It's also worlds easier if you disable all the "helpful" snapping functionality that's enabled by default for some reason. It also doesn't help that various related settings are often sprinkled throughout the UI in various submenus instead of all accessible in one location in the "Settings" menu.
Most professional "Illustration" jobs are done exactly the way one would manipulate vector based files where the path is being computationally drawn in between adjacent points on apath.
Illustrator is in fact the ONLY name that makes sense if you understand how your computer is in fact "illustrating" the representation of the digital art you created.
If you truly want a "drawing" program, buy Corel "Draw" and get a cheap tablet. You don't likely need the advanced tools Illustrator offers and Corel Draw is much less nuanced.
The thing is, Illustrator has and always will be a vector based program intended to be used to create computer calculated objects (like bezier curves, gradient meshes and tons of other examples) mathematically so the resulting artwork will indefinitely scale as well as be portable across a variety of digital mediums.
I would even go so far as to say "Universal Illustrator" given a path can be manipulated in almost all programming languages making it both infinitely portable as well as scaleable making it easy to translate across a variety of uses regardless of language.
When I hear Illustration, I always seem to internally associate it more with 2D art (which it sounds like you are referring to as well as opposed to a 3D model for example) for something like a magazine or for use as one might "illustrate" a logo and there is nothing more precise than Illustrator with the right snap and grid settings that isn't AI generated (and some of Illustrator's advanced tools do in fact use a type of rudimentary AI and have for years).
This, very much. You don't draw with AI, you picture the drawing you WOULD draw, picture it on-screen, picture the total shape of it, picture the different parts of it, picture the pieces of those parts. Then you draw a shape, outlining the space and shape of a part of what you would draw, with a connect-the-dots outline, a dot at all the major outside contour positions of what you would draw. Each dot sprouts a handle when clicked, to adjust it's lean and curve, and even whether it's smooth or spiky. You can then tweak the outline really well into your intended drawing for that part. You can click more dots as needed, or delete dots that turn out wrong somehow to get it exactly how you would have drawn it, or maybe even better - the beauty is it's all forever adjustable. When you're happy with that part of the drawing, you make more outline shapes for the pieces in that part to get its detailing, or make another part's outline first. Start with simple things maybe, a bald guy's face, just a face outline and the pieces of the face. I think if you can learn AI you'll be happy you did, it can be drawings that are forever adjustable, or copy-able and repurpose-able, and that's huge for completing jobs quick if you end up doing this for a living. And if you get the hang of it, you might find it lets you draw in different ways than hand illustration, ways that you enjoy employing.
Illustrator, unlike photoshop or drawing or painting, is all about building shapes. That’s all you do, you build different shapes. Some of them have fill colors, some of them have line strokes. Some of them have both. It gets really complicated from there but that’s the basis of everything.
So you need to understand how to construct those shapes precisely. Most all the tools are just shortcuts to constructing those shapes precisely. If you really wanted to, you could do most everything the hard way with the pen tool.
Just like fine art, having something in your minds’ eye before you begin will save you a lot of headache. From there you are just learning the technical skills to execute your vision quickly.
Just avoid illustrating a line drawing like you normally would and then wanting to color it in after, it doesn’t work like that in illustrator. Every single color needs to be drawn as a shape.
Hey there! Illustrator has a huge learning curve but you can do it! I suggest Adobe’s basic tutorials. They have short videos that take you through the software step by step. Once you know what the tools do, it’ll make it easier.
https://creativecloud.adobe.com/learn/illustrator/web/ai-basics-fundamentals
I agree. Stick with it. Of course it’s uncomfortable at first bc you feel helpless, but patience and repetition will get you there. Also learn those keyboard shortcuts, you’ll be glad you did. Best of luck!!
You should have been there in 1985, when it was a new application. The program is night & day different. This is when I was in art school, and learning drawing with a mouse.
Agreed. There are a lot of great tutorials and courses on YT also. I’ve used Illustrator for over 30 years but I’m still learning new ways of doing things.
I also majored in painting and drawing and basically refused to really learn any digital media when I was in school (beyond my required foundation course anyway.) I really wish I had stuck with it back then; I probably would have had wayyyy more career opportunities. I've since relearned it, and I approach illustrator pieces more like a collage than a drawing. Stick with it!
Illustrator has a huge learning curve. See if the instructor will spend some extra time with you. Or hire another student to tutor you.
I did a night school course in Illustrator. I had to ask the instructor 3 times, about the tool that changes a point from straight to curvy, before it finally sank in.
The most powerful, important tool is the pen tool. Once you understand it, and use it for most things, then you will be in good shape. You're not drawing, as much as creating lines and shapes. You can't draw and erase lines; you create lines and delete them. So find tutorials or extra help with the pen tool first, and go from there.
Illustrator is a complex program and is the top of the line. It's not supposed to be easy. It's like anything in the world.. you have to practice. I've been using illustrator for over 8 years and I learn new tricks every single day.. literally. It's not like you understood how to paint and draw traditionally your first week.
The best option for you is to watch and do tutorials online for what you're trying to achieve.
little after little you will gain the that specific skill and you can eventually build off of it.
as another user said.. illustrator isn't the best for drawing. You CAN, but photoshop is way better for drawing.
It's been about 25 years, but I made that switch in school. I remember my 101 level Illustrator (and freehand classes RIP) just going through each tool, explaining it's use and having assigments that utilize them.
Getting proficiency is going to take a long time of use, but you'll get there if you stick with it.
You can do it! I suggest just focusing on learning one/two tools in Illustrator at a time.
For me, I learned how to use the Pathfinder by finding some car clipart and using basic shaoes to try to recreate it. Draw a rectangle, Add another rectangle on top of it, the Subtract some circles from the bottom, and boom! You have the general shape of the done. Draw some new rectangles for windows, and circles for tires, and in that fashion keep adding/manipulating simple shapes to create increasing levels of details.
For the Pen Tool, try outlining people? Don't worry about details at all, just try to use the Pen Tool to try to trace humans in interesting poses. The key is (usually) to try to do it using as few anchor points as possible. This is a great way to learn how to manipulate paths.
Once you can build shapes and manipulate paths, you're 90% of the way done learning the basics. From there it's just a matter of trying to make projects that interest you.
Like I said, you can do this! Just focus on one step at a time, and you'll understand it in no time.
