Illustrator career path magazine-how to learn illustration from scratch

About the employment prospects of illustrators The most developed place of illustration: The United States is a country with a very developed illustration market, and appreciating illustrations has become a habit of society. The illustration market in the United States is also very specialized, divided into many professional types, and each type has a special illustrator.

Illustrations in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan: As we all know, Japanese commercial animation has a huge market and operation team. Animation is an important branch of illustration industry.

In CG technology (computer graphics, using

computer technology

continue

Visual design

And hand-drawn animation has become a sunrise industry in Japan. The younger generation is increasingly inclined to use computer digital technology.

In South Korea, as the game industry climbs to

national economy

The second pillar industry, illustration, especially digital illustration, has sprung up. The game characters designed by digital illustration have won more market space with the popularity of Korean games in China.

At the same time, Hong Kong and Taiwan illustrators are still looking for their own way of industry, although their works have obvious traces of learning from Japan.

Extended data

Illustrator is a general term: there are illustrators for the media publishing industry, children's illustrators and realistic illustrators for the advertising industry; Then there is the animation mascot designer; Game and film illustrators are in great demand. Similar to the game industry, each film and television work will have a large number.

Storyboard

Cartography and scene design have undoubtedly created a large demand for illustrators in the game film and television industry.

Electronic illustrator, with high creativity and strong expressive ability, can perfectly express the needs of enterprises. Hand-painted illustrator, with high hand-painted skills, can perfectly express illustration content and personal artistic feelings.

How to learn illustration from scratch? First of all, you need to have artistic skills. It doesn't matter if you don't have artistic skills. You can learn from the teacher from scratch and accumulate knowledge a little bit, which will be effective. The most important thing is to think more and understand the essence of painting, so that the basic skills of illustration and original painting will be improved quickly.

Learning illustration is not a simple matter, and it is even more difficult to learn from scratch.

First, we should start with the simplest modeling. The essence of painting is form and color, and no matter how complicated the picture is, it can also be summarized as these two things. Therefore, mastering modeling is the only way to learn illustration. From simple shapes such as squares, triangles and circles to complex shapes, we must have strong observation ability and accurate description ability.

Second, master the color processing method. Color is very important. We should start with monochrome, gradually master the collocation and application of complex colors, gradually transition from the use of bright colors to the use of primary colors, master the use of contrast colors and complementary colors, and make ourselves a color master.

Third, from plagiarism to originality.

The whole network recruits Xiaobai to study for free and test whether you are qualified.

Want to know more about illustration-related learning, you can learn about Guangzhou Zhongjiao Online Education Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Zhongjiao Online). Zhongjiao Online is a training institution engaged in Internet skills teaching and business training in China. It offers online learning courses such as 3D modeling, original painting sketch, film and television post-production and design, and provides ten all-round and three-dimensional systematic learning and growth solutions for zero-based beginners.

The difference between illustrations and illustrations.

Illustrations were first used in books to introduce and supplement the contents of books.

Illustrations are images expressed by patterns. In line with the principle of unity of beauty and practicality, we strive to make lines and shapes clear and vivid, and make them convenient.

Illustration is a universal language in the world, and its design is usually divided into characters, animals and commodity images in commercial applications.

Figures: Illustration is based on figures, and it is easy to hit it off with consumers, because figures can best show cuteness and intimacy, and there is a lot of room for imaginative creation. First of all, the proportion of shaping is the key. In life, the head-to-body ratio of adults is 1:7 or 1:7.5, and that of children is about 1:4.

The facial expression of the characters is the focus of the whole, so it is very important to describe the eyes.

Secondly, the use of exaggerated deformation will not give people an unnatural and uncomfortable feeling, but can make people laugh and feel happy, making the overall image clearer and more impressive.

Animal image: Animals have a long history as cartoon images. In real life, many animals have become people's pets, and these animals are more popular as cartoon images.

When creating animal images, we must attach great importance to creativity and personification. For example, one difference between animals and humans is that their faces don't smile for a long time.

Anime images can give animals the same smile as human beings through personification, and humanize animal images.

It is easy to be accepted by people to use animal schools that they know and love in their lives.

Commodity image: it is the expansion of animal personification in the field of commodities, and anthropomorphic commodities give people a sense of intimacy.

Personalized modeling has a refreshing feeling, thus deepening people's direct impression of goods. As far as the concept of personalized goods is concerned, it can be roughly divided into two categories:

The first category is complete personification, that is, exaggerating goods and using the characteristics and modeling structure of goods to personify performance.

