![]() ![]() Just use your imagination and use the pattern to fill in shapes. The key is to take that pattern of dots and treat it like a single object. For some good examples you can check the portfolio of a guy named Joe Snow who is another great vector artist using halftones. The thing is that this type of halftones may look boring before you import it in your illustration, but when used properly – it looks great. ![]() Just some equally sized dots - covering a given area, and each dot placed on the same distance from its neighbors as all the rest. The Theory: The most important thing to remember about the so called (by me) 'uniform halftones' is that they should be boring. Those are the ones that follow the form of shapes. The third group I name 'Shaped Halftones'. ![]() Those are the ones that start with big dots which get smaller with the distance. The second group will be called 'Linear Halftones'.The distance between each dot and its neighbors is the same. The first group I shall call 'Uniform Halftones' (But if you have better ideas for the name - feel free to use them).Here they are.īut you don't need to buy those, cause I am about to teach you how to draw your own.įor the purpose of this tutorial I will separate the halftone effects in 3 groups: As a matter of fact I even sell some of those in sites like, so other people can use them too. Now, when I need a halftone pattern, I just open my file with halftones and pick one. I sat one day, learned the main principle behind the halftone effect, and then created some halftone clip art for me. But after you make it - you can use it time and time again for the rest of your life. Yeah, you will lose some precious hours experimenting and creating your own clip art library of halftones. One of the benefits is that unlike those plug-ins it is free. Especially if you want something complicated. The big minus here is that this is the most time consuming of all 3 methods. It is to create your own halftone patterns, frames and objects manually. For all other vector software - I honestly don't know. I must warn you though that it is a plug-in for printers: It treats halftone as the boring printing technique that it actually is, and not as that funky retro effect that we like so much. Corel users, you can check for a plug-in called SimpleSeps. Illustrator users - you are lucky, because as far as my knowledge goes the best plug-in for creating halftone effects is for Adobe Illustrator. You can use a plug-in to create halftones: That is if your software of choice has such. Just prepare to take a holiday from your job, cause you will need that much time to do this. Sure, you can manually fix your traced halftone. Instead of circles your dots will often look more like rough stones with a lot of redundant nodes and some very odd angles. The bad side is that, just like everything traced, the end result is usually far from perfect. The good side of this technique is that it is quick and easy. You still need to trace the result into vectors. Even some vector programs like Corel Draw have the halftone effect included, but again as a raster effect. All good raster software like Adobe Photoshop or Corel Photo-Paint have the halftone effect implied. You can create the effect in a raster editing software and then trace the result in your vector software. There are more than one ways to create this effect. Here are also some of my own works with halftones. For example, Ben Mounsey, his use of halftones is superb. There are many creative ways in which you can use halftones, but the most popular is in drawing retro style images. You know - the one which depicts objects, gradients etc. What we will be talking about here though is not the printing technique but that cool design effect bearing the same name. (If you want to learn more about it - read this article on Wikipedia.) It was first used in 1850 by William Fox Talbot who is considered to be the inventor of halftone printing. In the world of printing and design the word 'halftone' has more than one meaning. So, illustrators from everywhere, gather around! Here we go! After that it will be up to you to find the equivalent technique in your software. If you use other software - you can read only that part of each step - which explains the principle behind it. If you are a Corel user you can read the entire Quick Tip or just the technical part. I will separate the Corel technique from the universal theory behind it. However, the principle described here remains valid for all vector programs. Let's Begin!Īs you can see from the title, the software used in this Quick Tip will be Corel Draw. In today's Quick Tip you will learn some techniques on how to use vector halftones in your work, and some great tips for both Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw. Halftone dots look fantastic in comic illustrations and graphic design. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |