Wednesday 7 January 2015

Digital Illustration

Digital illustration is big business these days. The basics of image structure are the same across mediums, after all, and with software increasingly able to mimic traditional drawing methods, the transition to digital has become almost seamless.

Vector art
It's no great accident that vector illustration is currently one of the trendiest and easily recognisable of the digital art disciplines.

Mixing media
While vector art focuses on clean shapes, simple forms and bold chunks of colour, other digital illustration techniques take things in the opposite direction. In 1995, digital photo illustration was born.

Sketching toons

While everyone knows that Photoshop is the king of detailed mixed media illustration, less well known is the fact that it's also astonishingly good at producing line and comic style artwork. Deftly sidestepping the need to use intricate filters and effects, the hand drawn, hand coloured look is gaining favour with artists and art directors alike.

Because of the time saving tools that Photoshop offers, professional comic book artists are beginning to use the software to colour their hand drawn sketches and are taking digital art into previously unexplored areas. Using a mixture of both hand drawn and digital painting, new styles are surfacing that are making a massive impact on the established illustration industry.

Recent advances in graphics technology have enabled software developers to accurately simulate
real world drawing and painting tools by modelling how inks, chalks, oils and paints behave when they are applied to different surfaces. Since you can also grab a graphics tablet and paint directly onto your digital canvas, digital painting is less a description of an illustration style and more a literal possibility.

Pixel power
But although illustration software is advancing, it would be a mistake to think that the industry is focussing purely on pushing the undiscovered boundaries of digital imaging. In among the simulated paintings, clean vectors and intricate photo collages, a resurgence of old school pixel techniques is proudly celebrating the humble beginnings of computer art.

Pixel illustration is arguably where the whole digital illustration shebang began, back in the days when computer screens could only display a small number of colours at a low resolution. Pixel art continues to gain momentum, with increasing numbers of advertising and editorial commissioners looking to capitalise on its retro style designs. With so many creative styles to work with, there are many entry points into the world of digital illustration.

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