Failure & (tentative) Success

…failure is where success likes to hide in plain sight. -  Scott Adams

I have been struggling with taking sketches to final for years. I go through a typical cycle : 1. love a sketch 2. scan into Adobe Illustrator 3. start tracing, coloring, adding shadows 4. get frustrated with how flat it looks 5. toss in the bin 6. repeat.

rough sketch but I like it

I may have made a breakthrough and it seems so obvious now. I'm not sure it's the answer so I’m not declaring victory yet. Here is what I'm testing out this week:

Here I’ve traced the sketch using a brush tool and my Wacom Intous. Trying to keep the lines smooth and thick and thin.

I then opened the outline file in Photoshop.

• Used Kyle's gouache brushes and added in blocks of color.

• New layers for highlights and shadows.

• Brought back into Ai and live traced (this time 6 colors but probably 16 will be best for more complicated work)

Really like how it turned out because it has some subtle variations in color. The next step was adding a textured background to make it look a little more handmade. This is “Canvas” from Lisa Glanz Paper pack. You can find it at lisaglanz.com

Going to keep working on this method and see what happens. I am still really attached to vector art but I am also liking how the straight Photoshop version (shown above) looks.

What do you think? Do you find my sad devotion to vector art disturbing? Should I just give in and go full on Photoshop for everything?