The second category is semi-anthropomorphism, that is, adding hands, feet and heads unrelated to commodities as anthropomorphic characteristic elements.

The above two anthropomorphic molding technologies make the goods humanized and personalized.

Through the form of animation, emphasizing the characteristics of goods, its actions and words are directly related to goods, and the publicity effect is more obvious.

Illustrators often draw illustrations for graphic designers or directly for magazines, newspapers and other media.

They are generally professional illustrators or freelance artists, and have their own themes and painting styles like photographers.

Their professional sensitivity and desire for new forms and tools have led many of them to use cg animation design tools to create illustrations.

The software function of Cg animation makes their creative talent play a greater role. Whether it is simple or complex, whether it is traditional media effects, such as oil painting, watercolor, printmaking style or the endless new changes and new interests of digital graphics, it can be completed more conveniently and quickly.

Digital photography is the latest development of photography.

Photographers shoot objects with digital cameras or scan traditional positive films into computers through scanners, then adjust, combine and create new visual images on computer screens, and finally output positive films or negative films through film recorders.

This new photography technology has completely changed the creative concept of photographic optical imaging, with digital graphics processing as the core, also known as' darkroom photography'.

It blurs the boundaries between photographers, illustrators and graphic designers. Nowadays, as long as they are talented, they can complete all three tasks on the same computer.

Illustration type

Illustration occupies more position than copywriting in most advertisements, and it plays an equally important role in the promotion of goods. In some poster advertisements, illustration is even more important than copywriting.

The main functions of illustration in advertising include attracting, reading and inducing.

Attraction function mainly refers to attracting consumers' attention.

Some people in the American advertising industry invented the principle of "reading illustrations is the most labor-saving", that is, reading an advertisement is more labor-saving than not reading it.

He assumes that his consumers are psychologically tired of all advertisements and suddenly see them when they don't plan to see them. The wonderful illustrations in the advertisement make consumers forget that he didn't come to see the advertisement, just like Alice fell into the abyss, but in the abyss, consumers found the truth and acted according to it.

That's how you should make consumers fall and get up with you.

The reading function of illustrations mainly refers to quickly and effectively conveying the contents of poster advertisements.

The best poster illustrations should be concise.

Illustrations that help readers grasp the key points.

Some foreign advertising illustrators use Tibetan methods to test the expressive ability of advertising illustrations, that is, to cover up the words and titles of advertisements so that readers can only see the illustrations and see if they can understand the contents of advertisements. Good illustrations often have the power to take effect in three seconds.

The inductive function of illustration refers to grasping the psychological reaction of consumers and attracting the attention of copywriting.

A good illustration should be able to link the advertising content with consumers' own reality, and the illustration itself should fascinate and interest consumers. Pictures should be strong enough to make consumers know more about the details of products and induce consumers to turn their attention from illustration to copywriting.

Illustrations show the image of the product itself, a certain part of the product, the product to be used, the product in use, the product under test and control, the different characteristics of the product, the benefits that can be obtained by using the product, the possible consequences of not using the product, testimony legends and so on.

The main methods of expression are photographic illustrations and painting illustrations (including realism, pure abstraction, new figuration, comic books, diagrams and so on). ) and three-dimensional illustrations.

Photographic illustration is the most commonly used illustration, because ordinary consumers think that photos are true and reliable and can objectively represent products.

As a poster advertisement, the biggest difference between photographic illustration and general artistic photography is that it tries to express the characteristics of goods and expand the realism of products, while artistic photography tends to weaken some real characteristics of the subject in pursuit of a certain artistic conception.

As a poster advertisement, it is best to shoot photographic illustrations with 120 single-lens reflex camera. According to the requirements of different themes, some commonly used lenses should be equipped, such as wide-angle lens, telephoto lens, macro lens and close-up lens.

Photographic illustrations of posters generally use color reversal films to ensure the quality of printing and plate making.

Photographic illustrations are mostly made indoors, and the background needs to be manually arranged to set off the main body. Backup background materials include woolen cloth, velvet, cloth, paper, etc. Of course, you can boldly try wall covering, woolen linen and so on. At present, it has appeared in the market, and the slide background can also be used if conditions permit. Their advantage is that they can meet the requirements of advertising creativity regardless of time, place and climate.

