Photoshop contains some great vector tools and features. But when it comes to creating artwork, seasoned digital artists, illustrators, and designers rarely limit themselves to a single software application. It’s no secret that when it comes to drawing with vectors, there is no better option than Adobe Illustrator. Illustrator has been the industry standard vector art tool for as long as I can remember.
Personally, I’ve been using it as an integral part of my digital toolkit since 1991. The features and functionality within Illustrator are unmatched, but what do you do when you want all the great vector creation capabilities that Illustrator offers, but you also want the great features of the paint tool in Photoshop? The answer is simple: combine the two apps.
And believe it or not, when it comes to creating a stunning Art Noveau masterpiece like the one you see here, you simply need to copy and paste. Bottom line: Photoshop and Illustrator work very well together. We’ll explore the benefits of bringing existing vector art from Illustrator into Photoshop and using it as vector building blocks to create the piece you see here.
More specifically, we will paste vector art into Photoshop, layering shapes and paths as the Illustrator data arrives in Photoshop. We will use paths to create selection borders, and we will duplicate and edit shape layers to suit a variety of purposes. Once the vectors are safely in place, we can employ Photoshop’s wonderful painting and compositing tools, resulting in a nostalgic work of art that is a combination of sharp vectors and soft painted elements.
Generally, when I witness inexperienced Illustrator users trying to create similarly styled artwork, they rely on stroke attributes to create the image outline. An unfortunate result of this method is that there is little or no expressive quality in the line work. What makes line work expressive in the context of an illustration is the variation in thickness and the way the ends of each line are tapered, sharp, or rounded.
Of course, there are options within the Stroke palette that allow you to change the end points of the line; but again, just like the uniform stroke thickness, those just aren’t expressive enough. The best way to achieve the desired expressive quality is to pay attention to the sketch. When we draw something intuitive happens and it becomes an effortless or even subconscious act to create expressive line work. Inside the software it is a different story. We need to focus on preserving the innate and expressive quality of our drawing while creating the finished product.
This goal cannot be achieved by using stroke attributes, but by creating each element manually with the Pen tool. However, there is more than just mastery of the Pen tool. There is a logical method of construction, which involves creating an outer shape first. The next step is to subtract an interior. This will give it its expressive outline. After that, the details are created as closed shapes and the result is unified. The Pathfinder palette plays a central role in this systematic drawing process.
