How To Edit Drawing Into Vector

Learn valuable methods for honing your drawing and illustration skills in Illustrator.

Colorful graphic of a Southwestern scene with cactus and a coyote howling at the moon

Figuring out where to brainstorm and what to depict tin can exist challenging. Outset, get yourself a sketchbook, have it with you lot wherever you go, and sketch your immediate environment whenever you can. Emulating the work of other illustrators is besides a great way to practice and learn. Above all, remember, the more y'all practice, the closer y'all are to finding your fashion—or something that sets you apart.

A person's hand with a pencil drawing various forms of cactus plants

Honing your drawing skills is an ongoing process that requires a lot of exercise. From tracing a hand-fatigued sketch to drawing from scratch in Illustrator, allow'due south look at some of the almost mutual tools and workflows for illustrating.

Starting time by tracing

You lot can easily base a new drawing on an existing piece of artwork past tracing it. If you sketch on paper, apply Image Trace in Illustrator, which lets you convert raster images (.JPEG, .PNG, .PSD, etc.) to vector artwork (shapes and paths).

Close-up on the left of a hand-drawn cactus, and the Image Trace properties box in Illustrator on the right side

Optimize creative freedom and control with cartoon tools

If you prefer to jump correct into digital illustration, the Curvature, Pen, or Pencil tools are slap-up tools for analogy. The Pen tool in Illustrator is powerful, offer the most precision for creating curves and directly lines. Other tools, like the Pencil tool or Paintbrush tool, are ideal for expressive, costless-course lines. You lot can utilize layers in the Layers console to lock and dim the image and draw over the elevation of the prototype using any of the drawing tools.

A drawing of a cactus is light in the background, while the Pen Tool is being used to make points along the edge of the drawing

Stylize your artwork by adding texture

Past applying a brush to new and existing paths created with the Brushes panel, yous can add textures that add manner and uniqueness to your artwork. After applying a castor, you can change the stroke of the path and other backdrop in the Properties panel.

Brush options shown on the right, and a line created with the Pen Tool is now green over the cactus layer

Tip: The Blob Castor tool is a great tool in Illustrator for inking illustrations similar comic book art.

Illustrator is the industry standard tool for freehand drawing or tracing and recoloring your sketches to turn them into works of art. Whatsoever you create, you tin use your illustrations anywhere—printed pieces, presentations, websites, blogs, and social media.