Adobe Illustrator?

[PencilsAreForLosers]

I used the program in College and i worked really well with it...
Question?
Do i buy Illustrator for pursuing a career in Concept art?
Or do i used one of the listed programs on the forum?

[ExiledRed]

Illustrator is great for vector illustrations, and graphic design.

It produces very stylised works, with bezier curves and gradient meshes that are intended for scalability and flexibility across print mediums. It's usually visually obvious when an artwork is a vector, and while I've seen some excellent vectors on here, I would say that it is not the program of choice for most concept artists.

Photoshop is much more powerful if you want to emulate real paintings.

[Ilaekae]

I'm going to disagree here a bit. Nothing personal.

Illustrator is probably the single most powerful DRAWING program available across the counter. When you consider that many concepts such as vehicles, cityscapes, and other man-made items involve the manipulation of precision edges and flat areas, Illustrator is an exact match for establishing a mechanical base drawing upon which a painting program like PS can be used to finish in a "painterly" fashion.

The few times when a linear approach is required for a figure concept or an illustration that requires some line treatment to match a particular style or era/mood, it's one hell of a lot faster to prep the line in advance with illustrator that it is to use PS.

In the context of the OP's original question, since you already have a firm grounding in Illustrator, you should be able to come up with few hundred ways that it can be some advantage to you when you compare it to doing certain things only in PS or Painter. If I were in your position, I personally wouldn't scrap a tool I know well to transfer to one that I'm not that sure of or as skilled in.

This answer might get a lot of flak from some people here, but I'd pit my skills in Illustrator plus PS combined, as bad as they are, against any PS only artist here just to prove what I mean. That is NOT to ignore that the "painting" only approach is probably more common among folks here, because what you use ultimately boils down to what you NEED to use to do what you WANT.

[QueenGwenevere]

Depends on what sort of work you like to do and how you prefer to do it, really. It's partly a matter of taste. Some people find Illustrator awkward to use if they're not comfortable with vector drawing, and don't use it unless they have to. But if you already work well in Illustrator and are comfortable with it, you're bound to find plenty of uses for it, so it would certainly be worth having.

Either way, it IS a pretty standard tool in any commercial artist's arsenal. There's always a lot of little things that are best done in Illustrator, or clients will send files that you need to open in Illustrator, or they'll request Illustrator files... Stuff comes up all the time, so it's good to have.

Depending on what you plan to do, your best bet may be to buy one of the Adobe Creative Suite bundles (Photoshop + Illustrator + whatever assortment of other apps suits your work. They have a bunch of different CS bundles.) This is usually cheaper than buying apps separately.

[ExiledRed]

I'm going to disagree here a bit. Nothing personal.

Illustrator is probably the single most powerful DRAWING program available across the counter. When you consider that many concepts such as vehicles, cityscapes, and other man-made items involve the manipulation of straight edges and flat areas, Illustrator is an exact match for establishing a mechanical base drawing upon which a painting program like PS can be used to finish in a "painterly" fashion.

The few times when a linear approach is required for a figure concept or an illustration that requires some line treatment to match a particular style or era/mood, it's one hell of a lot faster to prep the line in advance with illustrator that it is to use PS.

In the context of the OP's original question, since you already have a firm grounding in Illustrator, you should be able to come up with few hundred ways that it can be some advantage to you when you compare it to doing certain things only in PS or Painter. If I were in your position, I personally wouldn't scrap a tool I know well to transfer to one that I'm not that sure of or as skilled in.

This answer might get a lot of flak from some people here, but I'd pit my skills in Illustrator plus PS combined, as bad as they are, against any PS only artist here just to prove what I mean. That is NOT to mean that the "painting" only approach is probably more common among folks here, because what you use ultimately boils down to what you NEED to use to do what you WANT.

You're absolutely right of course, I hadn't really considered the technical drawing side of illustrator or even concept art itself. I was thinking purely in terms of these grand airbrushed masterpieces. Also thankyou for pointing out some uses of illustrator that I hadnt considered before and will possibly explore myself.

