How to create amazing clip art on a shoe string
So how do you create clip art on a shoe string? You start with a cheap but powerful editing program - Corel Paint shop pro.
So I have started to create clip art in
Paint shop pro. Paint shop pro is much cheaper then Photo shop but has plenty of editing power for clip art and illustrations. I have not found many tutorials on this subject so I am going to post one here. I am enjoying making clip art on Paintshop pro very much.
Supplies: Corel Paint shop pro
Sketch
Scanner
First draw something that interests you. I have looked at drawing with a drawing tablet, but am still old fashioned and prefer to draw by hand.
So here is a clip I am working on:
I drew this clip by hand in pencil and then outlined it with pen.
Then you scan the image. I used a
HP Office jet Pro 6830 e-All-in-one series. This scanner scans quickly and well. the scanner comes with software that gives you a icon on your desktop. Then you can change the settings on the scanner from your computer. So when you are ready to scan, scan your image at 300 dpi and black and white.
You need to scan your image at 300 dpi, so that it prints crisp and clear.
You need to scan your image on the black and white setting so that the scanner does not pick up colours from the paper round the image. Also scan the image as a jpg so you can edit it in paint shop pro.
So the scanner will scan your image and send it to your computer. Rename the file.
Now open the file in paintshop pro.
My image scanned well but I want the lines darker and crisper so I am going to go over the lines of my art.
In paint shop pro, select the pen tool. One the material side the colour of the foreground needs to be black and the colour of the background needs to be transparent.
Select the pen tool:
Change your materials, black for the foreground and transparent for the background.
Now I am going to zoom into my image and go over the lines. When I am going over curved or wavy lines, I use the pen setting at the top for free hand drawing. Then zoom in and trace carefully over the lines you want darker. After each section of tracing, click on the tick so your changes are permanent. I recommend doing a small section at a time.
Trace over a section and the click on the tick in the tool bar.
When going over straight lines, I use the pen tool for drawing lines. This gets the lines perfectly straight. Then zoom in and trace carefully over the lines that you want darker.
Once you have made all the changes you wish to make, flatten all the layers. Go to the layers menu and choose flatten all and then save your image as a jpeg or .png. If you are selling the clip art, save it as a .png as the quality is better then a jpg.
Thanking for reading this tutorial. I hope it is clear and informative.
