How To Convert A Hand-drawn Illustration Into A Digital Graphic

Creating illustrations is an art form that many people have mastered over the years. Artists use different tools and techniques to convey their message, which can be artistic in nature.

Many businesses now hire artists to create graphical designs for promotional materials or website layouts. Plus, creating your own illustrations is a fun way to challenge yourself and improve your hand drawing skills.

In this article, you’ll learn how to convert a hand drawn illustration into a digital graphic. You will also learn some basic Photoshop steps to get your design looking its best.

Create a drawing board

When starting to design, most designers choose to use a software such as Photoshop or InDesign to create their designs. While these are great tools that have you covered for almost every type of design need, they can be cost prohibitive if you’re not very experienced with using them. Or, you may feel more comfortable in another style than what the program offers.

That is when doing hand drawn illustrations comes into play! You can take your own ideas and styles and translate them onto your computer by creating your own drawing board. A drawing board is an easy way to get started designing without having to invest in expensive software or equipment.

There are many ways to achieve this. Here we will go over one method that can easily be done at home with just some simple materials.

Use a grid to help you organize your illustration

When it comes down to it, creating an illustrative piece in digital art is just figuring out how to use the tools of graphic design effectively. Tools such as Photoshop and other software programs have features that can be used for designing almost anything!

One thing most artists struggle with is converting their hand drawn illustrations into more interactive graphics. A common way to do this is by using vector shapes or templates.

However, not every person has access to these types of resources. This is where creating your own template becomes important. You can create yours at no cost by gathering some materials and experimenting with them.

There are many ways to do this. One way is to take a look at what others have done and see what tricks they used. By studying the designs around, you will learn some things that worked for those people.

Use a different perspective to make your illustration look three-dimensional

When creating an illustrative piece, one of the first things you should do is choose a style that you are passionate about! If you ever feel tired or even if you get bored during the process, then it’s time to start looking into other styles to see what you like about them.

You can use this new inspiration as a way to refresh your passion for drawing. By experimenting with new styles, your own personal artistic expression will grow!

By using a variety of styles, your illustrations will stand out more because they will be unique. Try exploring new mediums such as watercolor, oil painting, acrylic paint, etc.

When translating your hand drawn design into digital graphics, your second most important tool is re-perspective. Re-perspective means changing the angle at which you view your image. This trick works by making the image appear to go up, down, left, or right depending on its viewer.

The best way to learn how to do this is by practicing, practicing, practicing! There are many free resources available online that can help you achieve this.

Use the eraser to get rid of any stray marks or unwanted lines

When editing an illustration that you have already completed, your first task is to use the eraser to take away any stray markings or unwanted lines.

You can also choose to rework an existing element by adding new textures or shapes to it. For example, if there are some rounded corners in the drawing, you could go into Photoshop and create sharper ones. You could also add more thickness to the line to make it feel solid.

Transfer your drawing onto a new canvas

After you have completed all of the colors in your illustration, it is time to transfer it! You can either use the Photoshop tool mentioned above or you can choose to do it manually. Either way, make sure you pick an area that has no texture or patterns so your graphic does not get blurred.

Using the tool mentioned before will save you some time as well because you do not need to crop in any other programs like InDesign or PowerPoint.

Use a different color palette

When creating your new digital graphic, you will want to use a very different color palette than what you had for your hand drawn illustration.

The most important thing when choosing colors is keeping it simple. You do not need too many shades of one hue or too much contrast in tones.

Try using mostly bright, soft colors that compliment each other and emphasize the same element of the image. For instance, if your drawing focused on an eye then use shades of blue, green, and yellow to create some depth.

Add textures to your illustration

Adding texture to an image is one of the most fundamental ways to improve its quality. There are many ways to add texture to your drawing, from applying patterned paper or fabrics as backgrounds, using brushes that have various surface styles, and even creating your own patterns by doingodging with different colors.

The easiest way to add texture is by rubbing the drawn line against another shape or area. For example, if you were trying to draw a stick figure, you could pick any part of the body — like the leg or hand – and rub it across a background photo or material to show how solid the part of the body was.

You can also use this technique with other parts of the body such as having the head be covered in hair and then scraping away some of the skin to expose the underlying bone. This method works particularly well for things like hands where you want to emphasize their thickness. By adding more layers of skin and muscle, they stand out more.

Outline your illustration

Now that you have your inspiration, it’s time to get down to business by creating an outline of what you want to do with your design. Take some time to consider all of the components of your drawing. What color palette will you use? Will you include any textures or patterns?

By thinking about these things now, you’ll be able to add them later! Once you have this part done, start organizing your ideas into different sections.

You can refer back to the initial inspiration for more ideas here. As you create each section, think about how many pieces make up the whole image. For instance, a very popular way to achieve a seamless transition is to put your main element in front of a neutral background.

This way, when people look at the graphic from a distance, they don’t see anything but the background until they get closer. It creates a nice effect where they have to focus more on the element rather than the surface it covers.