I agree with you that mastering both illustrator and photoshop together gives you much more power with your imagery whether its concept art, illustration, graphic design or whatever else, and with the smart objects capability in CS4 they are even more intertwinable.

[Jackwriter]

Well it depends.If you want to work on comics, corel draw is best suited for that.
I use adobe for drawing comics and characters.

[Kraus]

Know illustrator, awesome. Now learn photoshop, shouldn't be that difficult. Then take your illustrator work into photoshop and add detail to have a cool stylish piece.

[vineris]

Well it depends.If you want to work on comics, corel draw is best suited for that.

No it's not. Every artist I know either still does it with pen/brush & ink or uses some combination of Photoshop, Illustrator and Manga Studio.

[Jackwriter]

I meant if you want to save time for drawing comic panels rather than going to new file, corel draw is suited for that.Then yeah theres editing softwares like illustrator and photoshop.

[MrParker]

I'm going to disagree here a bit. Nothing personal.

Illustrator is probably the single most powerful DRAWING program available across the counter. When you consider that many concepts such as vehicles, cityscapes, and other man-made items involve the manipulation of precision edges and flat areas, Illustrator is an exact match for establishing a mechanical base drawing upon which a painting program like PS can be used to finish in a "painterly" fashion.

The few times when a linear approach is required for a figure concept or an illustration that requires some line treatment to match a particular style or era/mood, it's one hell of a lot faster to prep the line in advance with illustrator that it is to use PS.

In the context of the OP's original question, since you already have a firm grounding in Illustrator, you should be able to come up with few hundred ways that it can be some advantage to you when you compare it to doing certain things only in PS or Painter. If I were in your position, I personally wouldn't scrap a tool I know well to transfer to one that I'm not that sure of or as skilled in.

This answer might get a lot of flak from some people here, but I'd pit my skills in Illustrator plus PS combined, as bad as they are, against any PS only artist here just to prove what I mean. That is NOT to ignore that the "painting" only approach is probably more common among folks here, because what you use ultimately boils down to what you NEED to use to do what you WANT.

Pardon my ignorance, but in regards to something like concept art, would it not be faster and cheaper to just do the linework on paper with pen and set square\templates, and then scan it in?

[Ilaekae]

In the case of mechanicals/cityscapes, it would if you had the set-up and background for it. In the case of organic images, including figures, the line could of course be done with brush or pen, but almost always needs cleanup. The ability to experiment last minute with line weights and color would also be in favor of AI over scanning.

A complete precision drawing in ink would be offset by the ability to rapidly duplicate/copy items and to use the measuring/step and repeat ability of AI to save time, and the ability to easily correct or tweak, something that can't be done as easily with ink/scans.

I get the feeling from your question that you don't use Illustrator, or think of it as a replacement for pen and ink. It's not. The power of AI comes from the vector/postscript interface and the ability to manipulate it on the fly.


@Jackwriter: Illustrator is DEFINITELY NOT an editing program. It's a primary originating vector app, and was designed as such from the beginning.

[Armonah]

There is no harm whatsoever in getting to know multiple programs. Every one of them has their strengths and weaknesses, and can be applied for different jobs, giving a different result. And the better you get to know your tools, the better you'll be able to decide what you want your art to look like, and what tools to use.

Like Ilaekae said, Illustrator has it's uses in concept art as well, but it definetly isn't the best program available for concept art in general. And if you're serious about pursuing a career in concept art, only limiting yourself to making mechs, vectors and using illustrator, is going to bite you in the ass real hard.

[QueenGwenevere]

In the case of organic images, including figures, the line could of course be done with brush or pen, but almost always needs cleanup. The ability to experiment last minute with line weights and color would also be in favor of AI over scanning.

