The Hardest Thing
When I tell you this was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. In. My. Life.
I do find it a little maniacal that I don’t settle on one form of lettering just yet. But, I don’t think I’m alone. I watched a Youtube Interview by The Happy Ever Crafter today where the guest spoke about starting the same way. I’m sure most beginners do. But, sometimes, I just don’t know when to pace myself.
I’ve been watching artists like Martina Flor and Ximena Jimenez use Adobe illustrator to get more accurate representations of their lettering pieces for things like postcards and t-shirts. They make it look so easy! I knew it wasn’t going to be as easy as drawing in Procreate. But, whoa man! Momma said there’d be days like this, you know?
I’ve tried illustrator before and it just didn’t work out. It’s the pen tool though. Even now, it makes me think of the memes going around about what level of Jumanji are we in now with the arrival of two inch long killer bees. On a scale of 1-10, the pen tool is on Jumanji level 11.
Fortunately, in this day and time, there’s thing called Youtube University. I found a tutorial for beginners and gave it a shot.
There’s a free download provided in the description of the video. You just try them along with the video.
I’m the type that watches the examples half way and then tries to figure out the rest on my own (I have that problem with owner’s manuals too). I’d enlarge the screen and just try to do it without looking at his unless I ran into big trouble. So, mine aren’t quite as elegant as what is seen in this video by Made By Mighty (an excellent tutorial, by the way). But, I’m actually impressed that the video got me through this much!
The video starts you off with the most basic of shapes you’d vectorize. It’s like a game that steadily increases in complexity until you’re looking at some crazy-looking animal (you know…like, Jumanji)… After, I got past that level of complexity, I was actually presented with a letter to trace. I was actually going to close my laptop for the night. But, I figured I’d just go ahead and try it.
It didn’t come out exactly like the example. But it wasn’t bad for me either.
Honestly, I never understood why there was another Jumanji after the first one. Obviously nobody learned a thing. But, there may be a sequel in the works here too.
