The design idea of a series of illustrations —— How to do illustrations well?

How to draw linear illustration landscape from scratch? Look at the master's summary of design ideas! If we have been studying lines, we will find that lines can not only represent the iconic individuals we see in ordinary daily life, but also represent larger and more complex landscapes. But the latter will be more difficult, especially if the lines are thick, and it is impossible to better express the details (such as clouds or catkins floating in the air). At that time, I was a little stuck in this train of thought and made no progress.

After two days, I suddenly got inspiration out of thin air and thought of the road to simplification. Try to simplify the method, although it looks rough, but it has entered a new level. I don't think we should just create scenery, but convey it. So the scenery is developed step by step with the combination of lines and color blocks.

The source of inspiration

So I have a mirror image of this group of works. This group of works is mainly composed of thick lines and scenery, with emphasis on "color" (gradient combination).

Tip:

This operation pays attention to the process of design thinking and does not involve the specific details of the software operation. If you are not familiar with the software operation, you can move here to watch this simple and quick operation video of AI.

△ Four ways to get shapes: spelling, subtracting, cutting and drawing.

Referencing photos does not mean copying photos.

The drawing of position needs to be very general. Because our plan here is to draw the scenery in a small rectangular box, in fact, the space is very limited. So the setting of lines will tend to be simple.

Simplification is a very important idea. You can start your research with photos. Of course, when I was creating, I didn't just borrow one photo, but combined several photos for reference.

Refer to the layout, composition and perspective in the photo to refine the most basic shape.

If you are interested, you can watch the following video:

△ How did the inspiration come from? Some skills of referring to photos

Construct basic lines

If the details are not cumbersome, the simplified pattern can be represented by a grid. Of course, it depends on your habits.

Step 0 1

Open AI and create a new document of 1600* 1600px. Draw a rounded rectangle in this document, and then lay out in this rounded rectangle. First, outline the largest basic shape with a few lines. The outer frame line is 30px, and the inner line can be slightly reduced to 25px, and then reduced to 20px.

The principle of setting the line thickness is to make the line follow a certain sense of rhythm, such as a multiple of 5.

Patterns set up the whole picture like building blocks.

Second step

Continue to fill the picture of the building on the left with the logic of building blocks. At this time, we should learn to jump out of the "technical" thinking level, which I repeatedly emphasized to the students in my teaching experience: we are not learning how to draw this object, for example, we draw a small town landscape here. What we have learned is the creative thinking behind it.

Here I quote a sentence from Feng Zikai in his book Understanding Painting:

"Pictures are like math and sports. Life doesn't have to draw apples, bananas, vases and teapots. It turned out that it was only through this kind of research that people's eyes were trained to be correct, sensitive, true and beautiful. 」

Used here, it is to train your line modeling ability by drawing towns and buildings. This ability not only conforms to the shape of the building, but also makes it look beautiful and natural.

Step 03

Going on is to optimize our shape again. You need to pay attention to two aspects when optimizing the shape:

Are shape joints closed?

Is the overall shape uniform?

These are macro and micro directions. Then adjust the shape of addition and deletion appropriately.

Step 04

Adding details is usually the last step in the framework work. At this time, we have to switch to another angle: at first, we regard the function of lines as establishing contours. At this time, it is necessary to describe the details with lines. Take an apple for example, and you will understand. The two functions of lines: sketch and painting, can be reflected here.

So the details added here (windows, doors, waves, seabirds, etc. ) are used to describe lines.

At this point, our contour line is completed. At this time, you can extend their appearance.

In many logo designs, this step can actually be ended, because most flat-style logos only need an outline, and the color can be random monochrome.

Color frame

Building a color frame is actually looking for an angle to observe color. Use the relationship between two colors to evolve into a color array. In the video below, you can learn more about color arrays.

△ color array: a color frame diagram for beginners.

Step 0 1

Based on the above theory, I got this color array. Our colors start here. The main color is determined to be blue (inspired by our photos), and the secondary colors are pink and mint green.

Second step

Of course, the function of color array is not to let us use all colors, but to simplify them according to the actual situation. Keep trying key colors to find the best combination.

Use the Shape Builder tool to color and assign main colors.

Step 03

Continue to use a color mint green. At this time, everyone should pay attention to the subtle changes in color. Everything looks perfect when a single color appears. Once the second color is added, the situation becomes complicated.

