Digitally Illustrate a Story Scene

Generating Ideas

Introduction
Regardless of whether you're working for a client or creating artwork for yourself, an open and refined approach to idea generation is incredibly important. By laying a solid foundation for a vector art project, you'll be able to move more confidently throught the process. Jumping straight into the execution phase or focusing on tiny details can frustrate and stifle the process.

That doesn't mean we're going to be approaching vector art conventionally. Instead of using Adobe Illustrator as a tracing and finishing tool, we're going to integrate it into the most skeletal levels of our process. In the process, we'll learn to use Illustrator as more of an extension of our creativity and less as a cold, technical toolset.

We're going to explore digital and vector illustration by using Adobe Illustrator to create a story scene, either from your own imagination, or from a favorite story of yours. Follow along with my videos and the project guide to learn how to take your vector art creations and love for Illustrator to the next level.
Collecting ideas
Visual aritists tend to jump right in and start drawing when it's time to come up with ideas. As we all know, sketching is a terrific way to explore ideas, but observing the world around us is just as important to the process.

Since we'll be illustrating a story scene, we'll be seeking out inspiration and ideas from a variety of sources. We'll also take ourselves out of our normal routines in order to turn on our creativity.
- Start by thinking about the type of scene you want to illustrate. If you want to focus on a preexisting story, make sure it's fresh in your memory by reading it or watching it again.
- Once you've pinpointed a general direction, start compiling visual references, both physical and virtual. This will help spark visual ideas and inspire different creative directions.
- If you have any quick ideas, sketch them or write them on paper. Keep it loose and spend almost no time on details.
Now that we've come up with some quick ideas, let's take a little breather and let those ideas stew a bit.
Breaking your routine
Before you really start fleshing things out, give yourself some time to think. Take yourself away from your normal work area and let your mind wander. The best ideas aren't usually the first ones that come to mind. Breaking your routine can give your mind the opportunity to turn good ideas into great ones. Here are some ideas:
- Go on a walk, run, or hike. Try to go someplace you don't normally go, see things you don't normally see.
- Visit an art museum and see if anything you find can be applied to your idea.
- Experience a new part of town or spend time in a park.
Personally, I like to go outside, but if you can't, try to remove distractions and let mind work through your concept. I see so many talented artists who end up drawing nothing but iPads and headphones because they never break away from their desks. Experiencing the world around us is as important as practicing our skills, working, or fiddling with electronics.

Regardless of how you do it, breaking your routine and letting your mind focus on the art you're about to create will do wonders for your process.

Reference Sketching

Gather your inspiration
Now that we've spent some quality time preparing, it's time to create a rough reference sketch of our story scene.

Try to bring all of your inspiration together in advance of creating your sketch.
- If you've taken any photos or drawn up any notes or doodles, get them in front of you.
- Feel free to search for any pertinent images that you might think would help you with your sketch. Google image search is an invaluable reference source for artists.
- Write down any quick notes or thoughts that you haven't put to paper yet, just in case your creation process gets delayed or you get distracted.
Now that we've got everything together, it's time to sketch.
Drawing the reference sketch
If you've ever taken a class in vector art or Adobe Illustrator, then you've probably been taught that the best way to approach the toolset is to create a tight pencil sketch and use Illustrator as a tracing/finishing tool. Personally, I can't stand working this way. I find it stifling, dull, and overly technical. I find that I achieve much better results and enjoy the process much more when I allow myself to draw freely in Illustrator.

With that in mind, we're not going to focus our energy on creating a tight/finished pencil sketch. Instead, we're going to create a rought draft of our final product, a reference sketch.
- Feel free to make the sketch as detailed as you like, focusing primarily on getting a solid sense of both the concept and the final composition.
- Keep in mind that the goal will be to skip the "scan-and-trace" process portion of vector art creation.
- We're looking to create something we can sit on our desk, something to reference when we jump onto the computer to create our final product, so don't use giant paper!
Take time to work and refine your sketch. The more ideas you get onto paper, the better foundation you will have laid for your final art.

