Ask HN: How to Create Vector Art?

9 points by pandatigox 3 years ago | 8 comments

I'm trying to design something but I'm finding it frustrating to use Bézier curves in photo editing programs. Is there a simple way to understand how that tool works?

Thanks in advance

sctgrhm 3 years ago |

You might find this helpful : https://bezier.method.ac/ although I wouldn’t spend too much time on it. Rather, you should try to find some YouTube videos that show you how to produce the general style of art you are specifically trying to create. You might find some more advanced tips and tricks other than the quite narrow drag and click techniques this tool will help you with.

hnaccount2001 3 years ago | |

I can second this - drag and click is not always necessary. If I am really in a pinch and I need to do stuff directly with beziers I try to 1) stylize the desired curve so that it uses as few control points as possible, and, 2) redraw on top of early attempts instead of editing existing curves.

monkellipse 3 years ago |

Curves are just plain tricky, and are a skill that requires practice. I recommend tracing a shape in a photograph, especially one that has a mix of soft and hard angles and edges. Be patient with yourself, practice it like an instrument, and in a week or so you’ll have it down!

plasticbugs 3 years ago |

I learned by tracing a complicated clip art raster image of a flower using the ‘pen’ tool. You eventually get a feel for how to space your points for each segment of the line you’re tracing.

If using Illustrator, it’s important to use the keyboard shortcuts so you’re not diving into the menu between points - clicking a menu or tool will cause you to switch out of ‘drawing’ mode forcing you to awkwardly restart your line from the last point you made.

Important keys: alt/option, ctrl, space for moving around the scene without breaking your line, shift, and A and V for toggling between selection types (point/line). Play around with alt and ctrl keys while dragging handles - you can create corners by ‘breaking’ the straight bezier handle that controls the curve shape.

Good luck. Find an interesting piece of clip art and have at it. Option clicking a point with handles will turn it into a corner. Option clicking that same point while dragging out will recreate the bezier handle.

Photoshop’s path tool works the same way with the same shortcuts. However it’s primarily used for making a selection and not for drawing per se. You can export paths out of Photoshop but I highly recommend using Illustrator and not Photoshop for learning the pen tool.

jabroni_salad 3 years ago |

Forgive me for XYing you, but do you have to use curves? A lot of drawing apps these days let you just draw on vector layers.

Inkscape, fresco, and Concepts all come to mind.

FunnyBadger 3 years ago |

Take one or more art classes and then an Adobe Illustrator course.

You can't magically be good at vector art (or raster art just because you bought Photoshop, or creative writing just because you bought Word or some other desktop publishing software) without proper training. Art training teaches you the non-technical aesthetics and artistic skills to know what to do with Illustrator or vector software or raster software, and ONLY THEN will what you do technically with such software packages to achieve your goals.

brudgers 3 years ago |

Article and HN discussion, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14191577

emadda 3 years ago |

https://beziercurves.com/

You can generate basic curves here to practise tracing them.