Texture Library
One of the items on my to-do list recently has been to expand my ‘texture library’. Since I have moved over to doing all of my color on the computer, texture is more important than ever. If there is a large area of flat color, and it is just ‘paint-bucketed’ in Photoshop, the flatness screams “Computer!”. The look I am trying to achieve is one that is more hand-made. I try to use custom brushes with my Wacom tablet as much as possible, but sometimes an area needs a bit of real-world texture to break the flatness…
The swatches above are from a few of the textures I worked up this week. They will be much more subtle when included in my work, sometimes only a tiny corner of one, but having a variety on hand is a valuable part of the illustrator’s tool-belt.