This is the same as our usual life. When a person is alone, everything is fine, and two people will have interpersonal relationships. The complicated relationship that makes people feel headache and happy brings more vitality and ups and downs.

We see that although we use secondary colors, it also brings more color changes on some color blocks, which can be easily done with color arrays.

Step 04

The third color is red, which we can continue to use in graphics.

Step 05

The main colors are controlled in three kinds, and the remaining colors can be fine-tuned on the basis of the existing colors, such as adjusting the lightness or saturation of the colors to obtain more delicate changes.

Note the use of white here.

Light and shadow gradient

Thanks to the light, we saw different colors. According to this truth, gradient is also a very important coloring element in order to obtain a richer sense of light.

Step 1

Before using the gradient, my suggestion is to do a flat coating first. Flat painting is to establish the overall color balance, and then fine-tune it according to the lighting conditions.

For the gradient, we need to be restrained, just choose one of the colors, and then fine-tune it in this narrow color range. For example, here we use a gradient red to make some subtle red changes.

Second step

Then add shadows to the building, and the appearance of shadows is arranged according to the principle of "beauty and truth". Many people here may ask what is the principle of "beauty and truth". The following is also a description from Feng Zikai's Enlightenment Painting:

Pictures are both ornamental and practical. Appreciation is beautiful, and practicality is true, so drawing exercises must take both "truth" and "beauty" into consideration. Specifically: for example, when drawing a bottle of flowers, we should carefully observe the shape, size, direction and color of flowers, leaves and bottles to avoid drawing mistakes. This is the "real" kung fu. At the same time, we should also coordinate and arrange skillfully to make it appropriate. At this time, the "beauty" aspect of kung fu.

Knowing this principle, we will try to balance the two elements of the picture in practice.

There are three points to pay attention to when making shadows:

Find the light source

Configuration of shadow color

You don't have to be completely realistic.

These three points can be demonstrated in detail in the following video:

Three-step technique of adding shadows to line illustrations

The effect after completion is as follows:

Speckle highlight

In the last step of creation, we added a small detail here, which is also the crowning touch that suddenly occurred to us, adding a bright spot to the picture.

Step 1

In plane composition, a point can be a point or a small square. In this picture, we use small white squares to highlight the picture.

A picture with a little highlight will make the picture more vivid.

The final effect:

Postscript: the idea behind it

While writing this article, I have arranged three videos, which may give beginners more inspiration. I have been struggling to make a video or write an article before. I thought articles and videos were the best way to get what I needed. But later, during the operation, it was found that the two roads could not be parallel. I can only insert more parts in the article that I think are worth developing.

Video is a supplement to the article, and the article is a supplement to video. Although now everyone says that there is no time to read words and videos are more direct, I always feel that it is easier to query and record what I have devoted myself to with words. Neither video nor article can replace each other.

How to do illustration well? Illustration, also known as illustration, is an illustration drawn by hand-drawing, mouse drawing and computer drawing. Film and television animation game industry is called CG illustration because of its wide use and different styles, which is widely used in design industry and film and television animation game industry.

Illustrations use pictures to express vividness, life and appeal. The main difference from graphic design can be simply understood as "illustration highlights the story rather than attracting attention". Illustration is also an artistic form of visual expression, which mainly includes photography/painting/three-dimensional illustration. Illustration has a special position in the art field and is closely related to the publishing industry. Both e-books and physical books are needed, and there are also employment opportunities in other fields, such as music/movies/media.

Extended data:

Common tools for illustration:

1. Hand-painted illustrations are drawn with paper and pen-common tools: marker, colored lead and watercolor.

2, mouse illustration-common tools: PS, AI, etc.

3, board drawing illustration-common equipment: hand-drawn board, digital screen, ipad, mobile phone.

4. the hand-drawn board needs to be connected to a computer to draw pictures in PS, AI and SAI. Digital screens and ipad can draw directly without connecting a computer. The mobile phone needs to be painted by capacitance pen.

The basic standard of learning illustration is whether there is an audition class or not.

