I've discovered 2 things in the course of creating 2 new graphics.
1. Don't be lazy! Even if an object is the same color as the background still fill it. Sometimes when the graphic is done you will find that the background choice wasn't the best and it needs changing. Then depending on how objects are filled it will just be annoying to fix the background and fill the lines.
Also, do yourself a favor and from the very beginning create a new layer and call it background and give it some light gray or other neutral color. If it bothers you, you can always hide the layer and proceed with working as usual. And then if there are any details that will be white just make the background visible and color away.
This comic strip took me exactly 5 hours. 1.5 hours was the initial drawing and reshaping of curves. In a grand scheme of things I do think that working with a stylus (or even a mouse) is going to be faster than drawing with a pencil, especially if you know the hot-keys. When drawing on paper there is no undo-redo and well erasing is not as easy as on a computer - there are always traces left of incorrect lines.
Another thing I noticed that I was doing in a lazy way that later cost me extra time was not closing some of the shapes. While the Blob Brush is excellent and really fun to use it takes a lot longer to color with it than applying a one click fill to the object. So even if part of the object will be hidden under another one just merge the curves/lines or add anchor points were lose-handedly otherwise the straight line by which an object will be filled between 2 open ends may not always be ideal.
2. If you want a clean graphic without color exceeding the lines, and using fill rather than a brush for coloring stay away from using a brush width of which will be dependent on stylus's pressure or other variables. In this case you're not creating lines and curves anymore but closed paths that can have their own fill. It's more difficult to modify the curves and if there is any intersection it will all become one object rather than separate paths. The cat's 'outline' was essentially one path and it was not quite easy to change anything towards the end. So I ended up redrawing with a normal brush where all setting where fixed. I essentially did the drawing twice.
The pressure thing is really neat and looks good and works fine with Blob-brush fill, just can turn into a much longer process depending on how complicated the drawing is.
Just don't be lazy and if you recognize a mistake of using the wrong tool or missing something fix it right away and don't continue and hope for the best. It will save a lot of time to fix stuff from the beginning rather than suffering consequences of bad choices and prolonging the work-process significantly.
Some more graphics from earlier:
1. Don't be lazy! Even if an object is the same color as the background still fill it. Sometimes when the graphic is done you will find that the background choice wasn't the best and it needs changing. Then depending on how objects are filled it will just be annoying to fix the background and fill the lines.
Also, do yourself a favor and from the very beginning create a new layer and call it background and give it some light gray or other neutral color. If it bothers you, you can always hide the layer and proceed with working as usual. And then if there are any details that will be white just make the background visible and color away.
Another thing I noticed that I was doing in a lazy way that later cost me extra time was not closing some of the shapes. While the Blob Brush is excellent and really fun to use it takes a lot longer to color with it than applying a one click fill to the object. So even if part of the object will be hidden under another one just merge the curves/lines or add anchor points were lose-handedly otherwise the straight line by which an object will be filled between 2 open ends may not always be ideal.
2. If you want a clean graphic without color exceeding the lines, and using fill rather than a brush for coloring stay away from using a brush width of which will be dependent on stylus's pressure or other variables. In this case you're not creating lines and curves anymore but closed paths that can have their own fill. It's more difficult to modify the curves and if there is any intersection it will all become one object rather than separate paths. The cat's 'outline' was essentially one path and it was not quite easy to change anything towards the end. So I ended up redrawing with a normal brush where all setting where fixed. I essentially did the drawing twice.
The pressure thing is really neat and looks good and works fine with Blob-brush fill, just can turn into a much longer process depending on how complicated the drawing is.
Just don't be lazy and if you recognize a mistake of using the wrong tool or missing something fix it right away and don't continue and hope for the best. It will save a lot of time to fix stuff from the beginning rather than suffering consequences of bad choices and prolonging the work-process significantly.
Some more graphics from earlier:
Quick and easy drawing. Blob brush. ~1 hour on everything
Original sketch and the final result. This one was done with shapes in Photoshop. Hours of work as punishment for bad choices of tools
Stylus, Blob-brush. The original image of the gift card was too small and I had to vectorize it. Even so I spent about 2-4 hours and this was the first graphic for work done in Illustrator. The more practice the faster the process.
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