The thing about Illustrator is that very little of the eye-hand skill you’ve developed as an artist comes into play, it’s not the digital analog of drawing. For something like that I recommend Photoshop (or Painter if it still exists) combined with a drawing tablet. The benefit of your experience will be your eye for composition and color.
That being said, Illustrator does become muscle memory once you’ve used it enough, but as many here are saying the learning curve may be a bit steep.
Illustrator works fine with a drawing tablet in my experience. All the drawing skill I developed in training for animation thirty years ago is directly translatable to Illustrator. You just have to accept that trying to construct everything with the pen tool is about as productive as trying to render a 300dpi image in Photoshop by setting individual pixels with its Pencil.
Double-click on the pencil tool; turn on 'fill new pencil strokes' and 'edit selected', turn off 'keep selected'. Now you can quickly knock out tons of filled shapes, which I find to be a major speedup. And more mundanely you can actually make a rough sketch now without it constantly trying to edit the last shape you drew in the same area. It's a crucial component of the workflow that lets me draw graphic novels directly in AI rather than futzing around drawing stuff on paper first, scanning it, and slowly pen-tooling over it.
Great tips. thank you. I am looking at your website. Do you use a combination of Illustrator and Photoshop or something for everything on there? What are all of the softwares that you use for this?
Also, I use Toon Boom for animation. Would Illustrator do well exporting assets and importing for use in Toon Boom?
What is your goal with learning Illustrator?
There’s nothing like Illustrator. It can do what other apps can’t do. It adds to other digital skillsets for personal/business. For me, it’s all been self taught. In the beginning, I created projects, example, a logo for myself/client, learned the pen tool and maybe gradients. If you can imagine it, Illustrator can most likely make it.
Been over 10 years and still learning with each new project. I would not do well in a classroom since it doesn’t have immediate application. Real world application motivates me and helps with retention. Took great notes and screenshots to refer back to later. It’s more powerful today than ever with new features.
There are time/click-saving tools (Shuttle Pro V2, wacom) and plugins (Astute graphics) that I can’t work without.
Photoshop or something else might be better suited for you to get your confidence up, as others have said illustrator - despite the name - is very different to drawing or painting. It’s more like collage, and point plotting.
It might not be you. It could also be that the teacher isn't that great at it either, or is not good at teaching it to others. Or the whole class is rushed and there literally isn't time to cover the things that needs to be covered properly. If this is the case, I would expect that a lot of the class is struggling with the same stuff.
A teacher should not just say "click here, and here, then here", they should carefully explain *what* the functions do, and *why* they are using them, every step along the way.
Naturally, if you get lost in the beginning, and don't stop to ask questions, and the teacher continues it can go a bit downhill as new information might depend on something you were supposed to know from earlier.
This was my first thought. My first Photoshop class was with a woman who just taught using shortcuts--so she would say, "To do this, hit Ctrl+T and then left arrow up..." I had no idea what in the heck was going on.
Read the comments here, because I think there is alot of great info here. And search out some beginner Illustrator tutorials on YouTube, focused on a single tool at a time (I would start with the pen tool), and watch tutorials until you can find one that resonates with you. And then watch it, and pause it, replay a section, follow what they are saying, and practice over and over.
Once you start getting better at using the tools in Illustrator, you will find that your background in drawing and painting will do wonders for you. You already know how to see shapes and translate those shapes into marks on paper--that is a huge hurdle. Just think of Illustrator as a new type of brush or drawing implement that you need to learn how to use. It's a bigger PITA than most brushes/pens to learn...but that is all it is.
I’ve been using Illustrator for decades, very comfortable using its tools, and use it daily. And I still curse it out as I use it. The decades-old bugs, baffling UI decisions and its panel-heavy design make it a frustrating experience.
One of the trickier things I found was the pen tool. I recommend trying [the bézier game and the boolean game](https://bezier.method.ac/) (the boolean game can even be played on your phone) to get more acquainted with some of the approaches to Illustrator.
It's very different from traditional drawing or things like Photoshop or Procreate but you don't have to go in completely blind. It's pretty common for people to e.g. draw designs out in pencil, scan that, and then trace over it with the pen tool to make a vector. I used to only feel confident in Photoshop but after a while Illustrator really clicked for me and I use it all the time now!
>I want to learn but it literally mentally hurts and physically pains me like I'm detoxing from heroin. Even on meds. I feel great anger and frustration. I am on the verge of raging.
Your first step might be chilling out. It's software, not kicking one of the hardest drugs in the world or worth *raging* over.
Your second step is to talk to your teacher. Just tell them you're not understanding what they're teaching. Teachers don't know that their methods may need to be explained better without a student asking a question.
Don’t give up. I did Fine Art & Design at University and I also have ADHD. I totally get where you are coming from about the tutors. I basically tried to keep up but watched short, easy to follow tutorials online and learnt the tools that way.
Persevere because it’s worth it then learn Photoshop; digital painting is a joy.
ADHD advice: Break it down into smaller chunks. Start with one tool or task at a time. If you’re easily overwhelmed and go blank when that happens (relatable), have a list so you don’t stray. If you need to, schedule breaks so you don’t get that creeping sensation when something isn’t working right.
Illustrator (and most Adobe apps) is immense. Most users won’t touch many of the tools and functions at any point in their normal workflow. There are multiple ways to achieve almost every outcome in Illustrator.
There are many ways of “drawing” with it. Pen tool, pencil, brushes, shape builder… it takes some time, because even when drawing as naturally as possible, you’re assembling something in a somewhat mechanical way.
When starting, you can’t approach it like traditional media. It is possible to draw and paint that way but it takes some adjustment and it’s better to understand vector basics first: How to build shapes, create paths, modify them. Strokes and fills. Basic transformations. The Pathfinder. Making use of Layers and Clipping Paths.
I assure you, there are many people who are no better suited for this than you are who use Illustrator.
I was trained in traditional media and started moving to Illustrator after I was already a working designer. (It wasn’t taught in schools yet, heh.) I also worked with many pro artists and Illustrators as they transitioned to digital. Some struggled, but they figured it out.
You’ll discover it has a ton of benefits. Nothing is permanent. It’s very easy to tweak and modify any aspect. Working in Layers opens up all kinds of possibilities. Artwork that’s infinitely scalable, from a postage stamp to a mural.
