The ChatHey Alex, thanks for chatting with Vectips! To start, could you tell us a little about yourself?It's a pleasure to be on your site. I've gained a lot of inspiration from it over the years. I'm a self taught illustrator, dabbling in writing, currently living in Tokyo, from London. I run a couple of websites, namely Ape on the Moon, which concentrates on visual art and artists, as well as Red Lemon Club, which provides various tips on business and productivity for creative professionals.The vector work I create is greatly inspired by the geography course I did at university and it's what is currently paying the bills. If you could magically turn into a Illustrator tool, what tool would it be and why?Great question! I'd be the pen tool, because I like to keep creating, being flexible and going one step at a time.What’s your favorite Illustrator technique?I think that has to be simply using the smooth tool. I use it a lot, and it helps give my landscapes a distinctive smoothed wavey effect. I'd have given up digital illustration a long time ago if the smooth tool didn't exist!Do you use any non-digital tools in your work?I do sketch everything out before I work in illustrator, but that's still sort of digital. I guess the process of sketching on my Wacom tablet is almost non-digital. There's also the sketching of ideas down in sketchbooks, but nothing non-digital that would affect the outcome of the final product. The illustration work is done entirely in vector.What are your favorite sources of inspiration?For me it's travel, seeing the work of other great artists, animation, films and electronic music.Thanks again for the interview! Any parting words of wisdom?Sure thing! If you are just starting out in illustration and you know you love to do it, make sure you do a ton of work before you consider yourself a professional, and don't quit!Downhill Running Kidney Island Carbonated Landscape Kitsune Noir Syrup Smoochers Snow Apes Portrait Continental Shelf Paradise Bear The Falls Volcanic Secret |
Showing posts with label Illustrator. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Illustrator. Show all posts
Friday, June 15, 2012
Alex Mathers
Monday, June 11, 2012
Weekly Vector Inspiration #166
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Illustrator CS6 Gradients on Strokes Sneak Peak
Adobe made another Illustrator CS6 sneak peak video. This time showcasing Gradient Strokes in CS6! It has always been a work around to create faux gradient strokes in Illustrator. This usually included faking the strokes in the Appearance panel or creating complicated blends. According to the video, this will be a great deal easier in Illustrator CS6. I’m looking forward to the changes. How are the changes stacking up for you? Thinking of upgrading?
Click here to view the embedded video.  |
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Anchor Points: Chris Spooner
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I’m sure everyone knows who Chris Spooner is, but if you don’t recognize the name you will probably recognize his work and tutorials. Chris writes Illustrator and Photoshop tutorials as well as other creative topics on Blog.Spoongraphics.co.uk. In addition, Chris runs Line 25, a creative web design site. Chris was kind enough to give us a little industry insight and let us know why he would like to use the Pathfinders tools in everyday life!
The ChatHey Chris, thanks for chatting with Vectips! To start, could you tell us a little about yourself?Thanks! I’m Chris Spooner, the guy behind design blogs Blog.SpoonGraphics and Line25. I enjoy playing around with various design styles and creating tutorials on my websites to share the techniques I’ve learnt with others. I soon found Illustrator to be one of my favourite design apps, so back in early 2007 I began posting Illustrator tutorials on my Blog.SpoonGraphics website. Back then Illustrator how-to’s were pretty rare, so I seemed to find my feet in this niche. Five years later I’m still posting Illustrator and Photoshop tutorials, which has now become my full time job.If you could magically turn into a Illustrator tool, what tool would it be and why?I’m not too sure which tool I’d want to be, but whenever I’m doing any kind of DIY in real life I always wish I had the Pathfinder tools available. Life would be so much easier if we could just punch out a shape from a block of wood rather than messing around measuring, drilling and sawing!What’s your favorite Illustrator technique?One of my go-to styles when creating any kind of artwork in Illustrator is to create abstract patterns by splitting up a document with various paths and the Divide option from the Pathfinder tool. I’ll then fill these individual segments using a cool colour palette. The overall process is pretty simple, but it always results in some great looking artwork.Do you use any non-digital tools in your work?I always try to use hand drawn elements with my digital wok, but not being much of an Illustrator or a traditional artist I usually fall flat on my face. Otherwise I do enjoy mixing vector based design work with texture files in Photoshop. I love distressing those clean vector shapes with dirty textures to create more of a tactile and realistic feel to the design.What are your favorite sources of inspiration?The Weekly Vector Inspiration series here on Vectips is actually one of my go-to places to fuel my vector passion. I’ll often discover artists I’d never come across before and follow through to their Behance portfolios to check out their other work. Otherwise I often find inspiration from simply browsing through design roundups and checking out new posts in my RSS feed collection, just browsing the work of others always gives me the drive to want to go and create something cool myself, or try out a new style of art.Thanks again for the interview! Any parting words of wisdom?A common question I’m asked is how newcomer designers can stand out, so I guess I could share some final words on this topic? I always recommend that designers share their work and their knowledge to help other designers out. This basic outlook has really helped me in the past and has resulted in some great exposure. Share your work on various social sites and interact with other people, post guides on how to create certain styles or effects and don’t be afraid to feature the work of other designers who inspire you. By helping others out you also get your own name out there, just like I have done with my Illustrator tutorials.Create a Detailed Vector Emblem Badge in Illustrator  Retro Style Geometric Lines Poster Design Tutorial Create a Cool Vector Panda Character in Illustrator Create a Bright Retro Grunge Vector Illustration Vivid Ways Logo How To Create a Cool Vector Yeti Character in Illustrator How To Create a Gothic Blackletter Typographic Design Create a Cute Vector Reindeer Character in Illustrator  |
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