146 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
146 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
[1]Home
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The Garden
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[3]Now
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[4]About
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notes
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evergreen
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What App is That?
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A guide to the apps and tools I use to create illustrations
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• [6]How to Illustrate
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Planted over 3 years agoLast tended over 2 years ago
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Back To Top
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"What app is that?"
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[8]
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I'm a Promiscuous Polytooler
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I use wide variety of different tools and apps for different kinds of visual
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creations. I'm not wedded to any one tool in particular – they all have their
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strengths and weaknesses. I'll use whatever fits the task at hand and move work
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between them liberally.
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Here's all the apps and hardware that might be involved in a particular
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creation...
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None of these are affiliate links - I'm just pointing you to official sites for
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more context
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[9]
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Workflows
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And here's a couple of my common workflows for different styles of
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illustrations and visuals...
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1. Illustrated notes
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Anything I make that has a painterly and loose hand-drawn feel was made in
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Procreate on the iPad or Photoshop on the Wacom Cintiq. Or probably a
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combination – it's easy to move files back and forth between the two and the
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tools they offer are very similar.
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Illustrations like these...
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Both of these applications allow you to draw in “raster” graphics, meaning you
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paint pixels onto a canvas. They require a decent level of hand-skills to make
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sure your lines aren't wobbly, although both applications have smoothing
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features to help with that.
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When I'm in Procreate I use a small selection of brushes I've gathered over the
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years. It's hard for me to remember where they're all from, and I've customised
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the majority of them to suit my personal prefs. Most of them were originally
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from Max Ulichney's brushes. I have the essentials set ($2), the painters set
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($8), and the comics set ($15), and can vouch they're all great.
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I move these pieces to Photoshop if I want to work on a larger screen, or have
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accidentally enlarged the canvas to a 14000px wide sprawling set of sketches
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that Procreate can't open without crashing.
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2. Polished vector illustrations
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Illustrations that look more “polished” are made primarily in Adobe
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Illustrator, with a touch of Photoshop at the end for lighting effects and
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texture.
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Pieces like these...
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These illustrations are all vector-based, meaning we use mathematical curves to
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define their shapes, rather than painted pixels. Vectors are great for create
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hard, crisp edges and working with perfect geometric forms.
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While I love vectors for laying down the foundation shapes of these, I'll move
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them over the Photoshop once they're 90% done to adjust the colors, add more
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subtlety to the lighting and shadows, and chuck a bit of texture on the top so
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they feel more tangible.
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Want to share?Tell Twitter About It
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3 Backlinks
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Why You Own an iPad and Still Can't Draw
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The failure of drawing materials without mediums and meat
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Frequently Asked Questions
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Questions I am often asked to answer
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The Best Illustration Books and Courses
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My favourite resources for learning to draw and developing your visual thinking
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skills
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Mentions around the web
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Tomiwa 😃
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Maggie Appleton - indieweb.social/@maggie
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2 Likes and Retweets
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Want to stay up to date?
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Subscribe via RSS Feed
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[12][13][14][15][16]
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© 2024 Maggie Appleton
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• [17]The Garden
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• [18]Essays
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• [19]About
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• [20]Notes
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• [21]Now
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• [22]Patterns
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• [23]Library
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• [24]Projects
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• [25]Colophon
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References:
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[1] https://maggieappleton.com/
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[3] https://maggieappleton.com/now
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[4] https://maggieappleton.com/about
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[6] https://maggieappleton.com/topics/how-to-illustrate
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[8] https://maggieappleton.com/apps#im-a-promiscuous-polytooler
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[9] https://maggieappleton.com/apps#workflows
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[12] https://github.com/MaggieAppleton
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[13] https://uk.linkedin.com/in/maggieappleton
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[14] https://dribbble.com/mappleton
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[15] https://twitter.com/Mappletons
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[16] https://indieweb.social/@maggie
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[17] https://maggieappleton.com/garden
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[18] https://maggieappleton.com/essays
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[19] https://maggieappleton.com/about
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[20] https://maggieappleton.com/notes
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[21] https://maggieappleton.com/now
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[22] https://maggieappleton.com/patterns
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[23] https://maggieappleton.com/library
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[24] https://maggieappleton.com/projects
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[25] https://maggieappleton.com/colophon
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