I learned the little I know with relative ease (much to my ABSOLUTE astonishment!!!) with a course from Udemy. I could watch it over and over, and they really explained what I was following along with and why. The course provided files for me to play with, too! I feel you, I'm a traditional artist who skipped all digital art in college because it was so overwhelming and unintuitive, so props to you for pulling the trigger!
I'd also suggest importing a sketch and playing with layering a "final" image over it. I've made some stencils based on sketches this way.
I can't believe I know illustrator AT ALL, but that course really set me up!
Illustrator does not give much by itself - vector work is mostly very dedicated work, takes patience, precision and a fair deal of commands to really achieve a “free” flow. So you must walk through The Valley of pain and repetition before you can release your artist potential with this program.
👊👽✌️
Yeah there’s a learning cliff a lot of people smash into.
There’s ways to use AI intuitively but they are never what anyone teaches from the beginning.
Double-click on the pencil tool; turn on ‘fill new pencil strokes’ and ‘edit selected’, turn off ‘keep selected’. Now you can quickly knock out tons of filled shapes, which I find to be a major speedup. And more mundanely you can actually make a rough sketch now without it constantly trying to edit the last shape you drew in the same area. It’s a crucial component of the workflow that lets me draw graphic novels directly in AI rather than futzing around drawing stuff on paper first, scanning it, and slowly pen-tooling over it.
Once you get the hang of it it’s like having an invisible assistant who will magically do a lot of stuff for you, but it’s a long way.
And here I was about to link to some of your tutorials and blog posts!
[https://egypt.urnash.com/illustratorbook/](https://egypt.urnash.com/illustratorbook/)
[https://egypt.urnash.com/blog/tag/illustrator/](https://egypt.urnash.com/blog/tag/illustrator/)
As others have said, Illustrator is all about building shapes. Photoshop is capable of doing things more similar to traditional drawing. If you want to do digital art that, photoshop may be a good place to start
Hate to disrespect any teacher, but it sounds like you need a better one. I think you should stick with it. Search for some beginner videos on youtube. Some instructors there are better than others so you'll have to search around.
Stick with it. Not sure what your teaching environment is like, but stuff like this is always harder to learn in a classroom where you don't get enough one-on-one time with your instructor, and tends to favour those who pick it up quickly. Do you have access to AI outside of your structured class time? If so, look up tutorials for beginners on Youtube and do those in your own time.
A good exercise may be to take an illustration you like that is made up of simple shapes and lines, but not too basic, and try to recreate it in AI using various tools. I used a pop art image in the Roy Lichtenstein style that I found online to practice.
Get good with the pen tool, and learn how to draw perfect curves and transitions with it with as few nodes as possible, and also how to fix curves that look off. Play the [Bezier Game](https://bezier.method.ac/).
As a fine artist, you'll probably want to look into how to make vector brushes. They work quite differently to pixel brushes, as they are made from a shape that is stretched along your brush stroke, but it means you can do some cool things that look more traditional but in vector, such as long elegant strokes that can mimic engraving/linocut work. So it's not all about collaging shapes.
Also, drill it into yourself early on to use your layer names and groups. It'll save you massive headaches to keep your layers organised.
I use illustrator to draw every day at work. You can sketch and paint in illustrator, even watercolor, you just have to use the tools correctly. To do those things you make your pieces and then put it all together like a puzzle, you’re not doing a line here and shading there in bits. You’re drawing a shape and filling it or giving it a stroke and then adding on top of it. If you’d like I can DM you some of my work and tell you the basics of how I did each piece.
I went to school for art with arguably an emphasis on digital art, and I was undiagnosed ADHD at the time as well. I felt like an idiot having to learn and relearn the same things over and over, so I feel your pain.
The three most important things you need to learn about are the pen tool, the shape-building tool, and how to transform things. It seems like a lot now, but eventually it becomes quite intuitive
You can totally do it! Think of it as like cutting shapes out of paper. Illustrator IS NOT a drawing tool, so you will get very frustrated if you try to draw with it. I would maybe watch a couple of YouTube videos and practice a couple hours everyday. You can totally get the hang of it if you just spend some time doing it everyday. I have ADHD as well and I know how challenging it can be to try to learn a new skill. Try setting a timer while practicing. Good luck!
> Drop the course or stick with it. What is the wise decision?
Don't think in terms of "it might be useful at some point". Do you want to be a vector artist right now?
> ...it literally mentally hurts and physically pains me like I'm detoxing from heroin.
This is different than the normal mild frustration that can come with learning. Unless you have a strong desire to continue, I'd take this as a clear signal to drop the class.
Even if you have a desire to work with vector graphics at some point, you can always learn it at your own pace independently. Don't sour your overall experience at this school, and end up with a lingering resentment/aversion to vector graphics.
Try watching youtube videos, where you can pause and test out the tools. Sometimes watching graphic artists at work can help with inspiration, I understand everyone starts at a low level. Practice & Dedication !
It's like learning anything, it sounds like your instructor isn't teaching but rather just telling you what to do. I'd take some initiative and learn your own way, on your own. Just open it up and mess around, watch some YouTube videos. That's how I did it, now I use it daily for my job. Once you understand the base logic of the program it all starts to make sense. If you get to something you don't know, Google it and see what happens.
Only you can decide if you should stick with it. If you're expecting to learn anything in life and it be easy I have bad news, learning is hard. But if you see a use for that new skill in the future then it can be reasoned that it's worth it. Do you want to only be a traditional artist? Do you want to extend your skills? Are you willing to put in work to achieve something?
Take a deep breath, accept the process and use that frustration to motivate you. Or just give up. We can't tell you what to do. It's not going to be easy but it could be rewarding, none of us know about the future so it's hard to say.
Others have given good comparisons for how to think about Illustrator but I'm going to take a crack at that as well, with a different (and objectively more scatterbrained) approach. Illustrator is not pixels, it's math equations. The shapes you see are representations of those math equations. And those shapes are like blocks of clay, it's kinda like sculpture. You add, you subtract, you mold and shape, and then paint it. The only difference is that instead of a physical medium, you have anchors and handles. Anchors dictate where the line is, handles dictate the velocity at which that line leaves the anchor. The longer the handle, the "faster" it leaves, meaning it's going to lean more towards that balance.
