Artistic Illustration Techniques: from Concept to Drawing

Vicente Martí starts off by explaining how art has always been an important part of his life, from his very first drawings right up through his college years. He tells you about the multidisciplinary artists who have influenced him, as well as some of their books and magazines.

Get straight to work on your concepts and have a go at some exercises to help understand how to translate an idea into visual language. Look at the different formats to choose from for your illustration and follow Vicente through his process for developing an idea and drawing the sketch.

Learn how to create patterns and textures, first with pencil and then digitally, including using any physical materials you might have handy to give your piece an organic finish. Move on to Photoshop and put all the different components together to create your composition.

Next, advance things a little with the Photoshop tools and work with of layers, flat brushes, paintbrushes, and pencils. Establish the temperature of your illustration through color choice and apply the textures you previously chose.

To wrap things up, Vicente explains how to add typography to your work so that down the line it can be used on a cover, an item of clothing, or as an editorial image, for example. He also gives you some technical tips for sending your illustration to print and sharing it online.