Erm, Ilaekae, since you are more or less an Illustrator guru, I may as well ask... Is there any way to get Illustrator to give you accurate, brush-like line variation as you draw? I.e., a tool that will accurately reflect the pressure and angle of your pen as you're drawing? I admit I've never mastered all the finer points of Illustrator, so I've always done brushwork either analog (scans) or in Photoshop or in Flash. Photoshop has its limitations being bitmap, of course, and Flash is all right but has... quirks... So I keep wondering, can you get a good vector brush in Illustrator somehow? Is there some tool or setting I've missed somewhere?

As far as I can tell, all I can do in Illustrator is draw a stroked line with the brush tool, and then apply a faux brushy effect to it AFTER I've drawn it, which does me no good at all. Unless of course I'm doing something wrong, which might well be the case.

What I REALLY want is the functionality of the brush in Flash with the speed and responsiveness of the brush in Illustrator. Does this even exist?

Mind you, I have Illustrator CS2, so it's a bit prehistoric...

[Elwell]

I meant if you want to save time for drawing comic panels rather than going to new file, corel draw is suited for that.Then yeah theres editing softwares like illustrator and photoshop.
Jackwriter, why in the world are you giving anybody advice about anything?

[Ilaekae]

Brushes don't work the same in AI as PS because it's a vector program. You're basically drawing a mathematical line with no characteristics, no width, and no dimension of any kind other than direction and start/stop points. All other characteristics are applied after the fact. This IS vector.

If you google "Illustrator brushes CS2" "Ilustrator brushes" or anything in that general area, you'll end up with a huge pile of freebee and paid-for brushes you can download that range from really useful to "GOODGODSHOOTMENOW!!!! examples of stupidity." Flick through the blog comments on most of these sites and you'll run across additional sources, as well as trouble-shooting advice. Hope that helps.

Erm, Ilaekae, since you are more or less an Illustrator guru, I may as well ask... Is there any way to get Illustrator to give you accurate, brush-like line variation as you draw? I.e., a tool that will accurately reflect the pressure and angle of your pen as you're drawing? I admit I've never mastered all the finer points of Illustrator, so I've always done brushwork either analog (scans) or in Photoshop or in Flash. Photoshop has its limitations being bitmap, of course, and Flash is all right but has... quirks... So I keep wondering, can you get a good vector brush in Illustrator somehow? Is there some tool or setting I've missed somewhere?

As far as I can tell, all I can do in Illustrator is draw a stroked line with the brush tool, and then apply a faux brushy effect to it AFTER I've drawn it, which does me no good at all. Unless of course I'm doing something wrong, which might well be the case.

What I REALLY want is the functionality of the brush in Flash with the speed and responsiveness of the brush in Illustrator. Does this even exist?

Mind you, I have Illustrator CS2, so it's a bit prehistoric...

[QueenGwenevere]

Brushes don't work the same in AI as PS because it's a vector program. You're basically drawing a mathematical line with no characteristics, no width, and no dimension of any kind other than direction and start/stop points. All other characteristics are applied after the fact. This IS vector.

Dang. That's what I was afraid of. See, in Flash you can use the "brush" to draw a vector SHAPE that basically mimics a brushstroke, with actual width and dimension, all based on pen pressure... You can even "paint" with the thing, filling in big areas of brushy swashiness... The only problem is that this hits the processor hard so it lags a bit and you have to draw slowly for the program to keep up with your pen. (Plus it sometimes gets a bit too creative trying to interpret your hand movements, so you have to tweak things.) I keep hoping there's a way to do this in Illustrator, but better. From what you're saying, I guess not. Oh well, I can dream. :(

But I think I will check out what Illustrator brushes are available, can't hurt...

Just by way of example, this is what you get in Flash when you use the brush tool (with a few lines selected to show the anchor points) - notice how the "lines" are actually vector shapes, not stroked lines (I just wish Illustrator could do something similar. That would be perfect. Adobe, get on this!)


EDIT: ARGH. Okay, there was supposed to be an attachment there, but it doesn't seem to be working... You'll just have to take my word for it.
EDIT2: Oh wait, there it is...

