This month I made my first set of pins that are based on an illustration from my upcoming coloring book. I picked one of the illustrations that I really liked and thought would translate easily as a pin. To create an enamel pin, there are a lot of rules you need to follow regarding prepping […]
Making enamel pins with mostly-free software Read More »
In October, Serif released the Affinity Designer Workbook along with the launch Affinity Designer 1.5. The book is essential for beginners and seasoned vector art professionals. It covers the basics, tips for creating art, and the new featuresAffinity 1.5 offers. A heavy stocking stuffer The Workbook is over 400 pages and packed with tons of full-color art and
The Workbook that makes Affinity Designer a must Read More »
A few days ago I decided to start make an official break with Adobe in my personal life and work in open source software and other alternatives. I haven’t quit cold turkey. I left myself an Adobe parachute just in case I need it. It’s definitely risk-aversion. Instead of deleting the Adobe Suite from all
Inkscape and Gimp take the spotlight Read More »
I’m right at the wire, but I got my donation in for January. I ultimately decided to give money to Inkscape™. It’s one of the best vector drafting tools and it’s saved me numerous times while at work. Why not give back and donate some money. Inkscape vs. Illustrator There are definitely benefits for using either
Adobe Offsetting: January 2014 Read More »
A great friend and unstoppable artist, Heather Larkin, was G-chatting with me on Wednesday and mentioned new drawing software for the Mac and PC called Mischief. It’s groundbreaking vector-based drawing with a touch of deja-vu. Test driving Mischief I have to admit. Using Mischief was a lot of fun. The infinite zooming was really cool
A close and wonderful friend is starting her first Etsy site and it was my pleasure to help her out and create some illustrations and logo for her new venture. I thought it would be fun to show the entire experience from beginning to end, so I recorded my desktop while I worked. Captured on
Drawing for Maggie Read More »
Recently, I’ve been busy doing illustration work for my day job at Science News and for friends and their pet projects. All-in-all it’s been a lot of fun and I’ve tried to make it a point to push myself stylistically and with software. For the 100th Anniversay of Neils Bohr’s quantum atom, I was tasked
Never Boring with Bohr Read More »
Here is an example for the post that I just wrote on transforming your hand drawn line art to vector art. For this Illustration, I used the Modbook, ArtRage, and Illustrator. Through making this art, I learned that the larger you make your file, the better the auto (live) trace. If you want to create your image
An Example of ArtRage + Illustrator Live Trace Read More »
Hand-Drawn Vector Art Sometime creating vector art can look too mechanical and computerized. It’s nice to create resolution-independent art that feels like it was hand drawn. No matter if you use Illustrator, Inkscape, or even Corel Draw, you can easily bring your hand back into your design, giving your final result a hand-drawn vibe. In the past my
iPad + ArtRage + Inkscape = Creating Hand-Drawn Type Read More »
If you ever tried to make a perfect curve in Illustrator, this post is for you I definitely don’t mean to be so negative about Adobe. It does some wonderful things. Currently I’ve been learning about Adobe’s digital publishing suite. No other software that I’ve found so far is doing something similar and it gives
Spiro Mode in Inkscape Makes a Perfect Curve Read More »
