Illustration and Animation: A guide

Illustration:

In technical terms, illustration is one image that is usually a painting or a sketch. It is not strictly for art and design but is used for scientific research and commercial purposes as well.

To create an illustration that is soulful and iconic an art needs to portray his/her artwork with a bit of personality, even though in modern times they are mostly composing on the computer. You need to focus on simple everyday objects for inspiration and then brainstorm a concept.

For a traditional artist transitioning into digital illustration is hard, so to make the illustration and animation change easier he can adapt some feeling of handmade art into his illustrations. Creating drawings on a computer maybe easy but it does not have the same imperfections of physical art, which in a way, can be good since too many imperfections can make the artwork look messy.

As a result, digital illustrators bring in a little bit of their personality into their projects. By using whimsical elements and their own personal style.

Bottom line, when it comes to digital illustration or physical illustration the world is your oyster and the ideas that can inspire you are never-ending. So go ahead and enjoy the act of creating and making amazing artwork.

Animation:

An animation is putting together many illustrations together and breathing life into them and creating the illusion of movement.

In the digital world there are many types of animations that are coming about beides 2D and 3D animation, some of them are:

  • Stop Motion Animation:

This is a lot of fun and is much easier than it looks, once you have enough practice with the right tools and guidance you grab your inanimate objects and animate them. Stop motion is a technique that creates an illusion that makes inanimate object appear like they are moving.

  • GIF animation:

Four years ago, GIF animation took cyberspace by storm. Blogs and social media pages made use of these fun little pieces of art to convey emotions through their articles and posts and give humor and personality. It is super easy and has loads of fun results and this is done by taking a specific number of images and showcasing them in a specific order.

  • Capturing motion in illustration:

Capturing movement through a drawing can be difficult, it takes a special skill to render the drawing in such a way that the movement of the eye follows the motion of the drawing. Having a solid and proper drawing to work on is essential as this will help you to improve the quality and depth of your work.

  • Storyboard:

Storyboards are essential for animated movies and shows; they showcase the sequence of events, direction and dialog that will go onscreen. It is like a blueprint of the end product. To build a storyboard the artist needs to have a love for storytelling and build the concept keeping depth and complexity in mind. By keeping the world around him/ her in mind, the artist needs to create a sketch and then formulate a story.