NOTE: some clients require artists to follow a specific process, one that starts with a tight pencil sketch and ends with the traditional scan, trace, and finish approach. It's a time-tested approach that works for a lot of people, but I've personally never once in my fifteen years of work as a professional artist been required to follow this process. Contrary to what you might be taught in college courses, there isn't a right or wrong way to produce art. The method that works for you and produces the best outcome is the right way.
Annotating and self-critiquing
Personally, I find writing notes about my art to be just as valuable as sketching when I'm getting ready to create. Now that we've finished our sketch, let's engage in little self-critique.

Study your work. Look for areas you'd like to refine when you start redrawing the shapes as vectors. Are there ways you can reshape your work to improve it? Are there better ideas that can be injected into the sketch, things that would make the final piece a better overall scene?

Write notes directly on the sketch or in the margins along side it. After it's fully annotated, you'll have a solid guide to move you into the vector creation phase of the process.

Blocking In Your Shapes

Setting up your document
Now the fun begins. Let's fire up Illustrator and create our new document. Before you set up your new artboard, think about what your image's destination is going to be. Is it going to be a computer wallpaper? A page of a book? A piece of wall-worthy art? Set your document up accordingly.
- Name your document.
- Work in the proper color mode to suit your destination, CMYK for print, RGB for screen-bound images.
- If necessary for print, add the proper amount of bleed to your image.
- Make sure the resolution for raster effects is set to 300ppi.
- Tip: whenever possible, keep the physical dimensions of your art small and use math to scale the art up when it's time for output. Remember, vector art is scalable. We'll be using raster effects in this process and your computer will better handle them when the artboard sizes are smaller.
- My suggestion is to keep the dimensions similar to standard paper sizes while making sure the aspect ratio you're using matches your final output.
Our document is initialized. Time to start drawing!
Drawing in your shapes
Starting with your most important objects, start blocking in your composition by drawing simple silhouettes with Illustrator's pen tool. The pen tool requires some practice to master, but once you understand the mechanics behind it, you can create incredibly accurate, clean shapes very quickly.
- Reference your sketch and, with the pen tool, redraw your compositional elements.
- Attempt to improve upon and refine the forms you've created.
- Try to isolate characters and objects on their own layers. I usually try to group like objects together on layers to make it easy for editing later.
- Don't be afraid to work outside the boundaries of your artboard. The artboard will crop out excess art. Working outside the bounds will also give you some extra leeway if you decide to adjust your composition later.
- Think about color during the drawing process and start building a simple foundation for your final palette while you're blocking in the composition.
As a stylistic choice, I avoid using outlines, so I'm always very concious of my color choices. I use color for both emphasis and contrast, and I'm always thinking about it while I'm composing.
Understanding Illustrator's appearance panel
Illustrator's Appearance Panel is going to be crucial to the process we're going to be following, so let's take a quick look at.

Of all the panels in Illustrator, Appearance is one of the most important if not the most important. For any given object, path, or group, the Appearance panel identifies the type of object (path, compound shape, group, etc.) and defines stroke and fill color, opacity for the entire obect, the stroke, and the fill, and any effects applied to the object. Storke settings can be accesed, as can colors and swatches. Multiple strokes and fills can be applied to an object to create complex appearances.

We'll be leaning heavily on the Appearance panel throughout our process, but before we start, let's check one setting. Click the fly-out menu in the upper-right corner of the Appearance panel and make sure "New Art Has Basic Appearance" is turned off. This will allow new objects to inherit the appearance attributes of the last object selected. You'll see just how helpful this is as we move through our process.
Adjusting your composition
We've got a basic composition and a basic color palette. Let's make some adjustments before we begin adding detail to our work.
- Resize forms and nudge them into place where necessary. Give your forms the proper amount of visual weight and compositional prominence.
- Add in any additional compositional elements.
- Use this as an opportunity to study the color palette you've created.
- Are there any refinements that can be made? Can the palette be simplified or unified? Can better harmony be achieved? Does the palette you've chosen convey the story feeling you're going for?
Once you feel like the composition is locked, we're going to look at document organization and masking before we jump into the next phase of the craetion process.

