Digital Illustration Techniques to Boost Your Style

Digital Illustration Techniques to Boost Your Style

“We've reached the end of this course! Thank you for joining me. I do hope you've enjoyed the process and now feel ready to work on your own digital illustration. It is now time to work on your project. This could mean finishing the illustration you started while completing the exercises or you could start a brand new project! Either way, I strongly suggest you take the time to gather inspiration and make a unique project of your own. Make sure to keep track of your progress with different pictures of each step. It'd be great if you could also explain the choices you've made along the way and tell us if you have any doubts. This will help me understand your creative process and guide you better if you need advice. Here are the main steps to follow: Ideas and Keywords First, find a theme that is important to you! Then, narrow down your theme to one single sentence and associate keywords to it to trigger your imagination and start feeling inspired. The Thumbnails Explore this theme by drawing 10 to 20 thumbnails. Don’t bother too much trying to get it perfectly right. Let your imagination fly and express yourself by setting down on a piece of paper all the ideas that come to you.

The Sketches Choose the three or four sketches that you like the most and start researching and collecting some references so you can improve the drawing of these elements. Once your mood board is ready, refine your sketches. At this point, I like to work with black, white, and grey markers/pencils just to define the values of my illustration. I also like to add some red to determine the areas that will be highlighted. The Digital Illustration Once you finish refining your sketches, import them to your computer to start working on them in Illustrator. You’ll then need to create the vector shapes of your drawing as I’ve shown you. The fun part begins in Photoshop, where you will be able to pick the right color palette for your illustration and bring it to life by adding light, shadows, and texture. You can also add some extra details to your illustration using Procreate (or whichever app you feel comfortable with) to spice it up even more. My advice here is: play around and have fun! It's the best way to learn. Find what works for you and gives you the right boost to develop your own style. Exporting and Sharing Export and save your work. Follow the tips I've shared to present your work to a client or promote it on the web. Don't forget you can also create a series for your illustration or come up with an idea for a product! I am excited to see what you have created! Share your project on the forum by clicking on "Create your project". I will respond to your posts and questions as soon as possible. In the meantime, I encourage you to take a look at what others created for this project and comment on their posts, too. Thank you for trusting me and I hope to hear from you soon!”

Partial transcription of the video

“ Final Project Thanks for taking the course, you've made it to the end. I hope you learned new tricks to boost your illustration style. Before we say goodbye, I'd love to share some tips to help you develop your final project. First, find a theme that is important to you. Think about a movie, a book, or music album, or even a memory or experience that moved you. Narrow it down as much as possible, associate keywords to trigger your imagination and get inspired. Once this step is complete, let's start sketching. Don't stress yourself about getting it right. Let your imagination fly, express...”

This transcript is automatically generated, so it may contain mistakes.

Course summary for: Digital Illustration Techniques to Boost Your Style

• Level: Beginner
• 100% positive reviews (84)
• 2197 students
• 4 units
• 19 lessons (4h 4m)
• 10 downloads

• Category

  Illustration

• Software

  Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop

• Areas

  Digital Drawing, Digital Illustration, Drawing