[Zirngibism]

I find that Photoshop has everything I'd want when it comes to vectors. In many ways I think it's superior, such as being able to load shapes into selections and instantly paint into them, or to attach vector masks to groups so that you can paint beneath and still have the ability to change the shape. You might want to check out its tools.

It can be useful to concept artists because it can allow you to paint hard-edged, sleek curves on vehicles and other mechanical/architectural/other manufactured things.

I'd say its only shortcoming is not being able to get controlled outlines on your shapes.

Below is an example where I used vectors entirely in Photoshop and integrated them with painting.

[agrmrs]

no need to spend money :D just use inkspace (if u r focusing vector style )...... i use GIMP for some drawings :) ( none vector ) and it's free too :D

[QueenGwenevere]

I find that Photoshop has everything I'd want when it comes to vectors.

Photoshop is good for comparatively simple vector shapes, and yes, mixing vectors with painting all in the same app is mighty handy, I do that a lot too... Though personally I still find Illustrator more useful for complex vectors and some freehand vector drawing, and so far Flash is the only tool I know that allows me to do freehand vectors with a natural "hand-drawn" look...

I still say the best bet is to get Illustrator AND Photoshop, that should give you the optimal set of tools.

[GriNGo]

Anyone deosnt want to challenge Ilaekae on his idea? I challenge you to make a portrait then. Or a character design (ala work peope do for CHOW). But I agree illustrator kicks ass, but as a much better way to start your stuff then PS, then I have to disagree. Working in illustrator cant be more clumsy.

[Ilaekae]

I don't think I said it was a better way to start than PS, at least universally. It definitely COULD BE better in the cases I mentioned in my first post, though. It's all a matter of how you work and what you learned to work with. For example, I learned to paint with temperas and acrylics, so I really have a problem with oils. They just don't do what i want them to. The reverse is true of people who originally started with oils. Since I started with AI 1.x, I already had a methodology that worked for me, and went from there by adding PS to it later. I feel very comfortable now with the process. For someone who started with PS, I'm guessing it would feel ass-backwards.

As for the challenge--sounds like fun. What would you like me to do, and what are the limitations on finishing in PS, if any? Wanna make it one on one, with you using PS/Painter to do something I think is better to use illustrator on in some way? I'd love to try a portrait in vector with some PS polishing to see what happens. :)

Oh...and give me a little time to start--I'm in the middle of two medical court fights and taxes right now.


ADD: mickeymao, thanks for that. I use CS2 and a track ball, so I wasn't aware of that change in CS3. It may even exist in CS2, but I've just never had any use for it. Once I get my tablet set up, I'll probably do a good bit more checking on "pressure" tools.

[mickeymao]

Actually, Illustrator does have pressure-sensitive brushes, at least in CS3 and above, maybe in earlier versions as well. There aren't as many controls as I'd like, but here's where to find them:

Select the brush tool (B)
Select the brushes window/palette (F5)
On the brushes palette menu, select "new calligraphic brush" (or double-click on one of the existing round brushes)
At the bottom of the window that pops up, where it says "diameter", change the dropdown from "fixed" to "pressure", then drag the variation all the way up.

Also, Manga Studio EX has vector capabilities, though I haven't used them much yet.

[Ilaekae]

I did a little checking, and it appears that the only pressure-sensitive brushes in AI is the Calligraphic set, and it seems to be available in CS2 and up. My impression is that these are still the only pressure-sensitive brushes AI.

[GriNGo]

Hey Ilaekae, just PM when you feel your ready so we can organize things up. No limitations whatsoever man, I don't think it would be fair to limit anyone. Portrait in vector, cool, do you want to choose someone in particular? And would the goal be achieve a realistic look? Or as long as it looks good in your particular style... we could later set up a poll of course..

[Ilaekae]

Sounds like this could be fun. I'm guessing that mine should be as realistic as possible to prove my point. As for yours, I'm guessing that something that would be logically easy in vector but done in PS instead? I'll make mine mainly vector with finishing in PS, so you could use both too, just to make it fair I guess.