Layer & Label Organization

Layering in Illustrator
Before we jump into detailing our illustration, let's look at ways to keep our document organized. If you do nothing else, layering your document will help immensely when putting your art together.

Since Illustrator is an object-based method for creating art, it's easy to get lazy and create an entire piece of detailed art on one layer. Each object you draw is essentially its own discreet sublayer, there are ways of grouping those obects, and they're fairly easy to click and isolate... until your art gets too complex. Once that happens, you have a frustrating mess on your hands. You're locking and unlocking objects, grouping objects, forgetting to include one object in a group. You get the point.

Make your life happy and easy. Here are a few layering tips:
- Label layers as you create them by holding the Option/Alt key when you click on the new layer button.
- Use practical names for the layers. Save cleverness and comedy for a night out with your friends.
- Isolate important/prominent objects on their own layers. Think important characters or other compositional focal points.
- Group less important sets of objects in other layers. Examples: "trees", "clouds", "birds".
- Organize objects within layers by grouping them together (cmd/ctrl+G)
Set your swatches
One thing I like to do while I'm exploring color is to save color swatches to my swatch panel. If the swatch panel isn't exposed on your screen, open it by going to the Window menu at the top of your screen and choosing Swatches.

My favorite way to get new swatches into the swatch panel is to drag them in from the color panel (Window->Color). If I've already added a fill color to an object on my screen, I usually select the object and drag the color into the swatch panel.

If you'd like to name your new swatches, it might be easier to just select your object, hold the Cmd/Ctrl key, and press the "New Swatch" button at the bottom of the swatch panel. Personally, I rarely name my colors when I'm creating fully-formed scenes in my art, so I wouldn't spend too much time naming swatches.

One more thing you can do to keep your swatches organized is creating color groups. If you'd like to distinguish certain sets of colors, this can be really useful. Also, if you'd like to quickly recolor your work using Illustrator's Color Guide panel, setting up a color group can make the process easier. The Color Guide is great, and although I'm not going to touch on it in this tutorial, feel free to look into it if you plan on creating multiple colorways for a given set of objects (for example, a character) in Illustrator.
Creating graphic styles
Setting up graphic styles in Illustrator is a quick and painless way to speed up your workflow, especially if you're working with objects that have effects or multiple appearance attributes. I use graphic styles to store settings for shading, strokes, and gradient angles.
- Make sure your Graphic Styles panel is open (Window->Graphic Styles).
- Click on an object with appearance attributes you'd like to use later.
- Click on the New Graphic Style button on the bottom of the Graphic Styles panel or Option/Alt click the button to name your new style.
- Because the preview thumbnails in the Graphic Styles panel don't always clearly convey the final look of a given style, naming can help.
I usually set graphic styles as a project is in process as opposed to doing so at the beginning of the process. We'll touch on this a bit later, especially when we start shading and lighting our art.

Masking

Drawing inside objects
We've laid a solid, organized foundation for our artwork and we're ready to start adding details to our forms. We want the machinary of Illustrator to disappear into the background so we can focus less on technical ins and outs and more on the joy of creating. For me, masking does just that. For this tutorial, we'll be focusing primarily on a type of masking in Illustrator called Draw Inside mode.