Drawing illustrations is somewhat subjective for the author and has the personality of free expression. Whether it is fantasy, exaggeration, humor, emotion or symbolic emotion, you can freely express and deal with it. As an illustrator, you must digest the theme of advertising creativity and have a deeper understanding of things in order to create excellent illustrations.

Since ancient times, paintings and illustrations have been done by painters. With the expansion of the design field, the skills of illustration are becoming more and more specialized, and now the illustration work has already been completed by specialized illustrators.

The most commonly used technique for drawing illustrations is inkjet printing, which is a technique of drawing through a pen by using the air delivery of an air compressor.

It is characterized by no brush strokes caused by ordinary painting, natural picture transition and high application value.

Comic forms are also common in painting illustrations.

Comic illustrations can be divided into exaggerated illustrations, satirical illustrations, humorous illustrations and humorous illustrations.

Exaggerated illustrations grasp some characteristics of the described object to exaggerate and emphasize, highlight the essential characteristics of things, and thus strengthen the performance effect.

Ironic illustrations are generally used to condemn hostile or backward things and satirize them in an implicit tone to achieve negative publicity effects, while humorous illustrations expose innocent and unreasonable things in life through rhetorical devices such as innuendo, allegory and pun in a well-meaning smile, thus making people laugh and understanding something from laughter; Humorous illustrations make advertising pictures interesting, make people accept advertising information in a relaxed situation and feel new concepts in a pleasant environment, which is especially hard to forget.

Illustration in painting illustration is a very suitable illustration form to express complex products, such as the operation procedure of new household appliances, the cooking method of a new food, the installation of household combined appliances, various collocation forms of children's building blocks and so on. Several consecutive charts can be used to introduce the correct operation steps to readers.

Three-dimensional illustration is a very expressive illustration form used in poster advertisements, which is rare in China at present, but it is an inevitable trend from the development of poster advertisements in the world.

The production method is: according to the advertising creativity, the work is first composed in three dimensions, and then the picture is taken for the poster advertising screen.

This requires poster designers and illustrators not only to have good graphic design ability, but also to have a solid three-dimensional foundation.

Another method of three-dimensional illustration is to express the three-dimensional image through painting, which is to create the illusion of three-dimensional space on two-dimensional paper.

In a word, modern illustration is no longer confined to the scope of two-dimensional expression space, and simple two-dimensional expression techniques can no longer meet the requirements of modern illustration design.

explain

In the field of modern design, illustration design can be said to be the most expressive, which is closely related to painting art.

Many expressions of illustration draw lessons from those of painting.

The marriage of illustration art and painting art makes the former make great progress in exploring the diversity of expression techniques and in the depth and breadth of design theme expression, showing more unique artistic charm and thus more expressive.

In a sense, painting has become a basic discipline, and illustration has become an applied discipline.

Throughout the history of illustration development, its application scope is constantly expanding.

Especially today, with the rapid development of information, people's daily life is full of all kinds of commercial information, and illustration design has become an irreplaceable art form in the real society.

Therefore, the purpose of our research is how to study, think and study modern illustration knowledge in depth and serve the society better.

Illustration definition

The definition of "illustration" in Ci Hai is: "refers to pictures inserted in books and periodicals.

Some are printed in the middle of the text, and some are inserted in the pages to supplement the content of the text or for artistic appreciation. This explanation is mainly aimed at the definition of book illustrations, which is a narrow definition.

With the advent of the information age and the development of modern society, the meaning of modern illustration has changed from a narrow concept (limited to paintings and pictures) to a broad concept. "Illustration" refers to the pictures inserted between words in newspapers, magazines, various publications or children's picture books that we usually read, collectively referred to as "illustration".

Illustration, in Latin, means "light up".

Reading words and thinking about meaning were originally used to increase the interest given by words in publications and make the words more vivid and vivid in readers' minds.

In today's various publications, the importance of illustrations has far exceeded the foil position of "luminous words".

It can not only highlight the theme, but also enhance artistic appeal.

Illustration is an art form. As an important visual communication form of modern design, it occupies a specific position in modern design with its intuitive image, true sense of life and beautiful appeal. It is widely used in many fields of modern design, involving cultural activities, social undertakings, commercial activities, film and television culture and so on.

Historical evolution of illustrations

The development of illustration art has a long history.

In your eyes and mine, ordinary and simple illustrations have great connotations.

From the world's oldest illustration cave mural to the Japanese folk print ukiyo-e painting in the Edo period, all of them show the development of illustration.

Illustrations first developed with the changes of newspapers and books in the early19th century.

