1
STARTING OFF
To start things off, create a flat piece of artwork onto which
you can then apply this textured style. It’s always best to
make a duplicate file so you never overwrite the original—after
all, keeping organized is key to good creative practice. Once you
have duplicated the original file, name it appropriately to suit the
style and now you can get going.
>> As always, you should remember to set the color mode to
suit the type of media that you intend your design to be viewed
in. If it’s physical media, make sure it’s CMYK and if it’s digital
media, then check you’re working in RGB.
>> To create these textured effects, we will be using grain
brushes, specifically stipple brushes. You can find packs of
these brushes online for free or as part of a paid membership for
Illustrator packs. There are tons to choose from but when you
find one that you are happy with, download its AI file, open it up
then copy and paste the brushes into your main art file.
>> Once done, these brushes will appear in your brushes
windows of the Illustrator file and you can use them on strokes
and when using the brush tool.[Image A]
2
JUST A LITTLE STIPPLE
Now that we have our artwork sorted and the brushes
ready, we can begin by adding the textures. Stipple
brushes are great for adding the vintage or gritty look that can
really transform flat artwork, so will be perfect for this tutorial.
>> To make more use of the textured effect, we added some
more elements to our original artwork, including some more
plants, a shelf, and a mirror.
WE HAVE ALREADY CREATED some interesting shapes, designs, and flat artwork previously
in these tutorials, but there are always more steps you can take. As long as your creativity
is infinite, you can add more to your design work and take it to the next level. Patterns and
textures are a great route to advance your artwork. Sure, the less-is-more technique is also
another strong approach, however, we are going all out for this tutorial.
Adding a texture can make certain elements in your work pop, giving them stronger contrast
and a 3D look. When used in the right places, it gives more depth and detail that should help to
grab the audience’s attention. With flat artwork, a texture can give a grainy vintage feel, which
is the look we are aiming for here.
In this tutorial, we will take a look at how to change the original flat art plant designs we
created in an earlier tutorial and spice them up a little. After that, we will look at how to repeat
the design to get a pattern and create a wallpaper out of this art. – SAM LEWIS
YOU’LL NEED THIS
ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR
CC 2020
https://www.adobe.com
>> The first thing to do is to click on the shape to
which you wish to add the effects and add a stroke to it.
As shown in our example, we already have some
shading on the plant pots. We took this shading,
added a white stroke to it, and then applied one of the
stipple texture brushes to the stroke to get the desired
textured look [Image B].
>> To alter the strength of the texture, we decreased
the size of the stroke to 0 .75pt, as seen in our image.
Even this slight change gives the shadows a deeper and
grittier look.
3
ADD SOME TEXTURE
Next, we apply this to the leaves of the plants,
giving them a cartoonish pattern that will
hopefully make them stand out more. Instead of adding
this texture to the outside stroke, we will be adding it into
the shape [Image C]. Whenever we do this to the inside
of the shape, we need to duplicate the base shape first.
>> To make things easier, create a new layer where the
duplicates will go. Then hold shift and select the shapes
you want to use. Copy these shapes using CTRL + C, head
over into the new layer, and paste them in the same place
using CTRL + F.
B
A
54 MAXIMUMPC JAN 2022
R&D