There are indeed many places to learn illustration now, and it is really a mixture of good and evil people, which makes many students spend their eyes. How should they choose? There is a good saying, to judge how a learning place is, at least we should first look at each other's strength, and the audition class is to look at each other's best strength, but also at the quality of the course. If even the audition class is not good, then other classes are even more useless. And choose to learn this piece, choose a big school, and have security.

If you don't know where to find it, you can go to the online class I took before. That's where I study. Every night at 8: 00, there will be a free online course of illustration and board painting by the master painter. The teacher's speech is easy to understand, humorous and witty, and can explain the painting skills that plague everyone simply and thoroughly. Watching a teacher's video is much better than reading a book. A class can solve many problems for you and understand the development of the whole industry. It's free anyway. You can listen to it. Giving lectures at night will not delay your work or study during the day. Students who want to listen can enter Weixin (homophonic):

The first group in front is: gon _ WEN-WEN-BANG-BANG:699 _ Just combine the above two groups of numbers in order. Remarks: Illustration.

Since students like to learn board drawing illustrations, it is irresponsible to try and give themselves a chance. Only by trying can they know if they are the right material, instead of always wandering in their inner world and wasting their talents.

The earliest illustrations in China appeared in the form of printmaking. With the introduction of Buddhist culture, they used "disguised" illustrations in the scriptures to publicize their teachings. At present, China's earliest prints are recorded in historical materials, namely "Dalagni Curse" published by Tang Suzong. The title page painting of King Kong Prajna Sutra published by Tang Yizong Xian Tong in the 9th year (868) is the exact date.

In the Song, Jin and Yuan Dynasties, book illustrations developed greatly. The application scope has expanded to medical books, historical geography books, archaeological catalogue books, daily encyclopedia books and other books, and color overprint illustrations have appeared. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it can be said that the ancient illustration art developed greatly, and there were book engraving industries all over the country. Different regions have formed different styles.

Illustrator Dream Support Team | Creative Painting Phase II One person draws a story in one style, and painting is a spiritual journey.

Issue 2 _ Sharing Guest: Sheena Myth

She has bright eyes, bright smile and a lark-like voice. Gentle and quiet personality, giving people the warmth like spring breeze;

English majors, non-art students, studied from scratch, and started the road of illustration with their love and persistence in painting.

Her illustrations are colorful and eye-catching; Full color+modeling and texture, simply combined into a harmonious and beautiful picture; The characters are exaggerated and interesting, full of creativity, more story-telling, showing a modern fashion side and unique style.

She has many labels:

Founder of Sheena Illustrator/Member of Shenzhen Illustrator Association.

Vision china signed a contract with the founder/illustrator of Sheena Illustration Studio.

Teaching style: natural, cordial, unpretentious, smooth and silent. Combining the thirst, exploration and simplicity of illustration knowledge with my own experience in learning illustration, this paper summarizes and designs an innovative and efficient illustration punching activity-Sheena Illustration Punching.

Comments and guidance on students' homework, direct and meticulous recognition, give students the greatest enthusiasm for teaching, and her love for painting exerts a subtle influence on every student.

Up to now, more than 65,438+0,000+students have participated in punching in.

# Sheena Illustration Punch Card # Weibo Topic Hot 7 million+

April's creative sharing was full of dry goods, which was very wonderful and brought us too many surprises and touches. The most important thing is to open our eyes. It turns out that you can draw like this, an outline, two words, an animal extending into a story;

Creative thinking: My understanding is to learn from other people's excellent works. Learning here does not mean imitation or copying, but learning by watching, remembering and drawing.

The first is to look, and looking is to carefully observe the characteristics of other people's excellent works. From the layout and composition, observe how the works use space and elements to form a picture.

Followed by the rhythm relationship, that is, the contrast between light and dark, cold and warm colors, density and size in the picture. Finally, the technique, that is, the method used to draw this work.

There are no two identical paintings and no two identical people in the world. Everyone is a unique and irreplaceable individual. Even if everyone draws the same element, the state presented in the pen is completely different.

First, the course "on-site" review

Second, the creative painting course "essentials" explanation

1, creative painting materials and methods

Practice in stages:

The first stage: draw an outline, draw an imaginary picture (9 squares) according to the outline, and draw your own elements through the limited outline;

Case 1 (original: the method of Sheena myth)

Try to break away from the original shape and show some objects with limited contours. In this way, we can find that because of some restrictions, we can draw more interesting graphics.