Its real golden age first began in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. At that time, the illustrations just separated from art works were obviously drawn, and most of the authors engaged in illustrations were professional painters. Later, influenced by the school of abstract expressionism, they turned from concrete to abstract.

It was not until the 1970s that illustrations returned to the realistic style.

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.

The forms of illustrations are: frontispiece drawings, text illustrations, top or bottom drawings, paintings on inner pages or title pages, and cards.

The historical evolution of ancient illustrations in China can be regarded as the development history of printmaking.

It is also the history of folk New Year pictures.

It's just that folk New Year pictures became commodities independently earlier, which is the predecessor of commercial illustration.

The history of illustration in Europe is similar to that in China, and it was first used in religious books.

Later, illustrations were widely used in natural science books, grammar books and collections of classic writers.

With the development of today's society, illustrations are widely used in various fields of society.

Illustration art not only broadens our horizons, enriches our thoughts, gives us unlimited imagination and broadens our minds.

With the increasing commercialization of art and the emergence of new painting materials and tools, illustration art has entered the era of commercialization.

In the era of commodity economy, illustrations play a great role in promoting economic development.

The concept of illustration has gone far beyond the scope of traditional laws and regulations.

Throughout today's illustration world, painters are no longer limited to a certain style. They often break the way of using only one material in the past, and widely use various means to achieve the expected effect, so that the development of illustration art has gained a broader space and unlimited possibilities.

In China, although illustration developed late, it has a long history. After the development of blackboard newspaper, print and poster layout after liberation, and the reference to international popular styles after 1980s, with the popularization of computer technology in the middle and late 1990s, more and more cutting-edge authors who use computers for illustration design emerged.

Illustrations have found a huge living space since the birth of the mother book.

With the development of technology and the needs of society, rich carriers are constantly emerging.

Application of illustrations

Application scope of illustrations

Publications:

Illustrations used in book covers, inside pages, coats and catalogs.

Including illustrations used by newspapers, magazines and other editors.

Commercial publicity:

Advertising DD includes newspaper advertisements, magazine advertisements, signboards, posters, leaflets and illustrations used in TV advertisements;

Business image design: product logo, corporate image (mascot);

Commodity packaging design;

Illustrate DD consumer guide, commodity description, manual, chart and catalogue.

Video multimedia:

The role and environmental art setting or interface design in film and television dramas, commercials, games, networks, etc.

Anything used for "explanation" can be counted as the category of illustration.

Two types of illustration applications

In the field of graphic design, we are most exposed to literary illustrations and commercial illustrations.

Literary illustration-a visual art form that reproduces the plot of an article and embodies the spirit of literature.

Commercial illustration-an image expression that conveys commodity information for enterprises or products and integrates art and commerce.

The illustrator gets the remuneration related to it, gives up the ownership of the work, and only retains the right of signature, which is a commercial transaction.

[Edit this paragraph] Functions and functions of illustrations

Illustration definition

Modern illustration is different from ordinary artistic illustration.

Their functions, forms of expression and media are different.

The service object of modern illustration is commodities first.

Commercial activities require that the information they carry be conveyed to the audience accurately and clearly, and people are expected to correctly receive and grasp this information and make the audience feel beautiful while taking actions, so it is said to serve commercial activities.

Art illustrations usually have three functions and purposes:

First, as a supplement to the text;

Second, let people get the satisfaction of perceptual knowledge;

Third, show the artist's aesthetic concept, performance skills, and even show the artist's world outlook and outlook on life.

The function of modern illustration is very strong, and pure art that deviates from the purpose of visual communication often weakens the function of modern illustration.

Therefore, the design should not make the theme of illustration ambiguous.

It must be based on clarity, simplicity and accuracy.

The appeal of modern illustration

The basic appeal function of modern illustration is to convey the information to the audience in the simplest, clearest and clearest way, arouse their interest, try to convince what they convey, accept the propaganda content gladly in the aesthetic process and induce them to take the final action.

(1) Show vivid and concrete images of products and services, and convey information intuitively.

(2) Stimulate consumers' interest.

(3) Enhance the persuasiveness of advertisements.

(4) Enhance the attractiveness of commodities and satisfy consumers' desires.

[Edit this paragraph] Aesthetic features of illustrations

Illustration design, as a form of visual art, especially as a part of practical art, has its own aesthetic characteristics.

Among them, the most obvious ones are as follows:

Purpose and restrictive factors

Second, practicality and popularity.

Third, visualization and intuition.

Fourth, aesthetics and interest.

