Need advice on beginning digital art

[kellyponyfeathers]

OK all you young whipper snappers! I'm an oldschooler who needs your technical advice.

I want to create some T-shirt designs featuring animals. I can draw pretty well by hand, but I have zero experience creating digital art.

The designs I have in mind are simple and flat, no shading or anything, and will only have a few colors. Of course I still want them to look good, not pixellated or anything.

I'm not terrible with computers, but I'm definitely not good with them. I can use programs like Microsoft Publisher pretty well, and I have some experience with Adobe Photoshop and InDesign.

I can buy a new program and/or equipment to do what I want, but I don't want to spend very much. Like no more than $100 or $200. I have a decent tablet, but my computer is ancient; I really need to buy a new one.

So how do I get started? Basicly I'm looking for an easy and cheap introduction to doing basic digital art that will still look nice on a T-shirt.

Thanks!!

[tailrustedtealeaf]

Sounds to me like vectoring would be of interest to you.  You can do it in Photoshop if you still have it, or I believe Inkscape is free and will be able to do about the same things. You don't really need a tablet unless you intend to sketch with it. Vectoring uses curves to create an infinitely scaleable shape. Fonts are created in vector programs so you can make the text sizes are large as you want without sacrificing quality.

[Bekuno]

Vectoring does sound like the way to go! Adobe Illustrator is what I was taught to use but they're a paid subscription service. I can't speak much for free programs that are good for vectoring except mayyybeeee GIMP?

[CloudyGlow]

If you choose to vector, you should definitely use Illustrator or Inkscape. I've only used the first but hear about the second a lot. Vectoring in Photoshop is a chore.

[BlackCurtains]

Vectoring is not the same as drawing... at least, I couldn't get anywhere with it

I practice here, it's free and you can use it online without downloading anything - https://vectr.com/

[kellyponyfeathers]

I know nothing at all about vectoring. How does it work?

[banditpony]

Eh. Let's start with the basics. What are the requirements that your printer is asking for?

Unless your printer says otherwise, you do not need to provide them with vector artwork.

For art programs ...
Raster is based on pixels.
Vector is based on points and curves.

Do you still have your copy of photoshop? If so, what version. (No need to invest in something if you already have the tools).

If you don't have it, and want to go the adobe route, you do not need to do the subscription service (CC).  If you can get your hands on an older copy CS5 or CS6 are just as good. There's also PS elements but I haven't looked to see how watered down that is.

I think Affinity Photo/Designer is a great program for those who do not forced to use Adobe products. . . It's not as robust, and there's some really cool things about it -- and not so cool things too.

Vectoring is not the same as drawing... at least, I couldn't get anywhere with it

I practice here, it's free and you can use it online without downloading anything - https://vectr.com/

You can draw in vector programs... :/ But not in that program...

[kellyponyfeathers]

This is a personal project, so really no one is requiring me to do anything. And I haven't selected a T-shirt printer yet.

Umm, can I start with a hand-drawn image, import it into a digital art program, and then manipulate it from there? How should I go about that, as a beginner?

I've done that once before with Adobe Photoshop (scanned a hand-drawn image and then manipulated it). I guess I'm hoping for something that will look smoother.

[Baby Sugarberry]

What method you choose between vector and raster will strongly influence the way the finished art looks.  Vector tends to be 'clean', raster lends itself better to painterly effects.  You can simulate either's look with its opposite, but it's easier to do logo type stuff in vector, and fine art in raster.

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Here's an example of some vector fruit.  The major advantage to vector is that there are no size limitations and you can endlessly resize, reshape and relayer each component part.  However the learning curve tends to be steeper than raster painting for a traditional artist.  It's less intuitive, more fiddly. 

Now you can do your art in raster and then convert it to vector afterwards, however unless you're drawing very big, clean shapes it may make look a little odd or need a lot of clean up.  Usually it's easiest to pick one method and stick with it.  If you want to start with a traditional drawing you're going to need a camera or a scanner.  Scanner tends to be easiest (no warping or perspective issues) but unless you already have one or know someone who does, requires new equipment.  Check if your local office supply store has in-house self-serve scanning, which would be much more affordable if you only need it once.  Scan bigger than you need, reduce down in post.

How smooth and clean your art ends up being depends on the quality of the initial drawing and the post-processing manipulation.  There's a whole art in just getting scans to digital with plenty of tutorials out there - too big a topic to cover it all - but broadly speaking there's two options.  Either you're imaging in as a reference and fully drawing digitally, or capturing line-art that becomes part of the final piece.  The latter has much higher requirements for initial drawing, clean up and scan quality. 

[banditpony]

There's 1001 ways to do the same thing!


