to this day in the paper’s Sunday supplement. Its beginning was a pivotal moment in Jordi’s career. From then on, his characters began to form part of the collective imagination, establishing the Jordi Labanda universe. After a professional career of 25 years, Jordi Labanda (Uruguay, 1968) defines himself as an artist by commission. He currently works with publications like Vogue Japan and Harper’s Bazaar and his illustrations have covered magazines like Vogue USA and The New York Times. He has also collaborated with huge companies such as Louis Vuitton and Tommy Hilfiger, to name a few. Sat in his studio, Jordi explains his trajectory, his working methods, his characters and the key to being a good illustrator.

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  • What Is a Creative Portfolio and What Should It Include?
    Illustration

    What Is a Creative Portfolio and What Should It Include?

    Discover how to create a portfolio that draws the attention of prospective clients In all creative fields—especially those that are visually-led—a good portfolio will open doors to new clients and employers. It is therefore essential that you present your work well, and that your portfolio is a good representation of what you can do. So, what exactly is a portfolio? What should it include? Here, Sandra López—one of the founders of the first-ever illustration agency in Spain, Pencil·Ilustradores (@pencil)—answers all of your questions and explains exactly what a creative portfolio sets out to achieve.

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  • Domestika Creatives: Marly Gallardo
    Illustration

    Domestika Creatives: Marly Gallardo

    We chat with the vector artist about growing up, what inspires her, and her creative process Full of energy, charismatic, and open. Meet Marly Gallardo. Born in Ecuador and raised in New York, the artist says she’s addicted to metropolises and finds herself strangely drawn to them. She creates vector illustrations–a format which has become her trademark. Her work has appeared in campaigns and editorial publications for The New York Times, United Nations, Microsoft, Apple, Netflix, Adobe and more.

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  • 15 Essential Shortcuts for Mastering Illustrator
    Illustration

    15 Essential Shortcuts for Mastering Illustrator

    Learn the best shortcuts for speeding up and improving your workflow with Adobe Illustrator Most illustrators, designers, and artists will already be familiar with Adobe Illustrator. However, to really master the program, it’s important to learn these shortcuts. They will help you to move around the keyboard and interface quicker and increase your productivity. Adobe Illustrator also allows you to add and personalize shortcuts to fit your needs. Anyone who works with Illustrator should know these 15 shortcuts inside out. Download below a PDF with the shortcuts. Essential tools All of the following commands are activated at the touch of just one letter key, allowing you to execute them quickly. Resize: Free Transform tool (E) and Scale tool (S) These tools are for changing the size of selected objects. The first, the free transform tool, allows you to alter the proportions of the object in a way that distorts the original shape. The scale tool enlarges or reduces the size of the object horizontally (along the x axis), vertically (along the y axis), or both. Select: Direct Selection tool (A) and Selection tool (V) The first lets you select individual anchor points or path segments by clicking on them individually, or select an entire path or group by selecting any other point on the item. You can also select one or various objects from a group. The second shortcut lets you select objects and groups by clicking or dragging over them. You can also select groups within groups and objects within groups. Magic Wand tool (Y) This is a magic wand that can automatically select objects of the same color, stroke weight, stroke color, opacity, or blending mode with one click. Rotate tool (R) This tool is for rotating an object around a fixed point. The default reference point is the center point of the object. To change the rotation point, you just have to click where you want to move it to. Live Paint Bucket tool (K) This is an intuitive way to create illustrations with color. It allows you to use the full range of Illustrator’s vector drawing tools, but treats all the paths you draw as though they are on the same flat surface. Pen tool (P) The Pen tool is the most useful and versatile vector drawing tool. You can use it to choose how many anchor points your path will have and their positions. You also can decide whether they have jagged or rounded corners. Hand tool (H) The hand tool is useful for moving around the area you are zoomed in on. It makes working much easier. Paintbrush tool (B) The paintbrush tool allows you to click and drag to create a pathway to which predefined vector artwork is applied.

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  • Dos and Don’ts for Writing Children’s Books
    Illustration

    Dos and Don’ts for Writing Children’s Books

    Tips from an expert in children’s literature to help you improve your stories for little ones They say that to write children’s books you need to revert to being a child, free your imagination, let yourself be surprised, and above all, play with the story. For more than 17 years, Natalia Méndez (@natumendez) has been transforming her ideas into books for children. She’s an expert at understanding how to create and edit wonderful stories through play; how to extract a story from an initial idea and develop it into a book. She has edited books since 2002. She is also an author, a professor specializing in children’s literature, and works for the children’s and young adult fiction department of the publishing house, Edelvives Argentina. Drawing on her vast experience and extensive knowledge, here Natalia Méndez shares some tips to help us think about why we want to write for children, how to better understand children’s literature, and some ideas for how to make your stories appeal to little ones.

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  • Illustration Tutorial: 5 Basic Tips on How to Shade with Ink
    Illustration

    Illustration Tutorial: 5 Basic Tips on How to Shade with Ink

    5 basic tips from Sergio Bleda on how to shade with ink and take light into account Shading gives depth to your drawings: it makes something flat, three-dimensional. Inking and shading are fundamental components of the process of designing a comic. They help us place an object or character, illustrating the space in which they are found and helping the viewer understand where the light is coming from. Cartoonist and illustrator Sergio Bleda (@sergibleda) shares his tips and tricks on how to shade like an expert with India ink. All you need are: two synthetic brushes (number 1 and number 2), 300gsm Canson paper, and Winsor & Newton India ink.

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