
- What is a great free online illustration program how to#
- What is a great free online illustration program portable#
- What is a great free online illustration program software#
- What is a great free online illustration program professional#
I used a regular-sized white piece of paper. (1) PENCIL DRAWING: For this vertical illustration, I decided to sketch out the entire scene before scanning it into the computer. But don’t worry! I’ll show you what I mean in just a bit.

The advantage here is that I can (re)use the background and the characters separately in other scenes as well. When I work on my children’s books, I like to create the backgrounds and characters separately meaning I create illustrations for the characters, and then completely separate ones for the background. To use this method properly, we will have to make sure to use the right orientation and dimensions for your paper, so that our completed illustration fits our chosen book size perfectly. And then we scan our completed work into the computer. This means that we first sketch and outline our work, and then also color it directly on the paper itself. I call this method “A-to-Z Illustration Method” because this strategy has us creating our entire illustration on a single piece of paper before we scan it into our computer. I’ve used both before, each serving a different purpose. There are two ways we can go about creating our illustrations.
What is a great free online illustration program how to#
And if you’re usually using colored pencils, then I recommend this vibrant color set by Castle right here.Īt this point in the process, I already have my storyboard as described in my book How To Self-Publish A Children’s Book so I know exactly what scene of my book each illustration will portray and the details that will be included.
What is a great free online illustration program professional#
I love this Dual Marker Setright here, and this slighly more professional Hethrone Set right here. If you’re coloring your illustrations directly on your paper, you’ll also need some color markers. Other Things You May Need When Illustrating Your Own Children’s Book The reason I’m using Autodesk is because (1) I’ve been using it for ages, and (2) it’s a lot more affordable than Adobe. Many people use Adobe’s programs to do the same.
What is a great free online illustration program software#
But any software that can do that will do. I personally use Autodesk Sketchbook to size my pages, insert my outlines, color my illustrations, and add my text layers. I’ve used this method many times and it will definitely do the trick. But you can also do it old school and simply hold your paper against your window glass and trace it that way.Īlternatively, you can also take a large (larger than your piece of paper) and clear Tupperware box, turn it upside down, and put a flashlight or battery-operated tap light underneath it.
What is a great free online illustration program portable#
Light TableĪ portable and extremely slim illuminating pad is the perfect solution to help you with the tracing of your illustrations. You can buy a whole set of pens with different tip sizes. I personally use a dual brush pen, and it works great for this particular purpose. To trace your pencil sketches, you will want to use a black ink pen. It doesn’t really matter, because we’ll digitize these illustrations later anyway! Just make sure to use truly white paper, and not cream or off-white, since this will make the illustration process harder once you have scanned your work into your computer.

Here, you can go all out and get a professional sketchpad, or you can do it like me and simply use the paper you use for your printer. I personally prefer using small paper clamps, because they are less likely to scratch or damage the paper. I use clips to hold my pieces of paper together during the tracing process (I explain what that is in a bit). I use the white version from Paper Mate, and it works quite well. A soft eraser is best, to keep your sketches as clean and smudge-free as possible without damaging the paper after repeated erasing.

You do want to make sure you have a separate eraser, though – not the one at the end of your pencil. I usually use a regular #2 pencil to sketch out my individual illustrations.