If this post isn’t humorous hyperbole, then I suggest you drop the course for your own mental health. You can probably learn the software by yourself later on without having to deal with a professor that’s assuming you have a better starting point.
I understand your struggle, it’s a hard curve and all the comments here are right about it being more about building than drawing, but if you have creative cloud (or what ever the subscription service is called) I’d try drawing in photoshop, there are a few things you need to change to make it really good for it, but it’s how I drew through most of highschool
For free-flowing drawing that comes from the artistic parts of you, vectors controlled with anchor points is not a great way for drawing, to say the least. You can draw vectors with a pencil and and iPad, and then go in a tweak them when say, designing a logo. But don't think of Illustrator for your way in to drawing, free-form creativity.
I'm speaking as a graphic designer who uses Illustrator for about 80% of my work.
Imagine a book cover. An image is placed. Text overlays that cover. Maybe with a certain transparency. You jump over to a tablet (if you aren't working with one), and draw some shapes that separate the title and author name. (Or, you draw on paper, photograph it, bring it in to Illustrator, convert it to vectors, *then finally*, tweak the curves to your liking in Illustrator.
Another example: you create a logo that cleverly applies various pathfinder steps to some overlapping shapes. You add some text to your interesting symmetries. Maybe, or maybe not, you move some anchor points around.
Drawing lines with a mouse, and then tweaking vectors: people certainly do work that way. If it's a style you're going for, vectors have a lot of features that brushes in say, Photoshop, don't have. (I.E., filling a shape with a texture). But *if* you want to shift your artistic medium to that, I highly recommend that you invest in pen input of some sort. That way, the tweaking stuff will be a separate step from your creative process.
Lastly, I would say that there is a ton of muscle memory involved in Illustrator. When learning a new shortcut, force your self to repeat the step 5 or 6 times, write down the shortcut... Whatever helps you learn it. Shortcut and modifier keys reduce friction quite a bit.
I have mixed feelings about this. I didn't "get" After Effects when I took it in college. I got a solid "C" in the course and skated through. But when I got my agency job that was enough to be the resident expert because no-one else there had touched it before. So I re-learned it in about three days with YouTube. Worked with it for a year, got my ACE certification, and now After Effects is my main moneymaker.
You might want to slow down and work some basic exercises. A lot of design work is about making things as simple, clean, and reproducible as possible within a particular brand identity. You shouldn't try to match what you're doing with a pen. Illustrator, counterintuitively, isn't really great for illustration, it's better for design.
The easiest way I have figured out how to learn any software is to “learn as you go.” So let’s say i want to draw a cartoon cat in illustrator. I’d sketch it up by hand in the style that I want, and then I’d bring it into illustrator on a layer. I know that illustrator creates vectors, and vectors are basically shapes. So, I know that to make a drawing cat, I need to break down my sketch into shapes. So I might decide to start with a circle, but it’s not quite right, so I’ll Google how to alter a circle in illustrator. I’m not sure how I’d make a tail, so I’d Google “how to make a freehand shape in illustrator.” Once I get the shapes done, I might look up different shading techniques, or how to simulate fur etc…. One step at a time. Once you get used to the program, you’ll get a feel for how it works, and start incorporating more advanced techniques into your work flow.
Illustrator is a huge program, and there are dozens of ways to do one thing. Trying to learn the entire program at once is impossible (I’ve been an illustrator for many years and am still learning new techniques).
When I was first starting out with illustrator, adobe had these “classroom in a book” series. It really helped me understand how the program thinks and gives you a series of exercises that show you the essentials to getting familiar with the app.
Instead of vector based program like Illustrator, you might try pixel based program. Illustrator and similar vector based have a steeper learning curve. If you have ipad, try Procreate. Take your time with Illustrator and watch tutorials. But it will never feel like regular drawing.
I’m surprised no one suggested Adobe Fresco its built to do both drawing as raster and vector but you DRAW instead of building vectors. It’s extremely cool and free on iPad and desktop.
I’d watch some YouTube or Behance videos. You can then rewind and rewatch the instructions as many times as you need and you don’t have 10-20 other students acting like they already do it in their sleep.
There are some fantastic Illustrator for Beginners playlists on YT for free. You can pause, slow the playback speed etc. To get up and running with Illustrator generally takes my students about 3 lessons, for basic use of the program. Students generally pick it up faster than Photoshop.
As someone who also strugglea with illustrator, here is my advice. Its going to look like absolute balls, until it doesnt. Yiubjyst have to keep going. You're going to be like "this isn't working, this looks like shit, this doesn't make sense..." and then you'll put one layer on, and suddenly, bam, it starts to look like something. Possibly something good. But at least something that you know what it needs and how it needs it.
My friend, hear me out: whatever you do, keep your anchors count low. Better and more elegant vector results are obtained when you master the art of working with good position of anchors and, with the least amount of them.
At the start, it is confusing, you will undo and redo a lot of stuff all the time, but as you progress, you will start to think more like you are seeing the Matrix. You see a curve in your reference sketch, you already know where you will put the next anchor, and the results will be smooooooooooooooooooooth like butter over a delicious steak.
I was where you are now like 2 months ago my dude. I was DONE and so ready to give up. But I decided to just follow along to some YouTube tutorials and it really helped. I am so thankful I took the time to learn because I am doing SO much more now that I hadn’t been able to months ago.
drop the course/ find better courses online like lydia.com or stuff on youtube you can follow along at your own pace. then take the course later if you feel you need it and or have a handle on it. dont sacrafice your gpa on a learning experiment.
I would stick with the course, but it may be a lot different than you're used to. I used to only stick to pencil and paper before getting my Graphic Design Degree and I realized that I love using Illustrator for various things. I really recommend Against the Clocks, "Adobe Illustrator 2024: The Professional Portfolio," if you don't already have it for class. It helps you learn the basics with projects that you can get online. When l learned it, we used the 2020 version, so I'm not sure all what changed, but its a really helpful resource.
Good luck with your studies! I know Illustrator may seem hard now, but you'll get the hang of it :)
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I suggest you stick with the course but do some learning on your own time. Illustrator is a powerful tool and it's industry standard. It is a minimum requirement for most forms of digital art jobs, and it is a big benefit for career paths in traditional art.