Creativity and artistic imagination

6. Diversification and diversification

Due to the diversity of media, content, expression and appeal object, the aesthetic standards of modern illustration are also diversified and diversified.

explain

[Edit this paragraph] The form of illustrations

There are many forms of modern illustration, which can be classified by media or function.

According to the classification of media, it is basically divided into two parts, namely print media and film and television media.

Print media includes poster advertisement illustration, newspaper illustration, magazine book illustration, product packaging illustration, corporate image publicity material illustration, etc.

Film and television media include movies, television and computer screens.

Poster advertising illustration: also known as poster, poster.

In the era when advertisements mainly rely on printed media to transmit information, they can be said to be in a dominant position in advertisements.

However, with the emergence of film and television media, its application scope has narrowed.

Newspaper illustration: Newspaper is one of the best media for information transmission.

It is the most popular, low cost, large circulation, wide spread, fast speed and short production cycle.

Illustration of magazine books: including the design of front cover and back cover and the illustration of words, which are widely used in all kinds of books.

Such as literature books, children's books, science and technology books, etc.

This kind of illustration is gradually declining.

In the future, it will still exist in a large number of electronic books and newspapers.

Product packaging illustration: product packaging makes illustration more widely used.

Product packaging design includes three elements: logo, graphics and text.

It has two missions: one is to introduce products, and the other is to establish brand image.

The most prominent feature is that it is between plane and three-dimensional design.

Illustration of corporate image publicity materials: it is the VI design of the enterprise.

It is included in the basic system and application system of corporate image design.

Film and television illustration in film and television media: point out the illustrations in movies and TV now.

Generally, it appears in advertisements.

Movie and TV illustrations also include computer screens.

Now the computer screen has become the performance space of commercial illustration, and many graphic library animations, game programs and graphic tables have become a member of commercial illustration.

The form of illustration

Numbers, free form, realistic technology, black and white, color, using materials, photos and computer generation ... as long as they are "graphics", they can all be applied to the production of illustrations.

vector

[Edit this paragraph] Classification of illustrations

According to the current market positioning: vector fashion comics, young realism, the concept of illustration in Victoria, the United States and South Korea, etc.

Classification by production methods: hand-drawn, vector, commercial, cutting-edge (2D plane, UI design, 3D), pixel.

According to the illustration style, it is divided into Japanese cartoon illustration, European and American illustration, Hong Kong illustration, Korean game illustration, and Taiwan Province romance novel cover illustration. Because there are so many styles now, I just classify them simply.

In addition, there are many foreign styles, such as hand-folded paper, cloth pattern and various styles, which are neck and neck.

[Edit this paragraph] Illustration status quo

The most developed place of illustration: the United States is a country with a very developed illustration market, and appreciating illustrations has become a habit of society.

On the one hand, a large number of independent illustration products are sold in the terminal market, such as illustration books, magazines, illustration greeting cards and so on.

On the other hand, illustration, as a part of visual communication system (graphic design, illustration, commercial photography), is widely used in graphic advertisements, posters, covers and other design contents.

The illustration market in the United States is also very specialized, which is divided into children, sports, science fiction, food, digital, pure artistic style, humor and other professional types, and each type has a special illustrator.

The whole illustration market is very standardized and the competition is fierce, because the average income level of illustrators is three times that of ordinary Americans.

Illustrations in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan: As we all know, Japanese commercial animation has a huge market and operation team.

Animation is an important branch of illustration industry.

Before CG technology (computer technology for visual design and production) entered the field of illustration, hand-drawn animation had become a sunrise industry in Japan.

Today's younger generation is more and more inclined to use computer digital technology.

In South Korea, with the game industry climbing to the second pillar industry of the national economy in recent years, illustrations, especially digital illustrations, have sprung up everywhere, and the game characters designed with digital illustrations have also won more market space with the popularity of Korean games in China.

At the same time, Hong Kong and Taiwan illustrators are still looking for their own way of industry, although their works have obvious traces of learning from Japan.

Illustration education: Beijing Institute of Printing, Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, Beijing Broadcasting Institute, Tsinghua University Academy of Fine Arts, Central Academy of Fine Arts and other institutions have set up illustrations or related majors in the past two years, but the teaching content often only includes publication illustrations rather than commercial illustrations in a complete sense.

But in foreign countries, the combination of illustration education and market is very close.

Many well-known illustrators visit teachers in various universities, and they put the most fashionable and cutting-edge business ideas.