What kind of illustrator are you

Illustrators sit around all day making commercial art, but they can work on a variety of projects or specialize in one area. Freelance Illustrators build their client base project by project, expanding their portfolio while staying on top of the latest tools and technology and mixing both.

Illustrators begin their design by working out the details of the project. This includes understanding the concept of the art and who the target audience is. Many times they will mock up the image before working on it and seek approval from the stakeholder on the project. This usually necessitates going to and from the drawing board to work out their ideas with the client.

An Illustrator may also work with software to create the artwork or to scan in their sketches and then color and refine the finished product. They may work in black and white or color and with or without computers, and with paint, pencils, or other drawing tools.

Are you new to the world of illustration or an aspiring illustrator searching for your unique illustration style? Then you are in the right place. Today we will highlight six key steps to help you define your illustration style.

Find out how upcoming illustrator George Tonks found his illustration style. Available as a Podcast and Video tutorial! Step 1. Choose a theme. Helpful Tip: Here is an example of some themes to choose from!

Animals Plants and Botanicals People Food. Step 2. Build a Reference Library. Helpful Tip: If you love drawing People - take hair inspiration from one artist, skin colour ideas from another, Clothes from a Photo reference and so forth. The more you combine, the more likely your unique style will emerge.

Step 3. Define your style. Helpful Tip: A nswer these questions as honestly as possible! Geometric shapes. Organic shapes. Step 4. The main task of the designer is to focus the attention of the viewer on a certain visual concep t, idea, detail, part of the design and to make an idea appealing and memorable. Loulou and Tummie — Millenials.

More often than not, illustrators try to keep the balance between visual and text and try not to steal all the focus on the illustration. Still, many illustrators and designers would switch hats and act as the opposite — nowadays, competition in art fields is fierce and artists have to be able to show multidisciplinary skills. Source: Freepik. One of the definitions we like is from VisualArtsCork. An illustration is a drawing, painting or printed work of art which explains, clarifies, illuminates, visually represents, or merely decorates a written text, which may be of a literary or commercial nature.

To answer this question we have to look back in history. Before photography existed, the only way to express ideas were with the help of illustrations. Often in more recent years, illustrations had to be quite realistic, because there was no photography to serve this purpose. Logically, a huge market for illustration were magazines, newspapers, and books.

With time, illustrators gained more freedom and their creativity and originality were now more valued than their technical skills and ability to draw realistically. That also explains the majority of styles in illustrations that appeared. But before moving to the most common illustrations styles,.

We can basically divide the types of illustration, based on the technique used, into two large groups: Traditional illustration and Modern style. Techniques for making illustration changed over time, as materials are also changing and evolving. Artists relied on paper, paints, pencils, but with the digital era evolution, even artists accustomed to traditional mediums and materials started working digitally — with the help of 2D and 3D software such as Photoshop and 3DMax and Maya , for example.

The digital tools and techniques imitate traditional materials and effects achieved with them and it is easy to switch different materials and experiment. It was popular during the Middle Ages and became the illustration type of choice after the invention of the printing press. Carved block illustrations made it possible for mass-produced books to have beautiful illustrations all printed from the same master cutting.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art explains that woodcut illustrations were also extremely popular in feudal Japan. Distinctive for this technique are the contrasting colors if any; the contrast between dark and light areas in the illustration, as well the relatively big strokes.

It is still a preferred technique of many contemporary illustrators who love the rougher feel and the textured look of these illustrations. Here is a video that will show you a little bit of the work that goes behind such type of illustration — woodcut technique:. Other types of illustration, according to the technique, which requires some preparation, material base and specific knowledge about the production process are the.

In traditional pure etching, a metal usually copper, zinc or steel plate is covered with a waxy ground which is resistant to acid. The artist then scratches off the ground with a pointed etching needle where he or she wants a line to appear in the finished piece, so exposing the bare metal. The remaining ground is then cleaned off the plate. The plate is inked all over , and then the ink wiped off the surface, leaving only the ink in the etched lines. The plate is then put through a high-pressure printing press together with a sheet of paper and the paper picks up the ink from the etched lines, making a print.

Depending on the metal etching technique used, the illustration can look like watercolor aquatint or it can look like pencil drawing — with very fine lines and hatching. The above 3 examples are showing the versatility that can be achieved in illustration with these techniques. You can see a very interesting video showing the creation process of such an illustration here:.

Maybe one of the most popular types of illustration is the pencil one. It is rich material, which allows you creating soft shadows and transitions, as well creating sharp, accurate lines. Sometimes, illustrators choose to keep the pencil sketch very loose and to draft with a pencil — later on, they finish off the illustration with another material. Above you saw 3 different approaches to pencil illustration — monochrome, with clean lines and richness of the line weight; one with colored pencil with very smooth and soft shading of the volumes; and one rough, sketchy and dynamic illustration, because of the energetic line work and the search for shapes and volumes.

The last approach is very common for creating initial character design concepts. You can watch a video, in which an artist talks about working with pencil, his process and you can observe him working:. The next type of illustration, based on the technique used, which is also often mistaken for a pencil one is the. Charcoal illustrations are often not as precise as pen and pencil illustrations but are a preferred choice for illustrating short stories, fast sketches, nooks.

Artists often use fingers and tissues to blend the soft material, smudge and create smooth and soft shadows. In the above illustrations, you can see how the charcoal helped in creating rough, loose sketch of a horse. Then, another artist made very fine detailing of a human face in another piece. Last, but not least, an illustrator created soft shadows, blending and texturing. Probably, the main difference, compared to pencil illustration is, that the line of the charcoal is always slightly thicker, softer and darker in quality.

The reason why example 2 and 3 are so different is because of the way the charcoal is produced: charcoal pencils consisting of compressed charcoal powder and a gum binder, which produces a fine, sharp line ; while vine charcoal provides a smooth, softer line.

You can see how the material allows you to achieve these effects in the following video with tips on drawing with charcoal:. Talking about soft quality of an illustration and smooth transitions in shading, we should mention as next technique on our list of types of illustration:. As a result, vector graphics are the best choice for type especially small type and bold graphics that must retain crisp lines when scaled to various sizes.

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