Skateboarding graphics, linocut prints, and the Apple Pencil encourage designer Neil Vilppu. His distinctive illustration model is the product of merging conventional and modern concepts. It’s this willingness to experiment that has led Neil to success in a workflow that mixes the inventive freedom of the iPad Professional with the highly effective familiarity of the Mac.
As a full-time Advertising and marketing and Branding Designer, Neil is aware of that inspiration can strike at any time. Concepts for shopper illustrations and private tasks outdoors of his day job can start as sketches on the sting of assembly papers or sticky notes. These thought seeds are photographed and introduced into Procreate on the iPad for refinement.
“I grew up in a home the place each dad and mom had been conventional illustrators and painters,” Neil says. “Being uncovered to conventional artwork mediums has performed a giant position in how I method creating digital work.” With an idea in thoughts, sketching begins in Procreate. This important stage varieties the soul of the picture and may arrange an thought to succeed or fail. Blue pencil traces kind the illustration’s common composition. A second layer in crimson provides element and roughs in gentle and shadow.
In conventional graphic design, this device was generally known as a non-photo blue. Artwork scanners had been unable to detect the blue traces, rendering them invisible in a completed composition. Neil witnessed his father follow the approach constructing animations and has now adopted an analogous workflow. He notes that drawing over the preliminary sketch in crimson helps visually separate the levels of his illustration’s improvement.
From Procreate, Neil strikes his ideas to Affinity Designer on the iPad to start the ultimate illustration. He makes use of his favourite instruments carried over from Adobe Illustrator — the pen, pencil, and pathfinder operations — to finish the vast majority of the vector work. Intricate shapes and damaging area reference the century-old strategy of linocut printmaking.
“Historically, this work was made by beginning with a wooden block or a linoleum tile,” Neil explains. “The art work is minimize into the block after which ink is utilized to the floor. Any space that was minimize into on the block received’t switch ink to the floor of the paper.” Neil simulates the impact digitally by starting with a black layer over his artboard and “carving” it away with vector instruments.
Many illustrators have chosen the iPad as a result of iOS and the Apple Pencil present unmatched fluidity and responsiveness for drawing. However in the case of placing the ending touches on a brand new piece of art work, Neil has discovered the Mac to be a longstanding acquainted pal. The flexibleness and precision supplied by macOS permits a particularly environment friendly workflow.
A start-to-finish take a look at how Neil Vilppu creates illustrations between the iPad Professional and Mac.
“As soon as the black and white vector illustration is full, I’ll export an EPS file from Affinity Designer to Dropbox the place I then open it up in Adobe Illustrator on my desktop,“ Neil describes. He finds the handoff between each purposes comparatively clean. “As soon as the EPS is opened in Illustrator, you’ll see one layer containing all the vector shapes. In Affinity, I group parts and parts in their very own respective layers. However that’s strictly for the convenience of isolating totally different parts of the illustration in that stage.”
Neil makes use of Illustrator for colorization and typesetting earlier than publishing a bit. Simple form manipulation with a mouse and keyboard, international colours, and art work recoloring flexibility make Illustrator and the Mac extra environment friendly for end work that doesn’t require the Apple Pencil. The identical motive Neil prefers the iPad for conceptual illustration additionally informs his determination to embrace the normal interface discovered on the Mac. “It’s a device that will get out of the way in which and lets me create with out having to present the mechanics of it a lot thought.”
“Construct Like a Monster”
You possibly can be taught extra about Neil Vilppu’s work on his website.
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