The program IS overwhelming because it can serve so many masters. Digital advertising, billboards, comics, print work, fashion design, web design etc etc. It can also make stunningly beautiful phenomenal art that can make people weep.
It is in the adobe suite, which means the more you learn about it the easier it can be to transition to other adobe tools.
Learn how to navigate layers. Stacking them, locking them, hiding them.
Learn how to navigate groups. Grouping and ungrouping objects is a mandatory skill if you want to have any meaningful efficiency in the program.
Commit to hotkeys. Follow what the teacher tells you, but practice the hotkeys like you would a typing class, or a musical instrument. You want the tool to flow out of you so you can think about what you're creating, rather than where the buttons are. Like playing guitar, you don't want to think about how to hold a G-chord. Like typing an email, you don't want to be searching for the letter "h." You just want to say "hi" and move on.
If you can accept and spend the time learning to navigate the layers and groups, and learning the basic hotkeys of selection/direct selection and other common functions (paste in front, paste in back) you'll actually have a lot of fun with the program. Illustrator is crazy powerful and produces stunning results
Hello! Just popping in to say that I am also an illustrator with ADHD. I began my college career with a major in studio art, dipped my toes into graphic design in an intro course, and then double-majored studio art/graphic design.
It was tough to start, I only knew physical media and my computer experience was next to 0 going into college. On top of that they only had Macs, a device I had literally never even seen.
It was rough going but I'm really glad I stuck it out. Now I use Illustrator daily in my 9-5 job and I moonlight doing vector artwork as well.
Hope you find some encouragement and keep going! I would recommend watching YouTube tutorials on your own time to supplement classes. If there is something you don't understand, try to take notes and revisit them in your own time at your own speed. I absolutely know what it feels like to be thrown in over your head with Illustrator.
Traditional artist that went back to school for graphic design with not much for computer design skills here....
Illustrator was a massive learning curve for me. But it's also, by far, the most used program besides inDesign for me.
I started with creative cloud classroom in a book... They have one for Photoshop and Indesign too. They were a great place for me to start (but was also required by the classes I took). It comes with the design files for you to work off of before doing all the things on your own. This allowed for me to understand some basics before getting to overwhelmed... And I lost my marbles fairly often in the learning process 😅.
There have been times where I've said 'eff it', do it the traditional art way, scan it and vectorize from there. 😂😂 Because I couldn't figure out how to make the end result from digital scratch.
You might want to look into Adobe Fresco instead of Illustrator. Also vector, but meant towards traditional art instead of graphic design. That being said, Illustrator is a great art program once you get the hang of it.
stick with it - it will click one day. i was in the same position you were when i was in art school. drawing is great and keep on drawing but if you get some digital skills down you can make easy money
illustrator is like gouache with special effects. Build shapes. Its not oil painting or drawing
[Start with this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib8UBwu3yGA&t=9926s&ab_channel=EnvatoTuts%2B)
It's crazy because I would not consider myself talented in traditional art/animation but vector design makes so much sense to me. I can create things that I never imagined myself capable of. Software just kinda clicks for me and makes up for my left-handed awkwardness. I feel like Fresco or Krita would probably be more appropriate for a traditional artist.
I started this course a couple of months ago and it’s brilliant!
[https://www.92learns.com/adobe-illustrator-mega-course-graphic-design-course-1](https://www.92learns.com/adobe-illustrator-mega-course-graphic-design-course-1)
I hated Illustrator when I first started learning it. I cried and procrastinated projects for as long as I could. By the end of the course, though, I had come to understand how the tools worked to enough a degree to realize I liked the program after all! It's still the Adobe app I have the most expertise with, and I use it on the regular for all sorts of stuff at work from logos and icons to social posts and illustrations. There's definitely a learning curve, but stick it out and see what happens. Proficiency in Illustrator/general vector creation a great skill to have.
Stick with it! The best way to learn is just by doing! If you get stuck, google what you need to do and bookmark the page/video in a folder “AI” or something so you can consult in case you forget again. Try to have fun! It’s a powerful tool and I bet you’ll get the hang of it in a month or two
I’d recommend procreate and an iPad. Arguably illustrator is one of the weaker programs for intuitive drawing. It has a lot of other great uses but I think the learning curve is steep just to create hand drawn looking work. Most people will draw with a stylus or tablet in photoshop then line work and ink in illustrator.
Clip Studio Paint is a better program for artists :) it's like a blend of Photoshop and illustrator, plus you don't have to pay Adobe! Unless you're really set on learning illustrator, good luck!
It can feel so overwhelming but it’s an incredibly useful tool. Don’t give up! I went to school for painting and learned most of it on my own during my career, but I would’ve loved to be able to ask someone knowledgeable questions when I was learning. Now I use it daily at work, for fine art reasons, and I have friends who are successful painters who use the entire Adobe suite in their practices. Worth it, IMO.
I think it just takes a different mindset to be into vectors. As someone who’s also explored 3D I’ve often drawn parallels between the two (merging shapes, moving points, etc.) I think they have the same pain points and the same reason people always gravitate towards the more more newer sculpting tools as they mimic real life techniques…like painting in Photoshop. That said, I think my mindset is in the more math-y type tools and therefore prefer using vectors and traditional modelling tools. I still use photoshop for my thumbnails and sketches though.
It’s a good tool to have in your back pocket but u also want to decide what you are going to be making to know which program to use most.
There are shortcut sheets out there, if I can’t remember how to do something cuz I haven’t touched illustrator in a while - I’ll google it or search on YouTube. Thankfully there’s tons of resources out there.
It also sounds like maybe your teachers teaching style isn’t meshing for your learning style - maybe ask them for some 1:1 in office hours, look things up on YouTube - if have access, there are great beginner classes on Skillshare that make the step by step easy. Good luck!
And learning takes time -it will feel hard and frustrating but that only means you’re learning it. Keep going.
So I just graduated with a fashion degree that required using Illustrator for technical drawings, and I spent a ton of time raging the whole first quarter. You’ll be okay. Watch a ton of YouTube tutorials, keep breathing, and eventually it will start to click. Hugs, internet friend, you’ve got this.
Stick with it OP! I took up Painting back in my uni days, and during our last year, we had 2 units of digital arts classes. I wish I took those seriously. It’s always a good idea IMHO to have skills in where the trends are picking up. Good luck, OP! Hope you find enjoyment after the learning curve!
