First attempt @ line art in flash

talk design
21

Cool. :slight_smile:

I trace all my pictures - if I tried to draw the people straight onto the screen they go all weird and wonky. So I always sketch first, scan then trace. :slight_smile:

22

do you use flash? and a layer for each level of detail, hiding the previous ones? and if so, pen or line or pencil? Iā€™ve been trying various methods and Iā€™m kind of liking the results I got with the last one, it just gets sooooo time consuming adding the details and such.

23

Sometimes Flash, sometimes Illustrator. It all depends on how I want it to look, since they come out differentlyā€¦

I use Illustrator when I want to keep the outlines in, like this:

And Flash when I donā€™t want outlines, like this:

I know you can do either effect in either program, but this is generally the way that I do it. :slight_smile:

And when I do them in Flash, I donā€™t really use multiple layers muchā€¦ Basically I do it the way itā€™s written in the Kirupa.com tutorial.

24

ahh, i guess that would make sense on account of you being the author

25

It helps. :stuck_out_tongue:

But thatā€™s how I do line / vector work in Flash. Illustrator I do slightly differently though, I use the Pen and a Tapered Stroke for that. Iā€™m writing a tute on it atm, actually. :slight_smile:

Quite why I donā€™t use the Pen in Flash, Iā€™m not sureā€¦

26

I donā€™t use it like itā€™s intended to be used, but if you turn the ā€˜snapā€™ off, it can be handy in tight spots by just doing about a hundred points then smoothing the line. The pen in any program tends to piss me off though. Iā€™m just stubborn when it comes to doing things a diff way than Iā€™ve convinced myself is best. :wink:

27

Tell me about it. :stuck_out_tongue:

I guess that I started by using the Line in Flash and thatā€™s how I wrote the tute. Then I learned the Pen in Illustrator, and realised I could probably do the same in Flash, but I didnā€™t. :slight_smile:

The whole Bezier curve thing threw me to start with, but once you get used to it, itā€™s no so badā€¦

28

I just donā€™t understand it, you can get a great curve, but then the next point is thrown way off. But like I said, I could learn it easily, but it makes me mad that I just donā€™t ā€˜miraculously understand itā€™. ha ha. Iā€™m not quite right I guess.

29

another way is to use your path combines in like Ill or in Fireworks which is where I do my line art. And freehand. To get my precise shapes I use alot of intersect, comine and punch.