With a simple keyboard command or at the click of a button, Draw Inside mode turns any selected object into a mask. While the mode is toggled on, any art you create will only be shown if it falls within the borders of the object you selected. Here's how you do it:
- Select an object
- On the keyboard, press Shift+D twice or click and hold the drawing mode button at the bottom of the toolbar and select "Draw Inside".
- If Draw Inside mode is on, you'll notice a dashed line around the corners of your object.
- Start drawing. Everything is sort of "trapped" inside your object.
The benefits of Draw Inside mode are enormous.
- It allows you to quickly add interior detail to any object without having to trim edges or line edges up.
- You can work fast and loose and the mask created by Draw Inside mode keeps your art collected and tidy.
- A nice byproduct of Draw Inside mode is that it groups objects together, helping to keep your art organized and easy to manipulate.
Let's practice using Draw Inside mode on one object. After you're done, we'll quickly go over some strange behaviors you might encounter when using Draw Inside mode.
Learning draw inside mode's funky behavior
I can't say enough about how much Draw Inside mode helps speed up my workflow, but there are some strange behaviors you need to be aware of and get used to.
- After you draw inside an object, you'll notice that selecting that object becomes more difficult. Illustrator acts like the insides aren't there. Weird. The remedy for this is to select the edges of the object, not the middle.
- If you want to alter the appearance attributes of an object that's been converted to a Draw Inside object, use the Direct Select tool, click the edge of the object, and make your changes.
- If you want to turn Draw Inside mode on again for an object you've moved away from, Direct Select the edge and re-toggle Draw Inside mode. Alternately, you can double-click the edge of the object and jump into isolation mode.
Probably the trickiest issue you'll encounter with Draw Inside mode occurs when you attempt to draw inside a Compound Path. To rememdy this:
- Draw at least one object inside your compound path after Draw Inside mode is toggled.
- In your Layers panel, locate the Clip Group that's associated with your compound path.
- Press the little arrow to the right of the Clip Group to show its contents. Lock the object/layer called Compound Path.
- If you need to move the whole Clip Group, you can easily unlock it at any time by pressing Option+Cmd+2 (Alt+Ctrl+2 on Windows)
Once you've learned to work with these funky behaviors, Draw Inside becomes a really quick and easy tool.
Masking using alternate methods
While Draw Inside mode is an incredibly powerful part of the Illustrator toolset, it doesn't solve all masking-related issues. What if you want to create the illusion that part of your object is being block or is transparent? What if you want to contain several objects inside a mask of a certain shape.

For issues like these, Illustrator has offered a couple solutions for a long time. First, let's talk about Opacity Masks. They work sort of like Layer Masks in Photoshop and can be initiated via the Transparency panel.
- Create a black or white object (generally speaking, black hides and white shows) and position/draw it to block or hide part of another preexisting object or group.
- Select both the new object ant the preexisting one.
- Press the "Make Mask" button in the Transparency panel.
- Toggle the "Clip" and "Invert Mask" settings in the Transparency panel to get the look you desire.
- If you have to edit the mask after it's locked in, click the thumbnail of it in the Transparency panel. Remember to click back on the thumbnail of your art when you're done editing.
Honestly, Opacity Masks can be a little tricky, so don't feel like you need to use them unless you feel comfortable doing so or if a project you're working on specifically calls for one.

Much easier to understand, but sort of buried in Illustrator's menus, Clipping Masks are quick and easy way to clip one or multiple objects or groups inside a predetermined shape.
- Draw your clip shape, making sure that within Illustrator's stacking order it's on top of the objects you'd like to mask.
- Select the clipping shape you've created and everything you'd like to mask.
- Hit Cmd/Ctrl+7 on your keyboard or dig into the Object menu and find Clipping Mask->Make.
Once your clipping mask is made, all of its fill and stroke attributes will disappear. It will become a "clear" object, but its edges will mask out anything that falls outside of the clip shape's boundaries.

Now that we have a solid grasp on masking, let's use what we've learned to detail our composition.

Vector Detail Drawing and Color Palette Refinement

Drawing in basic details
Instead of focusing too much on one portion of an illustration, I like to work on the entire composition, bringing the whole piece to life together. Let's start doing just that.
- Add finer details to the silhouette-like shapes you've created. Think faces and clothing for characters, architectural details for buildings, leaves and flowers for plants.
- As you're working, try to keep your workflow as fluid as possible. Use tools like Draw Inside to help speed up your process and allow you to focus on enjoying creating art.
- If you get stuck on detailing one object, don't let it stifle or frustrate you. Move to another part of your illustration.
- Focus on a holistic approach to creating your art. Look at the big picture (no pun intended) the whole time and make sure all of the parts work together.
Keeping an eye on color
As you're adding in details, always keep color in mind. A cohesive color statement will be a significant portion of our final story scene.

