Transitioning

[Les Nemeth]

First, nice portfolio! I like your watercolor paintings!

Photoshop and Illustrator are not the same things. It is VERY different creating a painting using a raster-based or vector-based program.

Some people create the outlines of their illustration in a vector program (such as Illustrator) and color it using a raster based program, such as Photoshop.

Besides Photoshop, there are other nice painting programs (which I’m sure you know of, such as Painter or ArtRage.

As far as training goes, there are a lot. Some sites off the wall are
https://www.lynda.com
https://www.thegnomonworkshop.com – this is very good (browse training by subject or software)

Good luck!

[Michael Weber]

Thanks, Les for your comments on my work and more importantly, the information.

What advantages would my colors have if they were raster based?

I am planning to use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop and have purchased them in the form of the CS4 design suite.

Appreciatively,

Michael

Michael Stevie Weber
https://msweber.net/

[Les Nemeth]

With raster paintings it’s easier just to pick up the brush, set a color, maybe a brush type (eg, airbrush, pencil, watercolor, etc) and just paint away. Before you start painting you MUST define the size of your illustration and need to think about whether you want to print it or not, and if so, then what size. You cannot scale UP your painting afterward without degrading the image quality.

Vector illustrations are much more elaborate (and harder to learn to be proficient) and you cannot just leisurely just paint away, as in PS for example. However, you can scale up or down your illustration to just about any size you want without any degradation to the quality of your work.

You can browse some very fine vector illustrations on this site:
https://www.illustratorworld.com/

You can see excellent technical illustrations here with a combination of AI and PS:
https://www.khulsey.com/
For some artwork (like the cutaway cars), he creates the outlines in Illustrator and colors them in PS.

[Paul Benson]

I would highly recommend Painter. It emulates watercolors (and other paint) as well as papers and brushes. I know you hate to buy another app, but I believe it to be the right tool if you want to ‘feel’ like you are painting.

Check out some of the Painter sites to see what is possible.

Pauley