PDN Fanatics

I am illustrating a children's book that includes lots of trees, shrubbery, grass, etc. I know that the best way to draw this quickly is by using custom brushes, but to tell you the truth, I haven't really used custom brushes. I am using this style of artwork:




So, very vectorish-type work and I don't have the time to draw it all out like I usually do. Any tips?

Try Ash's easy taper line method to do the grasses. Use some plugin to distort the shape of the grasses.

Or there is this one -

http://paintdotnet.forumer.com/viewtopi ... 45&start=0

Thank you Lance and Goonfella. I already did that and I'm finished with one page. I guess I needed a little more enouragement with custom brushes, but I got the hang of it. Thanks!

I think you meant a fast and good result?
The shape that generated with Polar Transformation plugin is not bad if you create a good template, the template its easy and fast, I have some tips, and those work well with foregrounds:

like these samples, you can add some flowers or fruits:


And use same samples above to create cool grassy backgrounds in a very fast way using the Mosaic Maniac plugin just once.

Like this sample, I used above images after put them in one folder and opened it with Mosaic Maniac plugin:


I don't have fast ways for trees, and still trying to find methods.

That's a pretty good idea. I like it. I have to experiment with it a little more. Thanks!

I've a simple one gives similar to yellowman's

800 x 600 transparent layer
green paintbrush at 500
draw a lighter green line about 3 to 5 brush wide horizontal across green brush dot
tile image horizontal at 20 vertical 2
then distort inside out. this gives you two plants cut and paste one side on separate layer so you can move them around.

this is a time when the jaggy edges work to your advantage. they look like serated leaf edges.

ciao OMA

I like this thread! So many different techniques!

Like a Grass101 thread

I like Oma's method, too. I don't even have enough time to try them all out. But these are really helpful.

me tooooo! I like this sort of trading back and forth. should also say the way I did mine works good for quick peacock tail in an image.

ciao OMA

I just remembered the Cloud tutorial, it works good with trees:
Make any shape with Lasso Select tool
> Gradient (light green to dark)
> wide Bevel Selection (light green with dark)-optional-
> Crystallize ( to anti-alias the edges)
> Dents
> Fragment Blur ( 6-8 counts)
> then Transparency (full opaque).
This is for the green part, and the trunk it is easy, Right?

Hint you don't have to repeat the steps above each time, just put them in the ScriptLab and save it, so you just make the lasso shape and gradient , and you can load it again whenever you need it:

That's how I made my landmass on Aurora and Gaia.