A lot of time new artists will pummel their pieces with loads of unharmonious, bright colors. One of the most frequent comments I hear when people talk about my art is how people love the bright colors I use. The thing is, I don't use a ton of overly bright colors. I tend to use contrasting colors. I'll put a pop of very bright color on top of a field of otherwise drab or subtle tones to draw attention to the bright color.

The key to color is control. Don't dial all of your colors to 11. Put thought into your palette. Think about the mood or moods you'd like to convey.

For my piece, my main character symbolizes warmth and nature and he's roaming through a sad mechanical wasteland. I'll use earthy, warm organic yellows, oranges, browns and greens for his color palette, whereas I've chosen to color the backdrop a cool bluish-gray.

I want my main character to really pop and look like brightness and hope amid the overly machined world he's moving through, so I'll keep his palette bright, but not too bright. I'll save the super-bright colors for details like the birds flying around him.

Just like we approach detailing our work in a holistic way, we should be doing the same with color. Color and the palette you choose should be on your mind constantly as you work over your piece.
Adding in finer details
Our piece is really coming together! We have a sense of the overall story scene we're trying to convey and we have a good grasp on the color and everything color can do to help us tell our story. Let's start adding in some finer detail to really enhance our work.
- Using Draw Inside mode, start adding simple drawn patterns to objects. Think stripes, dot patterns, machined bits (think lines of rivets or seams in metal), brick patterns, any type of pattern you think might help enhance the look of your work.
- For now, let's focus on hand-drawn patterns, not automatically-generated ones. Hand-drawn patterns will give your piece a more organic feel, setting your work apart from traditional vector work.
- Let's also consider adding doodles into objects. A subtle, semi-transparent doodle drawn inside an object can lend significant visual interest and sophistication.
- During this phase of the process, I like to draw in suggestions of fur or hair where warranted. Although we're not at the shading portion of our process, I usually think about shading, lighting, and volume while I'm doing this. I like to use semi-transparent objects for hair and fur – multiply mode for darker regions, screen mode for lighter regions.
The key here is to keep things appropriate. If you're going for subtlety in your details, don't let your patterns, doodles, and fine details overpower the image. If you want the patterns and details to be the focal point, focus your use of color on bringing details to the forefront of your composition.

For my piece, I'm trying to tell my story through the compositional elements, so I'll be keeping my details knocked-back and subtle through the use of semi-transparent obects and slight color shifts. Experiment with different approaches to achieve the look and feel that best suits the story scene you want to illustrate.
Adjusting composition and color
Our artwork has come a long way and we're almost in the homestretch. Let's look at it with a critical eye and make adjustments before we add our finishing touches.
- Now that our details are in place, how does the overall layout of our composition look? Adjust the composition to draw attention to areas you'd like to showcase.
- Don't be afraid to nudge or resize elements in your composition. Remember, the reference sketch we created at the beginning wasn't the final word on what we're creating, so don't feel locked into it.
- Take some time to really assess your color palette and make any adjustments you see fit. We're trying to convey a sense of story and the colors you've chosen should be helping us do that.
Once you're feeling good about your work, let's jump into our final unit and bring our work fully to life via shading, lighting, and texture.

Shading, Volumizing, and Texturizing

Coloring with gradients for simple volume
Gradients are a quick and easy way to add volume to objects in Illustrator. We'll be adding in shading and lighting, but let's lay a foundation for those effects by popping in some gradients first.
- Select an object.
- In Illustrator's Gradient panel, define a simple, two-color linear gradient by dragging colors into the panel and adjusting them.
- I like to base my new gradient on the original color I've chosen for an object.
- Keep the gradient subtle. Wild variations and high-contrast gradients will make your work look amateurish.
- Use Illustrator's Gradient tool (the G key on your keyboard) to adjust the angle and direction of your gradient.
Once you've applied gradients as you see fit, we'll be moving on to my favorite step, shading and lighting!
Shading your scene
I've got to admit, this part of the process gets me pretty excited. I love seeing the scene pop to life when I draw in shading and lighting effects. We're going to start with shading.

