Vector Art: Reflecting Your Style with Illustrator

Daniele starts the course by telling you about how he became an illustrator and showing you the books and artists that have influenced him along the way. He then gives a brief run-through of what you’ll learn in the course.

Go through Illustrator’s interface and see Daniele’s time-saving hacks, “hatching ideas”, and other techniques he uses. Look for drawing references and explore themes to create a mood board to use as inspiration for your project.

Map out your ideas with thumbnail sketches and decide on the final composition with Daniele’s guidance. Create a rough drawing and then pick out the shapes you want using a lightbox and add more detail.

Next, scan your image and open Illustrator to start creating your vector illustration. Begin with the Pen tool and learn Daniele’s linework techniques, and use hatching on the areas you require.

Apply and experiment with your base color, play around with color ideas, and add volume to your illustration with Daniele’s shading and lighting techniques.

In the final unit, learn how to push your vector illustrations a step further by adding other elements and final details. Lastly, learn how to save your artwork correctly, understand the different formats and settings that you need for each type of format.