How've I been? / Vexing Vectors.
Howdy, all. Long time no see. No, I didn’t forget about OlguinScene here. I’ve been at it practicing making vector art with Adobe Illustrator.
For years I did graphic design with Photoshop. It outputs digital photos which are like a mosaic made of tiny digital tiles called Pixels.
Illustrator outputs Vectors which are like a coloring book page with lines and spaces to fill.
Photoshop can edit photos and digitally paint with a tablet freehand. (Just like a pencil on paper.) However, the files are large and don’t print on print press-type stuff very well.
In Illustrator, you can draw with a tablet, or point by point like connect the dots with a mouse. But it's really tricky and time-consuming to do. It doesn't work with photos very well, but it's great with text and fonts.
The output files can easily be scaled to any size from a digital thumbnail to a giant printed poster.
I tried using Illustrator in college, but it was even harder to use back then.
What makes it so tough? Well, first off my drawing skills sucked. There I said it. I got frustrated early on in school trying to draw. I’d never know what to draw and when I did, I’d get frustrated.
I wouldn't like it to the point where I found my own work embarrassing.
That's why at the dawn of the digital age I found Photoshop so appealing. By splicing together photos and applying filters and adding graphics I could at least convey the things I had always wanted to through drawing. I made things like movie posters, logos, album covers, and websites.
I got pretty good at it and it carried me through various projects, jobs, commissions and what have you. Then I found myself working for this company that used Illustrator a lot for packaging and technical work. I would spend hours at home trying to catch up on projects. I didn't know what I was doing, I felt like a phony and it reminded me something I’d seen before.
Crystal and I used to watch this reality-based home improvement show called “Monster House”. The contractors were usually local to whatever town the show was in that week. One episode the electrician was struggling and spent two days trying to install a light switch.
The reason? He was claiming incompatible hardware, faulty tools, etc. When the crew confronted him about it, he confessed he lied about being a master electrician!
In fact, he didn’t know anything about home electrical systems at all, he thought he could just wing it! This poor bastard was sweating, fumbling, scratching his head, struggling to even splice two wires together all while trying to maintain the guise of competence on camera. He got emotional when he fessed up and walked away looking like he died inside.
At the time I thought it was funny at first, but then thought: “That dude must be so embarrassed.”
Here’s a mix of some drawings that I either started but didn’t finish, or started over when I learned a better technique:
After a ton of late nights and all-nighters at that job trying to catch up on those projects, but always falling behind was really tough.
I started to feel like that fake electrician must have felt.
That job didn't work out. It was more technical than I thought and a weird place to boot, so it wasn’t all about what I could or couldn't do. It was a defeat, however. I got emotional when I got home too. I had put in so much to feel so dumb.
That feeling of not knowing what I’m doing and defeat stuck with me and I thought the challenge of learning Illustrator would be insurmountable and I was lost and it got me down.
Then, I decided to start learning it myself at home. Working on graphic design project contest boards and small commissions, as well as relearning web design with creating OlguinScene.com.
It's fun, but hard work. I’ve dedicated hours and hours to practicing drawing on Wacom tablets, watching tutorials, endless researching subjects, sourcing digital brushes and entering design contests. Most of the time I don't even get the commission and that can be frustrating or disappointing.
Learning Illustrator hasn't made me much much money and that can be a bummer not just for material reasons but for my own self-worth.
I’ve picked up car repair, web design, cooking, video editing, audio recording, and podcasting quickly enough, but Illustrator has been hands-down the most challenging. However, it’s the skill, nay; the power I’ve always wanted. (As rewarding as it was to figure out the other stuff.)
To create a rad illustration that becomes a book cover or awesome poster, concept art, web graphics or a videogame is what I always wanted to do. That's juxtaposed with the feeling that I shouldn't be learning (or relearning) a skill. I’m at an age where I should be at the top of my game, settled down and secure.
I could try to get a job doing web design and Photoshop again, or I could forget it and do something else entirely just for some pay and self-respect. However, both options would be giving up to me. If one is going to give up, then one can do that anytime. Might as well do the thing while you've got the gumption.
All of that said, I’m fairly close to where I wanna be skill-wise and that is what's important to me in all this. As long as I can get good and quick enough; even to do graphic design work on the side and bring new ideas to our site; I wouldn't feel like I gave up. Even if I’m better or more successful at doing something else.
I have no clue where I think this amazing skill would take me, or what exactly I’ll do with it. Will I design shirts and logos and posters freelance? Will I find the confidence to bring these skills to
Vector drawings in various stages of completion.
the film industry or design firm? Maybe our website takes off and graphics become a bigger part of it.
I've been pretty obsessed with vectors and really working at different techniques to work better and faster even forgoing posting here as much as I’d like.
Months ago now the idea was to do an explainer post where I give an overview of how I make a vector from start to finish.
I would start a project and get bored, or learn an exciting new technique better suited for another subject and start a whole new project. The unfinished projects started piling up. When I went back to them I realized I had learned so much that it would be more time consuming to fix or complete some of these drawings than it would be for me to just start over with a better technique.
It’s kind of hard to show a start to finish project without a finish...
This is how months have slipped away without drawings or posting here. So I have decided to post the gallery of unfinished works. Some were just practice and I’ll probably make them look more presentable and post them in my online portfolio. Others, I hope to actually complete and make something of them commercially or for our site.
Anywhoozle, thanks for reading. I was trying to figure out if I should write about how I’ve been or what I’ve been working on, but this turned out to be a fairly good insight for myself. That’s why I want to start writing more about these projects. I hope you the reader find it interesting, but it’s also nice for me to “think out loud” as it were. Thanks again for reading.
-Mike Olguin
OlguinScene.com