And I'm going to stress vector vs raster -- it really stems down to what the artist is comfortable with. I've seen some pretty traditional things come out of Adobe Illustrator and a *lot* of artists use both together.

Ok I'm going to assume you are using photoshop -- and want solid shapes. I'm only familiar with paper printing (So CMYK, emboss, silk screen glitter, foil...). So it might actually be important to know what the requirements are.

I'm going to hazard a guess that textile printing doesn't need as high of resolution as paper. Only because of the files I have received from textile companies. In fact spoonflower says 150 PPI.


Let's say I want to make this Luna sketch traditional.
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Please note I'm doing this really crudely to just show you the steps. I'm super short on time, I don't have my tablet to work with so I'm doing it on a trackpad, and I'm using CS4 which means I don't have my good brushes loaded in... So my "finals" are very sloppy and don't look great.



First example.
x Better to do if you are more comfortable with drawing traditionally
x Your shapes should be pretty spot on to begin with
x Starting off larger is better (Use 8.5x11 paper)

(Mine is going to look lower quality because I did mine very small scale. But if you do it large enough, and your drawing is crisp -- the outcome WILL be clean. This way is totally fine with 900PPI manufacturing.

Spoiler

1) Solid shapes on tracing paper. Anything that overlaps should be on it's own paper (later converted to layers)
note: light grey sketches are fine here. It'll disappear in the editing process. Do try to make your black layer as dark pretty solid. (I didn't )
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2) Either scan it at 300PPI or take a picture. I'll be real with you, for a black and white image that doesn't need to be 900PPI, it's totally ok to take a picture. A scan isn't needed.

My phone camera is good enough for this. So I used that. I however did it in the basement so it's not the best. My camera took the picture at a 240 resolution, so I used image > image size to change it. Resample image is off.

Note This is like 2 inch by 2 inch. that's because I started off that small. Start bigger-- like I mentioned before.

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3) image > adjustments > levels

Fiddle with the right and the left sliders until your whites look white, and your blacks look black. If you take your picture in good lighting, it won't be so extreme.

I was very sloppy and filled this in with a tombow, so I will have to digitally paint in those shapes

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4) Preparing file for getting rid of that white background.

I made a copy of the background layer, and I added a layer in light blue. Light blue will help you see what you are erasing. I change it to white later.
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5) Background eraser tool to erase the background.
My settings are
- once sampling (that middle icon)
-limits: discontinous
-tolerance: 50% (this I change as needed)
-protect foreground color ( In the picture the blue is the foreground color, it should be black. But it didn't matter much for this image. It matters more for more sensitive images like sketches).
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6) Clean up image with a very hard brush, and hard eraser.

^_^ Here I used white to show you where I erased. And grey were I'm filling in the black. Just so you could see how I was working. I'm awful at drawing anything in symmetry, so I am flipping one side.
* Please note, this would look better if I started off with a larger image, and took the picture in better lighting.

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7) I flipped the one side.

- I used the rectangle marquee and hit delete button.
- I copied the layer and used transform to give it a -100 width
- I moved it to the other side.
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8) I made more edits. Maybe solid shapes are better?
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9) More edits. I don't like the eye I made. ; My sketch was rounder.
-used rectangle marquee and transform
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10) lock the transparency layer to paint in colors. (See that checker box in the layers panel)
- I converted my grey/white to black as this is it should look like.
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11) Use brush tool to paint in colors
*note: So I painted in solid shapes. You could easily use transparent brushes, rough brushes, multiply, smudge tool, etc to get it to get dimension in there.
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12) copy and paste face layer on top of head layer.
;_;* Ok this is greatest, I'm sorry. I had to make her eyes rounder/bigger then what I drew. meh. because that's what I wanted in my sketch. And for whatever reason my screenshot doesn't look as crisp as the real file *sigh*

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second way --
X Use your sketch as a tracing layer
X Drawing everything digitally

Spoiler

1) start your document off at the right resolution
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2) Make layers. Sketch layer is on top on multiply ... I like to change the transparency. Use it as a guide.
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3) use a hard edge brush to paint in lines.
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4) Detail on how "clean" it can look. Although still not perfect because I'm doing it with a trackpad
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5) Used the circle marquee and paint bucket to get a nice round face
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6) Using the transform> warp tool to get that ear shape a little bit better. So you don't have to always just paint in stuff. Can use the edit tools too.

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Uh to finish it I'd just copy and paste both the ear and the face.

And I am going to say do NOT convert your sketch from raster to vector in any automated fashion. That's the worst kind of art, that is the hardest to work with. ^_^; I say that as someone who is very good at manipulating vector art and raster art for print.