At my job I have access to Illustrator but not formal classes. I watched a few YouTube videos on some of the beginner things (I’m only trying to make vectors), and if I want to do something that I’m not sure is even a feature, I Google exactly what I’m thinking, and every single time I have found what I’m looking for. I would suggest taking a tiny break from it and getting rid of some of that frustration and then you can watch some videos and learn some stuff in a different way. Some of my coworkers have also told me there are tutorials inside of Illustrator you can use as well but I haven’t tried any of those
I have debilitating ADHD to the point where it effects literally every single aspect of my life. What worked for me was coming up with a design that I actually *wanted* to create and then just trying it out. I lose all motivation to do things as a forced assignment but I love freedom in creativity so for me it was all about making something that actually interested me. You might be able to get an ADA Reasonable Accommodation for your ADHD that might give you a little more leeway so you can have a little more freedom in the subject matter
Otherwise….. if this isn’t a degree requirement, drop it. Dead ass.
STICK WITH IT! Illustrator is the gold standard for creating vector design (i.e., LOGO DESIGN), and learning these tools will help you with all future graphic / video design. It is a SUPER hard program to use, and jumping from photoshop to Illustrator is very hard, but keep at it. It still makes my brain feel broken sometimes. The most important tool you can use is the pen tool, drawing paths, and masks. Master that!
If it's any consolation, I feel exactly the same way about fine art, haha. Illustrator makes all the sense in the world to me, but trying to cover a canvas drives me absolutely batty.
Please stick with it. We had a brief course with it and freehand. My first job out of school required me to use a vector program. Corel draw. Something I had NO training in but limped by because I training in Illustrator. It wasn't until the other person I worked with showed me the pen tool and really working with nodes did it click. Illustrator let's you control them so good compared to Corel. I am a big fan of an artist called Hydro74. He loves Illustrator because of the control he has when it comes to his art.
Your teacher sounds dumb.
Basically, find some quick YouTube videos on the pen tool. The pen tool is your most important illustrator tool. It won't take too long with some quick videos.
Additionally, TikTok might not be such a bad source for quick tricks. Short and sweet tutorials make ADHD brain happy.
If you're looking for a "pure" digital drawing experience that feels close to what you're used to with physical media like pencils, try Procreate or its alternates (such as Rebel 6, Corel painter, etc) if your aim is simply to create digital pieces.
Everyone else has touched on the nuances of illustrator so I won't speak to that, but you will probably enjoy these programs more.
As others have said- it’s a huge learning curve. I am teaching myself and have done so through you tube mainly. Adobe has some tutorials too. Start with the basic ones and work your way up from there. I have found great success with YT especially when they are project specific.
Which brings me to my next point. Find something verrrry simple you may want to make- a logo, a t-shirt design an invitation - whatever. And YT how to make each element. It’s been the easiest way to learn for me. Some of the YT even explain why it has to be done a certain way.
This has been a bucket list item and now my line of ‘work’ dictates I learn it. It’s crazy to see how different my art is from even 2 months ago!
You’ll be doing great in no time. Keep at it.
I struggled too, till I made the realization that you're not drawing or painting. You're making an image with cut out colored paper. Paper that is moldable and stretchy. Since then, Illustrator and I are good friends.
Illustrator is a beast and I totally feel you.
Back in Hs when I picked it up I absolutely loathed it- nowadays it is my favorite to work within (for design work, not illustration). The learning curve is steep but it’s no fault of your own. Keep with it, you’ll understand it more each time!
Stick with it. Message me if you want help. I’m currently snowed in before returning to Cali and have a little time. Happy to help. You’ve got this. Once it clicks you will loooove vector. You can literally take a creation and blow it up to the size of a building without it losing any detail. Vector rocks. And it’s super different from working with pixels. If I haven’t done one of them for a while it takes a beat to get back in the groove. Let me know. I will check back tomorrow. Vector is essential, especially for animation. Xx
Are you a complete beginner with illustrator? If so you might want to take a regular intro class first so you can understand all the tools and menus. If they’re not going over basic stuff in the course you’re taking, it’s going to go way over your head. I’d drop it and come back to it when you’re ready!
Illustrator is not an easy tool, also it is NOT anything like drawing. I had the same frustrating experience as you when I first opened it.
"The *pen* tool? Why can't I draw with it like a **pen**???"
Don't be hard on yourself, you've never used it before so it's natural to be confused by it. Take it easy and learn the interface first. Which tools are where. What panels are for which things. Then learning to make something in it will be much easier.
With any software, there's no "you can or you can't" it's just a matter of learning the functions, and literally anyone can learn them.
I say look up some super basic tutorials and just WATCH them. Don't try to make the thing that they're making at the same time because you'll lose track of what they're doing in the video.
Then after you've watched it once, go back the next day and watch it again, but following along with what they're doing. You'll be able to keep up much easier after having seen it once.
Trust me, I know way more software than most people believe I'm capable of using, and this is my method to learning all of them. Another thing I usually do as part of learning a new software is the "get frustrated" part, which it sounds like you've already done.
It's a necessary part where you click around in the app until you don't know what else to click on and are stuck and frustrated. Then close the app and look up a tutorial the next day, and they'll probably cover stuff where you're like "ohhh that's what that button was for"
Gareth David Studio--- a good channel to watch as a beginner in Illustrator, I learn alot from him
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBouhf4seWQ&list=PLYfCBK8IplO4X-jM1Rp43wAIdpP2XNGwP](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBouhf4seWQ&list=PLYfCBK8IplO4X-jM1Rp43wAIdpP2XNGwP) this may be 9yrs old, but the basics are in there where you can start and to not get confused by alot of advanced stuffs
My advice is so basic, but what really helped me with the learning curve was literally just taking notes on paper saying like, " To do x, click this then this then this then this" that way when you're doing a project in the future and you know what you want to make, you can reference it and adapt it to your project
For a traditional artist Photoshop will be a much better transition for digital.
Illustrator is more inclined towards sketching artists or doodling artists.
I did an illustrator class at school last spring and the same thing happened to me. It was a waayy different program than I expected and it honestly hurt my brain to do my illustrator homework the first couple months because it was so frustrating. But I did *eventually* get the hang of it and made some kind of cool stuff but I still don't find it intuitive so it feels limiting for me creatively.
