[1]Home
The Garden
[3]Now
[4]About
notes

evergreen

What App is That?

A guide to the apps and tools I use to create illustrations

  • [6]How to Illustrate

Planted over 3 years agoLast tended over 2 years ago
Back To Top


    "What app is that?"

[8]

I'm a Promiscuous Polytooler

I use wide variety of different tools and apps for different kinds of visual
creations. I'm not wedded to any one tool in particular – they all have their
strengths and weaknesses. I'll use whatever fits the task at hand and move work
between them liberally.

Here's all the apps and hardware that might be involved in a particular
creation...

None of these are affiliate links - I'm just pointing you to official sites for
more context

[9]

Workflows

And here's a couple of my common workflows for different styles of
illustrations and visuals...

1. Illustrated notes

Anything I make that has a painterly and loose hand-drawn feel was made in
Procreate on the iPad or Photoshop on the Wacom Cintiq. Or probably a
combination – it's easy to move files back and forth between the two and the
tools they offer are very similar.

Illustrations like these...

Both of these applications allow you to draw in “raster” graphics, meaning you
paint pixels onto a canvas. They require a decent level of hand-skills to make
sure your lines aren't wobbly, although both applications have smoothing
features to help with that.

When I'm in Procreate I use a small selection of brushes I've gathered over the
years. It's hard for me to remember where they're all from, and I've customised
the majority of them to suit my personal prefs. Most of them were originally
from Max Ulichney's brushes. I have the essentials set ($2), the painters set
($8), and the comics set ($15), and can vouch they're all great.

I move these pieces to Photoshop if I want to work on a larger screen, or have
accidentally enlarged the canvas to a 14000px wide sprawling set of sketches
that Procreate can't open without crashing.

2. Polished vector illustrations

Illustrations that look more “polished” are made primarily in Adobe
Illustrator, with a touch of Photoshop at the end for lighting effects and
texture.

Pieces like these...

These illustrations are all vector-based, meaning we use mathematical curves to
define their shapes, rather than painted pixels. Vectors are great for create
hard, crisp edges and working with perfect geometric forms.

While I love vectors for laying down the foundation shapes of these, I'll move
them over the Photoshop once they're 90% done to adjust the colors, add more
subtlety to the lighting and shadows, and chuck a bit of texture on the top so
they feel more tangible.

Want to share?Tell Twitter About It

3 Backlinks

Why You Own an iPad and Still Can't Draw

The failure of drawing materials without mediums and meat

Frequently Asked Questions

Questions I am often asked to answer

The Best Illustration Books and Courses

My favourite resources for learning to draw and developing your visual thinking
skills

Mentions around the web

Tomiwa 😃
Maggie Appleton - indieweb.social/@maggie
2 Likes and Retweets

Want to stay up to date?

Subscribe via RSS Feed
[12][13][14][15][16]
© 2024 Maggie Appleton

  • [17]The Garden
  • [18]Essays
  • [19]About
  • [20]Notes
  • [21]Now
  • [22]Patterns
  • [23]Library
  • [24]Projects
  • [25]Colophon


References:

[1] https://maggieappleton.com/
[3] https://maggieappleton.com/now
[4] https://maggieappleton.com/about
[6] https://maggieappleton.com/topics/how-to-illustrate
[8] https://maggieappleton.com/apps#im-a-promiscuous-polytooler
[9] https://maggieappleton.com/apps#workflows
[12] https://github.com/MaggieAppleton
[13] https://uk.linkedin.com/in/maggieappleton
[14] https://dribbble.com/mappleton
[15] https://twitter.com/Mappletons
[16] https://indieweb.social/@maggie
[17] https://maggieappleton.com/garden
[18] https://maggieappleton.com/essays
[19] https://maggieappleton.com/about
[20] https://maggieappleton.com/notes
[21] https://maggieappleton.com/now
[22] https://maggieappleton.com/patterns
[23] https://maggieappleton.com/library
[24] https://maggieappleton.com/projects
[25] https://maggieappleton.com/colophon
