Tag Archives: illustration

Fun Times with Illustrator

Art and illustration, , , ,

I hate Adobe Illustrator. There, it’s officially out there!

Viridian Mountains
Early Illustrator work. Actually self-initiated (thanks Colour Collective for that kick up the bum)!

Well I did, although my hatred of it is slowly dying down due to some brilliant tutorials I’ve found through my Skillshare trial (in particular, Australian photographer and writer Helen Bradbury is a fantastic tutor). Let’s say that I still dislike it somewhat.

In order to get further in my illustration career however I’ll have to struggle through the animosity. It’s an almost vital piece of software in the industry, and not learning it would be worse than the hours I’d have to put into getting familiar with it. I’m not great at self-initiating tasks I don’t like, so I’ve found that forcing myself to finish Skillshare projects has been quite successful in upping the Illustrator practice. I think my completionist attitude has something to do with it – I’ve clocked up 50 hours in Shadow of Mordor for pete’s sake (not including DLC!).

See some finished projects below:

Three Little Pigs cover - Illustrator Portrait - illustratorTukturjuit - Illustrator
I’ve managed to finish a few vector illustrations this way, and dare I say it – I almost enjoyed it! This time next month I’ll be declaring my love for Illustrator no doubt.

If you have the same trouble with an annoying piece of software, it can’t hurt to try a mock project from start to finish. If that still doesn’t work then you can always ditch it and look for a more user-friendly programme – Inkscape, I’m eyeing you up…

Something missing…?

Art and illustration, Health, Random, , ,

I’ve moved from my previous profession of pharmacy to illustration, but I remain a member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society . I still like to peruse the pages of the Pharmaceutical Journal (or PJ as we all call it) when it drops through the letterbox. RPS members now also get a monthly edition of Clinical Pharmacist.

I was slightly bemused when I saw the cover of the current issue of Clinical Pharmacist:

Clinical Pharmacist cover illustration missing

 

Was this a conscious minimalist design, or a deadline rush job? If the latter, I’d be happy to supply Pharmaceutical Journal Publications with an appropriate cover illustration…

Update 15/2/16 – It appears to be a design choice, as the cover of the following issue was just as bare. They used a different shade of blue though. It doesn’t take much to excite pharmacists!