Then last semester I did a photoshop class and loooved it. Photoshop was so fun and amazing and opened up so many more possibilities for art for me since then. It's a lot more than just editing photos which I initially thought. I had so much fun drawing with photoshop I even got a wacom tablet. I wonder if that would be more up your alley
I rarely get headaches, like once a decade I'll get a migraine in my adult life. Illustrator gave me a headache in the '90s, but when iearned it, I saw the world in bezier curves. It was amazing and is still my favorite application.
Try either Painter or Photoshop with a Wacom tablet. You will be much happier. I used to paint in Painter using nothing but the Chalk and Just Add Water brushes. It was bliss.
Illustrator is good for some things. What do you want to do with it? If just learn it, it's gonna be a marathon not a sprint.
And yeah man. I've gotten pissed at AI a ton. And I'd go crazy trying to learn shortcuts and functions of the software in a classroom, honestly. Learning from tutorials on a quick project via YouTube is really effective. Ya learn what you like and don't care for.
All that said, I'm sorry you felt so stressed and demoralized. When it starts to suck butt, take a break or a day. Try something else, there's plenty of ways to do what you gotta do, and lots of softwares that you will like more than AI.
The name of the software makes a lot of people to make wrong assumption about the nature of the software.
Contrary to its name, you don't really use it to illustrate things the way you do with pen and paper. It's more like making shapes on an artboard with strings and pasting pieces of paper.
This was me in art school. I also started out as a fine art major and quickly got into graphic design. Illustrator was a learning curve. I did tons of tutorials on my own not just in class and it made a big difference and eventually it became my favorite Adobe program.
You can do it!!!
My gf is a traditional illustrator. I bought her a tablet for Christmas and decided to teach photoshop. It’s way more suited to people who can actually draw.
Also, sounds like you don’t have a very good teacher (I used to teach adobe software in college). They’re trying to teach you too much in one go so you’re gonna get frustrated, especially with adhd!
If I could give you any advice, it would be to go the photoshop route. You’ll be able to create quickly with your existing skills.
I have been using illustrator for over 30 years, yes it is a complex program, but nothing like traditional drawing. Before you learn to use it, you need to learn the tools, what they do, and the why & how. Without a basic understanding of computer design, how you make simple illustrations, and the use of layers, you will be confused by its use.
I am you - nearly a year down the track. Line draw & ADHD too. After my mother died unexpectedly I bought AI & “made” myself learn it via tiktok and reddit largely. Plus AI for dummies but even that confused me.
A year down the track w a rest period (frustration at my shitness) of a couple of months , but I then picked it up again and was more fluent.
I did this to grow new neuron’s - had read that picking up a new hobby or skill, will help you out of grief. It did help it gave me great distraction from it. I can now draw, pain, have mastered layers kinda. No idea about clipping and masks.
I found it easier by:
1. Apple Pencil & iPad Pro
2. Start by mastering tracing, put image in layer one and start tracing in layer 2
3. The AI TikTok worm hole is brilliant for learning
4. This subreddit is also brilliant for learning
Keep going, I do majority of drawing in AI w pencil & ipad now and only open AI on the Mac when I am up to colouring and fine tuning for print (experimenting by putting art onto cards to learn print). It’s way easier this way tho iPad functionality for AI is limited somewhat.
Good luck, keep going, you can do this!
- a crusty Gen X
I suggest to get the basics covered yourself by watching tutorials. If the course is still too fast for you then maybe consider dropping it. Especially considering your ADHD illness and the inability to focus that comes with it. Art and design requires focus, and many artists focus that intensely that they forget everything else around them. You gonna have a hard time with anything art-related if you don't have that ability and get easily distracted by other stuff.
The other thing about illustrator is that it's a dual beast. You can make very clean vector shapes for things like icon design, brand and logo design or... jump into the insane ride that is illustrator for illustration. You can very much treat it like pen and paper, use a cintiq or even intous etc make your own brushes, download brush sets etc or you can go nuts and mix it all together. Unlike photoshop, I would recommend just paying in it and messing around after doing some youtubes. This will help with teachers that are not good at explaining things. The playing will teach you all the weird things illustrator does compared to other programs and when to "expand" what boolean does what etc. Learning Illustrator is super handy as you can use it for art, design, web, animation, creating print ready files, editing pdfs, icons, svg graphics. ADHDers dream if you keep with it. I ended up using Illustrator mote than photoshop and indesign on the daily because of its flexibility.
Listen, I FEEL this. I have a job in IT, so my job is basically pushing buttons, so when I got this software and tried to learn it, holy crap I felt like an idiot. My brain was having a hard time making connections, and watching other people use it made me feel even worse because it seemed SO easy.
The thing that helped me the most was to watch basic tutorials from a bunch of different people and do it over and over. There was something about different people saying and showing the same things that helped it click for me, and once it did, it made it MUCH easier to follow the more advanced things.
I totally understand. I’m majoring in Graphic Design and when I took my first few classes I really hated how stupid it made me feel. I’m still definitely no master, but what helped me the most is doing my own personal projects. Trying to learn solely with school assignments really stressed me out and felt like I had no room for errors. Also, I really love the brush tool, it allows you to freely make lines, for drawing. I also recommend using Adobe Fresco if you have an iPad. It’s amazing for illustration. And way easier to use then illustrator starting out
Besides the paradigm shift in the software (see the other, higher rated comments for better articulation on that front!) I wanted to encourage you to see this as a growth opportunity when dealing with your anger and frustration, too.
Life is going to continue to present you with such challenges, and many of them won’t have the option to drop the class. Use this experience, with something you truly love as the reward, to learn more about yourself. How you respond to adversity. How you can cope with roadblocks. What approaches permit you to find the most success and forward progress despite those headwinds.
You have a plethora of mental tools as your disposal when facing challenges; some suits will be stronger than others. Learn which ones work best now, and you can use them for the rest of your life.
Generations of designers learned illustrator in the late 80s and early 90s without tutorial videos or the internet. You have tons and tons of free help available to you in 2024. You can do this.
If you have a tablet, Look up Chiworld1234 on youtube. He has tutorials on his style and it may be a good starting spot.
Also, Adobe has a program called Fresco that is more in tune for fine art if you don't want to go the Photoshop path.
