...and for those of you who are female and unfamilliar with bad retro porn, you have no idea why that makes me chuckle.
Fifteen people asked me how I create my vector designs this week. I think that’s a cry for help if I ever heard one so, in the spirit of saying things once and being as informative as possible, a text based guide to all of your questions
What is a Vector? / What is a Vexel?
A vector is a series of paths. A vexel is a series of pixels.
The best example I’ve ever been able to work with consistently is to allude to a piece of string and a piece of elastic. Loosely tie the ends together so that they both form a circle, if you try to stretch the circle made out of string, it will break. But, if you try to stretch the circle made out of elastic, it will stretch without issue.
In essence, that is the difference between vector and vexel. If you’re just looking for the “look” of blocks of color used to create a design – item, logo, whatever – you can use pixels (paint brushes, whatever) to create a vexel. If you are interested, however, it creating a true blue vector design and you want it to be infinitely stretchy, you need to create a vector.
What do I need to create Vector Designs?
Software: There are a lot of different pieces of software you can use but, for the sake of my example and understanding that these are the ones I’ve learned to use and, therefore the ones I can speak of with any expertise, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.
Physical Tools: A Mouse. No, Seriously. Do not try to do this with your touchpad.
Competencies: Experience and understanding of the pen tool. Sing it a hippie song, buy it a cookie – whatever you have to do, you need to be copasetic with the pen tool before you can create a functional vector design.
If I wanted to have the gravy train of Vector Design tools, what would I want?
Software: Adobe Illustrator. It is designed to work with high numbers of paths and, because of that, a high volume of layers. Therefore, it is gentler on your system resources and has superior controls (like gradient meshing). You can get by to do most things without it though.
Physical Tools: A giant monitor and a drawing pad – a large one. Giant displays are great for vectoring because, so often, vectors start large and are resized to be smaller. Without a large visible canvas to work on, you do a lot of the zoom and scroll. Drawing pads, on the other hand, those who have them would say are indispensable. There’s something intuitive (oh, right, that’s the way the human body was intended to work) about simply drawing a shape when you want to create it.
What do you use to create Vector Designs?
I use Illustrator and a mouse. In the past, I have used Photoshop and I do still for post-production editing, but I prefer Illustrator, hands down.
Do you use Stock Photos or Reference Images?
Not using stock photos and reference images is a lot easier when you have a drawing tablet. If you can draw and you have a tablet you can vector by quite simply drawing. If, however, you cannot draw and you’re using a mouse, stock photos and reference photos are sometimes a must.
What is the difference between a Stock Photo and a Reference Image?
Truly, nothing. A stock photo is quite simply something that someone created to be used by another artist. There are a number of ways to get stock photos – either through sites that create royalty photos – i.e., that charge for the images – or through sites like iStock, who sell low-royalty photos. (i.e., they are approved for corporate use but they are inexpensive – a few dollars a piece) Or, through sites like yotophoto and deviantART, who compile CC (creative commons) photography for people to use. When I say, I used t a stock photo, I mean to say that I found a piece of stock photography, I pasted it on to a canvas and, for the most part, traced it. When I say that I used a reference image, I mean that I grabbed a few images – a tree, a fish, whatever – and I opened them up, on occasion to look at them and remember how a leaf is shaped or to ask myself where the gills are.
When you’re tracing, it’s usually a must that you credit the stock artist. If you simply are looking at the photo to decide how far apart eyes are or because you’ve forgotten what an eyebrow looks like, you don’t generally have to credit.
Where do you get Stock Photography?
As I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of places to get it. You can get it from sites that sell it - and, in fact, that is a must if you are doing commercial work. If you’re using it for yourself, however, you can get a lot of CC lisenced images through sites like Yotophoto – which search numerous CC archives. Or, if you like, you can use a site like deviantART, which has a category dedicated to stock photography.
Wherever you decide to get it, be sure that you abide by the artists rules at all times.
What makes a good Stock Photo?
Well, that depends vastly on what you’re going to try to do but assuming that you like to design people – and I’m assuming that since, at this point, that’s most of what I do because it’s friggin hard – there are a few things that make up a good vector stock for a beginner.
Closed Eyes: You’ll probably notice, at this point, that most of the eyes on people I vector are either closed or unfinished. Why, you might ask? Well, it’s because eyes are difficult. With Photoshop, your only option is to detail the iris by creating innumerable little dots of color and that can leave things blotchy and unrealistic because eyes are wet. In Illustrator, you can do it that way or you can try to achieve an improved effect with gradient mesh – just don’t ask me how because I don’t know yet. G-mesh is MEAN and I haven’t figured out how to make it like me as of yet.
Simple Hair: The more complicated the hair – the more stray strands, etc… - the more you are going to want to run away crying by the time you’re done. Hair isn’t difficult, but it’s time consuming to draw every strand one at a time. In ClickyLight, there are over 1500 strands of hair drawn individually. Yeah, you read that right. 1500. And, I cheated and made a big portion of the hair a glob.
Avoid Glitter & Sparkles: Glitter and sparkles are pretty – but trying to create them when you’re getting started can be a major headache.
For those of you that don't yet know what a light texture is, it can be a few things. The ones i'm speaking of particularly today are called "dotty light textures." Here's an example.
Okay, first - these are men. Men don't like dots unless they're kissing girls. At least the dots aren't pink, though. Second, I don't know if you know what show these men are on or from whence this image came but it's from a show called Prison Break (FOX) and they play ex-cons breaking out of prison. The show is about stress, death, guns and beer. Things explode all of the time. It's a show on FOX. Third, these are their wanted posters. What about any of that says sparkles to you?