Case 2 (original: glasslinda's method)

Try to set some themes for yourself. Every time you draw a theme-related (9 squares) through this shape, you can also inspire a lot.

The theme of divergent thinking is set as follows:

1. Related to daily necessities;

2. Eat, drink, be merry, eat, wear, live and travel;

3. Animals and plants;

4. Human head, chest and body movements;

5. Different forms of expression (head up, head down, head up);

6. The combination of positive form and negative form;

7. Think about the outline (silhouette);

8. The internal articles are combined into the required shape;

9. Have an epiphany and paint freely;

The second stage: draw a picture by combining completely unrelated keywords. (9) Break the conventional thinking and draw unexpected scenes.

Case 1 (original: method of seven sauces)

The key word of this picture is spring+time.

Divergent thinking: spring outing-spring outing-flying kites outdoors-have a good day; Associating related elements through divergent thinking and extracting+combined elements;

Creative process: In the creative process, I seek inspiration from generation. In these references, I think the girl who flies a kite in the clock points to spring. Later, hair and kites were connected in an exaggerated way.

Case 2 (original: meatball method)

The key words of this picture: spring blue+lock.

Make a mind map through keywords, write out all the elements you can think of, and then extract+combined elements from them;

Divergent thinking: head-key-vast sea of people-find yourself-open your heart-unlock.

Creative process: Turn your head into a key through divergent thinking, and the black line around the lock represents floating waves, struggling to find your own lock in the vast "lock sea".

The third stage: make up a story with an animal element.

Case 1 (original: Alina Alan's method)

Creative concept of story series:

Picture books are designed to express an emotion, convey an idea and tell people some truth, so I considered the story and emotional expression of picture books when I created them.

My Story is a dream, expressing my inner desire. People living in fast-paced cities, due to the pressure of work and life, occasionally have negative emotions, sometimes feel depressed and become restless, leaving too little time and space for themselves outside work.

I want to have more time to paint, feel the tranquility and beauty of nature, and express my feelings in the form of dreams. The theme of the story is "sika deer and me". I like sika deer very much. Sika deer is also my lucky pet. )

2. Two steps to improve creativity:

(1) usually accumulates

Creative inspiration book: record anytime and anywhere. What happened around us, dreams, whimsy, points of interest, museum inspiration, dreams, books, movies, poems and warm sentences can all be sources of inspiration for later creation.

Photo album: Collect favorite pictures, photos and exquisite illustrations from time to time. The material library of illustration creation can be specifically classified, such as color, brushwork, modeling, scene, decoration and so on. In the subsequent creation, you can try to start a new creation with these accumulated colors and strokes.

Skada: A video about "the creative storage method necessary for illustration creation", in which the analysis of bookshelves and bookshelves is particularly helpful.

There are contents and skills in the bookshelf: the contents record your diary, reading notes and collected articles; Collect colors, strokes, shapes and scenes, and decorate the methods you are interested in and want to try.

Shelf: 1. What should I draw? 2. What skills did you try? You can use this method at the beginning of creation.

(2) Practice (action)

There are three ways to practice: visual diary: the method of creation is particularly useful, and you can accumulate materials for learning creativity by doing visual diary. (Weibo @ Hi Blow)

Realistic/copying photos: unconscious random experiment, telling stories with pictures; Copy works, collages and other interesting ways to record and learn.

3. Three practical ways to practice creativity:

(1) Learn to paint quickly.

The following are very practical creative practice methods extracted from imagination, composition and creative thinking, three of which are also practiced by us this time and are very practical.

1. After seeing one object, think of another object and relay in turn. (enhance your imagination, the same object, after 9 days, everyone's final result will be very different. )

2. Combine completely unrelated things and draw a picture. (Break away from conventional thinking and draw unexpected scenes)

3. Two different figures, combined to draw a portrait. (Try all kinds of interesting portraits)

4. Draw your inner feelings through a photo-expand different variants. Try to practice drawing your feelings, not the painting itself.

5. Draw an animal and draw your own animal. Provide words, and each of you can draw this animal in your own imagination. )

6. Try to draw an animal (cow, snake, spider, goose, fish, etc. ) Use different painting materials. Turn out all the existing painting tools at home and use them to find out more possibilities.