To shade objects (characters, plants, buildings, etc.):
- Click on your object and toggle Draw Inside mode.
- Deselect your object and choose a color for your shading. I like to base my color on the object's original color, but it depends on what you're going for.
- In Appearance panel, turn the opacity for the new, undrawn object to somewhere around 50%. We can adjust this later if necessary.
- Change the blend mode from Normal to Multiply.
- Here comes the fun part: at the bottom of the Appearance panel, press the effects button and choose Blur->Gaussian Blur. Set the number to somewhere between 10 and 20. We'll be adjusting this later.
- Draw in your shading as you'd like it to appear.
- You'll notice that the Gaussian Blur gives it a nice, soft, blended edge. To adjust the level of blur, make sure your new shade object is selected and press Gaussian Blur in the Appearance panel.Turn preview on and you'll be able to get it just the way you want it.
- Adjust the opacity level if necessary.
- Layer shade objects on top of each other to get really nicely rendered shading really quickly.
- The shade objects are always really easy to move and edit.
To add cast shadows, simply draw shade objects under and behind the objects you've already drawn. I like to create a whole new layer just for cast shadows. One trick I like to use when I'm creating cast shadows is to apply a gradient that has two different oppacity stops to the shadow. This way, it sort of fades out into nothing.
Brushing in some highlights
To add highlights to your scene's objects, you can use the same methods we used to add shading. Just use the Screen blending mode instead of Multiply and choose lighter colors instead of darker hues.

That said, there's really neat technique I came up with to add rim light/back light to an object.
- Deselect everything.
- Choose white as your stroke color.
- In the appearance panel, add a Gaussian Blur effect. Keep the value low, somewhere around 5. Remember, we can easily adjust it later.
- Select the Blob Brush tool from the toolbar, or if you want to keep things easy, just press Shift+B on your keyboard.
- Press the left bracket key [ until the brush size is as small as it can get.
- Paint highlights around the edges of your objects. Pretty cool, simple way to add lighting effects!
Once you're done adding in your lighting, we'll add in some textures.
Finishing up with textures
Our illustration is looking really great, but let's make it look just a little bit more organic by applying textures.

There are a bunch of different ways to add textures. Most artists like to use raster images (photos and scans of real-world objects) to add texture to their images, which works out really well. I like to create my own simple textures using Illustrator's Brush tool.

I usually create one of two custom brushes for my textures: Bristle Brushes or Scatter Brushes. Either type can be created in the Brush panel. For the sake of this tutorial, we're going to keep it simple and create a single Scatter brush that can be repurposed in different sizes.
- Draw an organic-looking ellipse. Don't make it too perfect.
- Set its fill color to black. It should have no stroke color.
- Make it fairly small, just a few points wide.
- Drag it into the Brushes panel.
- Select Scatter Brush.
- For now, press OK.
- Use the Brush tool to draw a line.
- Double-click the new brush's thumbnail in the Brushes panel.
- Turn preview on and adjust the settings until you have a nice, random-looking scatter brush that covers a lot of area.
- Set Colorization method to Tint.
- Pick the color you want your texture to be. Redraw the texture onto your scene if necessary.
- Feel free to use Draw Inside mode to trap the texture inside objects.
- Adjust the transparency and blend mode to suit your needs.
- To adjust the size of the Scatter Brush texture, simply adjust the stroke size for the path you draw.
I like to keep my textures pretty subtle, so I usually set the transparency to 10% or less. It's really your call, though. One note: adding textures like these can be pretty processor intensive, so proceed with caution and save before proceeding with this step. Rarely has creating textures like this crashed Illustrator for me, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Most of the time, it just adds a lot of time to screen redraws, therefore slowing Illustrator down.
One last look and exporting for print
Now that we're finished, let's look at our piece one last time to see if there's anything else we'd like to change. If you're happy with your final art and you'd like to print it, I'd suggest exporting it as a JPEG or TIFF. If you want the final output to be a large file, you might have to open and rasterize it in Photoshop. Illustrator has a memory limit that sometimes causes it to abort large exports.

We've covered a lot in this process. Thanks for taking the class. Hopefully you've learned a lot and come out of class with a great piece of art!

Kaila Gates

graphic designer • illustrator

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