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Techniques

Scenes and Backgrounds in Vector Illustration

Scenes and Backgrounds in Vector Illustration

In today’s feature article, I’m going to show you work from seven talented vector artists. Discover how they approach backgrounds and construct whole scenes. Learn how they turn single elements into the focal point in an overall composition. These are techniques that will take time and work to master, but are well-worth the effort.

Top Tips and Secrets from Talented Vector Artists

Top Tips and Secrets from Talented Vector Artists

Today we share top tips and secrets from talented vector artists, which can help add insight into their processes and can give us the advice we need to improve in our own artwork.

The Art of Skin Shading

The Art of Skin Shading

Skin shading is a large part of creating portrait and people art. In today’s article I’m going to show you different styles of skin shading and give you some helpful tips on creating flawless skin in your vector work!

Adobe InDesign CS5, Advanced Typography and Special Characters

Adobe InDesign CS5, Advanced Typography and Special Characters

Adobe’s InDesign is considered to be the most advanced multi-page editor software, but we need to take advantage of it’s full power to quickly create and deliver professionally formatted documents. In this article, we’ll review the nine advanced and special character topics, as well as corresponding shortcut keys, and additional information.

How To Upgrade Your RAM and Video Card
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How To Upgrade Your RAM and Video Card

In this tutorial, we’ll get our hands dirty as we crack open our computers and take a look at upgrading the memory and video card, two upgrades that can immensely effect the performance of both Mac Pros and Windows machines. We’ll learn principles of upgrading, buying, and physically installing hardware, so even if your particular machine is not covered, it’s still applicable. This is for beginners and professionals alike and is geared more towards media content creators. This is a great opportunity to take a peek inside the machine you use daily and to find out how to get a lot more performance out of it through these two simple upgrades.

The Art of Choosing the Right Paper
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The Art of Choosing the Right Paper

Choosing the right paper for your printed media can be tricky. Paper tells about the function of the product, it’s feeling and quality. Therefore it’s a crucial part of the overall experience of your final product. Best of all is to start thinking about the choice of paper even before you start your work on the computer, not only to get the feeling right but also because of printing issues and costs. You can then optimize the production and design according to the paper of your choice. Here are some of the things to keep in mind about the use of paper for your printed media production.


This entry is part 10 of 14 in the Poster Design Session
Using Stock References in the Creation of Vector Art

Using Stock References in the Creation of Vector Art

Historically, artists have used live models and landscapes as a base for their work. In the digital age, stock photos are easily accessible and widely used in all forms of art and vector art is no exception. In this article, we’ll look at how useful stock is to the vector artist.


This entry is part 10 of 16 in the Vector Portraits Session
A Look Inside InDesign CS5

A Look Inside InDesign CS5

InDesign CS5 has arrived with lot of new tools, panels and features. Let’s have a closer look at these changes and discover how they can improve our workflow, productivity and, best of all, our creative process. Time to also think outside of the box, since InDesign is starting to explore new grounds of interactivity and digital publications with growing enthusiasm. So, what’s new?

Holistic Character Design
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Holistic Character Design

Cartoon characters are everywhere, from advertising to film, and the ones that stand the test of time all share something in common. They have substance over style. It’s all well and good designing innovative, cool looking characters, but if they’re only skin-deep, that’s where they’ll come unstuck. Great characters like ‘SpongeBob Square Pants’ have much more than just a unique look, they have several key elements that are instilled in the very core of their design. Over the course of this article, I’ll show you what they are and how to use them to create your own lovable characters.

Creating Personal Character Designs with Precision
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Creating Personal Character Designs with Precision

Designing a character can apply to both personal and professional projects. The character can be a mascot that works in the context of a multi-national brand, or it can simply be inspired by a well-known character within pop culture. The later is usually referred to as “Fan Art.” The character “Mickey Rat” first appeared in the early 1970′s as a subversive underground comic that I enjoyed as a kid. Many artists over the years have taken their own approach with the character, and this article goes over my creation of this vectorized vermin.

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