I'm thinking an incredibly outrageous portrait of of someone from the "What do we look like" thread for mine. I'll give you a head's up when I'm ready. I have a court case against two health agencies going on over my brother's care (stroke victim) right now, and I have some details to work out on guardianship issues and still get my taxes done by April 15th.

[QueenGwenevere]

Actually, Illustrator does have pressure-sensitive brushes, at least in CS3 and above, maybe in earlier versions as well. There aren't as many controls as I'd like, but here's where to find them:

Select the brush tool (B)
Select the brushes window/palette (F5)
On the brushes palette menu, select "new calligraphic brush" (or double-click on one of the existing round brushes)
At the bottom of the window that pops up, where it says "diameter", change the dropdown from "fixed" to "pressure", then drag the variation all the way up.

Also, Manga Studio EX has vector capabilities, though I haven't used them much yet.

Brush PALETTE! DUH! Oh my god, it works! I kept trying something similar using the "options" under the brush settings at the top of the screen, and for some reason the options I set there get reset to default no-pressure-sensitivity whenever I try to draw...

But when I use the palette, it actually works! Yay! I KNEW I must be overlooking something stupid and simple!

Granted, it's not a totally brushy brush like you get in Flash, and it seems to max out at a certain thickness, but this should work great for a lot of things... Especially if I need a pen-and-ink look. And it's a lot faster than Flash, that's a major plus.

Ooh, ooh, wait... experiment time... aaaaaand it successfully imports brushstrokes into Flash! And automagically converts them to vector shapes! YES! New animation tool FTW!

I keep hearing about Manga Studio, haven't tried it yet... Any good?

[macmcrae]

I find that Photoshop has everything I'd want when it comes to vectors. In many ways I think it's superior, such as being able to load shapes into selections and instantly paint into them, or to attach vector masks to groups so that you can paint beneath and still have the ability to change the shape. You might want to check out its tools.

It can be useful to concept artists because it can allow you to paint hard-edged, sleek curves on vehicles and other mechanical/architectural/other manufactured things.

I'd say its only shortcoming is not being able to get controlled outlines on your shapes.

Below is an example where I used vectors entirely in Photoshop and integrated them with painting.

The thing about only using photoshop is you end up with that annoying microscopic anti-alias halo around your shapes after you draw and select them using the paths panel. Also the tools for manipulating your vector shapes in photoshop are just goofy feeling to me.

Nice painting BTW - though technology magazines always end up making me sad. In 10 years we will look back at the tech and outrageous prices and laugh maniacally.

[mickeymao]

Ooh, ooh, wait... experiment time... aaaaaand it successfully imports brushstrokes into Flash! And automagically converts them to vector shapes! YES! New animation tool FTW!

I keep hearing about Manga Studio, haven't tried it yet... Any good?

Glad I could help. Try playing around with the LivePaint tool too, if you haven't already.

Manga Studio EX (the $250 product, as opposed to the $50 "Debut" which still has all the pen functionality but skips the fancier stuff) has a really freakish array of potentially useful features, but I haven't delved very deeply into it yet. As far as I can tell it does not have full-on vector manipulation capabilities like Illustrator (i.e. you can't move control points/handles). It basically just uses vectors as a way to draw resolution-independently. However, it does have some cool features like snapping to existing vector lines, joining the ends of lines, changing line thickness, and that sort of thing.

You can then export the vector drawings at any bitmap resolution in formats including EPS and PSD, but you can't (as far as I can tell) export them as "live" vectors to AI or Flash (An exported EPS just comes into AI as an image).

[Correction: there ARE some tools for editing vector lines, though still no direct control of points/handles.]

Other nifty things the program has:
Super-easy panel borders and speech balloons
2 and 3 point perspective rulers (!)
Import and "pose" 3D object files (.obj) to render or draw over
All kinds of crazy zipatone-like fills
rulers for various kinds of motion lines
Coloring tools, which I haven't tried yet.

Here's a vector test drawing I did with it.