7. For an object: concreteness-abstraction (using different painting materials to distinguish style differences). Learn the generalization ability of specific things, generalize a little every day, and the more you draw, the easier it is.

8. Draw an outline and draw an imaginary picture according to the outline (draw your own elements through a limited outline).

9. Make up a story with an interesting little thing. An object, such as a fish, revolves around the fish every day and unfolds its own story.

10. Draw the same elements. Everyone listens to different music they like, and uses this element to draw their feelings in different music ~ (draw their feelings in music and learn more abstract expressions)

(2) Learning by sketching

Another creative practice method is sketch, from which we can get many ideas. The following is an excerpt from "Learning from Uncle Philip-Creative Sketching", which will be of great help to start practicing sketching.

1. Leave blank drawing paper and let yourself play freely. Empty your head, what you draw depends on the brush.

2. Blind drawing:

-close your eyes, feel the five senses with your left hand and pick up the strokes with your right hand;

-find a model, observe the five senses by yourself, and don't look down at your own paintings during painting.

Blind painting can help you learn how to observe things better and improve your painting level. )

3. Draw your feelings: The stronger a painting is endowed with personal feelings, the stronger its artistic appeal will be.

4. Attract your attention (imagination will fill the remaining blank)

-Create a visual focus for the work, focusing on the most important part of the picture, and filling the rest with imagination.

5. Collect materials: collect things that look inconspicuous and can't be drawn alone. (for example, go to the museum and fill it with drawing paper)

6. Natural scenery: Pay attention to the grotesque shapes that can be seen everywhere and explore their unique places.

7. Make good use of multiple perspectives: record everything around you in 360 degrees; Observing the same place from different characters' perspectives can also splice different time and space fragments from the same perspective.

(3) Learn from artists

When copying and recreating artists' works, we can better understand their expressions, emotions, colors and so on in the picture. You can also play freely according to your own artistic masterpieces and your own imagination.

In April, I mainly studied the painting forms of artists such as paul klee, Kandinsky, Matisse and Van Gogh. In the future, we will have the opportunity to learn from other artists.

4. Recommended reading books

The books shared below are books related to creativity purchased before the start of school, and some useful points are extracted by combining practical exercises and other platforms' views on creativity.

Experience in reading creative books;

1. Imagination, composition and creative thinking

The composition and creativity mentioned in this book are particularly grounded and very practical. There are many creative methods in the book, and it is also a reference book for April's creative painting practice.

2. Creative sketch

Many sketches in the book deserve special attention, which will be of great help and inspiration to those who want to start sketching.

3. Lai Shengchuan's creativity

Teacher Lai Shengchuan's analysis of creativity is very in-depth. He analyzed the whole process of creativity from his own creative experience.

4.52 Creative Painting Practice and Creative Sketch Laboratory

These two books mainly talk about how to use different painting materials and creative methods to extract creative inspiration, which will be very helpful for people who want to try various materials, especially suitable for children's painting training institutions.

If the research direction is board drawing, it will not help much; Part of this book is about getting creative inspiration from artists' ideas.

There are relatively few creative parts in the book, but some of them, such as lines, colors and tones, are particularly wonderful in how to tell stories with illustrations.

6. Freestyle painting: 84 creative skills of illustrators.

There are 88 creative techniques such as background and space, alternative reality, mixed layers, spatial perspective, digital collage, etc., which can obtain many different creative methods and give you more inspiration and creative direction.

Third, the creation of painting summary and work display

Editor's Note: In April, Mr. Sheena read seven books about creative illustrations and watched eight hours of drama sharing. Take its essence and organize it into courseware, which is very serious, dedicated and efficient; (There should be applause+praise here)

If you see here as "unfinished" as I do, you can go to (Weibo: @ Sheena Myth) to share more dry goods about illustrations;

Illustrator Dream Team is a painting world similar to utopia. The atmosphere in the group is very good and full of positive energy. It's a pleasure to see the pictures posted by everyone in the group every day, and it's especially pleasant to learn and grow with friends of the same frequency.

The love of painting makes us look forward to life more.

The dream of painting lies in the brush in your hand;

Text/Lindsay tidbits

Love reading and traveling;

Love poetry and guitar;

Love painting and writing;

I'm Lindsay. I'm slow in reading and writing.

Please call me Miss Snail.