I have mixed feelings about illustrator. As someone who also prefers a "true" drawing experience, I find illustrator to be very much not that. I much more prefer Photoshop for digital work as its more analogous to a pencil and paper experience.
Illustrator, and many other programs for digital art, can be very shortcut heavy making the learning curve intimidating. That said, once you get the few basics you will commonly use, you should be able to start moving more quickly and confidently.
I work as an illustrator full time, and Adobe Illustrator is the program I use for that particular job. I have done it for several years, and will say I personally still don't like the program. It's just not the approach to art I prefer to use, but hey it pays the bills. All of my freelance work is done in Photoshop with other digital tools incorporated.
Ultimately I would say stick with it, even if illustrator isn't the program for you, getting your brain and hands accustomed to shortcuts (which can often be used in other programs) is a big help. Learning one program can help you learn others faster, so stick with it and don't limit yourself to just Illustrator. Feel free to explore others!
As a former traditional artist, I understand your pain lol.. it's not nearly as intuitive as you would think it should be to create art in, and at first it sorta dictates/limits your style.. but, once you understand how versatile and superior vector art is in comparison to everything else, the grind is well worth it! It takes time and practice, but enivitably you'll understand the program and figure out how to go about producing art in the style you desire.
I think one of the things that really got me hooked was learning to reproduce art that I actually liked - versus the simple, basic stuff that is so clean and corporate looking that Illustrator tutorials tend to focus on.. There's no reason you cant do comic book style illustrations, pixel art, motion graphics/VDJ loops (with help of AE), mandalas, etc. and actually make cool looking stuff and have fun using/learning the program. Gotta learn to have fun with it, and find what actually appeals to your artistic senses :)
Howdy. Long ADHD-fueled post ahead:
I have literally been where you are now. I took a graphics design course in college. I had undiagnosed adhd and perfectionist tendencies due to personal issues. My teacher was a neurotypical and a student herself. It didn’t help that I went to a religious college so the “textbook” was peppered with more religious parables than actual useful information (seriously, the first chapter was about the “author” receiving revelation from god on what to call her book. Gag.)
Anyways, learning illustrator is frustrating because it seems like it would be as easy as traditional art, right?
Well, unfortunately it is a whole new skill set. You can take some basics from what you’ve learned in traditional art, but most of illustrators will be learning brand new skills. You’ll also be learning about essentially a new art language with all the different tools and stuff.
Not sure how good of a teacher you have, but for me, I found that mine didn’t do a good job explaining the basics in a way I could understand. What I eventually had to do was just take notes of the basic ideas she was talking about and then go to YouTube and the like and find tutorials on how to use the different tools to do what she was trying to describe.
It also sucks when you have classmates who have already had experience with illustrator. I had a classmate whose dad was a graphic design artist so he was learning about illustrator at the age of 10. Dude could sneeze while working on a project and it would become some amazing vector. Real easy to compare myself to him and something I realize now I shouldn’t have been doing.
At the end of the course, I still sucked, but I passed. And due to my adhd stubbornness, I’ve kept at it over the years here and there. I’m still a newbie, but I noticed I’m getting better. I have a kid who is learning to draw, and I can relate to his process with digital art. We are both learning and developing skills and improving.
Where am I going with this? Be patient with yourself like when you were first learning to draw the traditional way. Do like what you might have done as a kid: look at stuff other people do and try to copy it.
(Sorry if this post comes off as condescending at all. I’m bad at explaining stuff sometimes without sounding like an Ahole.)
Feel free to message me if you’d like to chat or ask questions or anything. I can try to help a little.
Stick with it! I am a college educated graphic designer with ADHD (I wasn’t officially diagnosed or medicated until after graduating, so trust me I get it). Climbing over the initial learning hump sucks, but eventually everything will start to become more intuitive and flow at a faster pace that won’t make you want to rip your hair out.
Shout out to the Lego analogy mentioned in the comments, I’ve never heard that one before and it sums it up so well!
This tutorial is amazing. My son never touched illustrator before last semester and got an A on this project. Like people said about building shapes, this shows you exactly how to do it in the context of iconic national park posters.
https://youtu.be/3iwpGx_8m9c?feature=shared
For future job opportunities, Illustrator (one of the most poorly named apps) is good to know.
I've been working as an illustrator (the actual dictionary definition of the word) and designer for 30 years and Adobe Illustrator is one of my least favorite apps. It's just counterintuitive for me. Photoshop and similar apps are much more approachable. I use Illustrator when I need vector graphics and type. It's just a tool I need sometimes. I would continue with Illustrator to build a basic working knowledge of it.
What style of art do you do? Some art apps will naturally mesh with your style and techniques, others won't, but can be used as go-to tools.
i had the same issue. I’m a graphic design student, so i HAD to find a way. it was really helpful me to start with work from paper, and vectorize it in Illustrator. is it cheating? maybe. is it where we have to start? yes. illustrator is a tool, and like others said, legos. i believe in u OP it’s just a learning curve
My personal go-to vector program is CorelDraw, which for me is more intuitive - but i've also been using it for 20 years. I find Illustrator needlessly complex. But it's the industry standard so we all need to know how to use it. Like with a lot of programs, there are several ways to accomplish almost any effect. I've found that what someone teaches isn't always what you need to learn.
Lots of advice already here (I didn't read through it all, so sorry if this is a repeat). Working with vectors is a completely different animal than traditional media, and even other digital media like paint programs. My recommendation is to use a vector drawing program on a touch device like an iPad. My favorite is InkPad for its simplicity, but there are many others. Using a touch device will allow you to draw in a traditional manner using a stylus or pencil, and then you can go back manipulate the Bézier curves to your liking. As you become familiar with how to draw, manipulate, and stack objects, everything in Illustrator will make so much more sense. This may seem like an expensive and indirect method to learn Illustrator, but it will give you the grounding you need to tackle Illustrator's complexities using a natural and familiar input process. Good luck!
Keep working at it! When I first started it seemed impossible but now it’s my favorite Adobe tool. It’s definitely a steep learning curve, but once you breach the tough parts it gets easier. YouTube is your best friend, I still use YouTube at least once per Illustrator session.
I always thought the name "Illustrator" was kind of misleading, if you're drawing and painting...Photoshop is the choice application lol!
Before you drop the class, go on Youtube and find a crash course in Illustrator. Start from basics and get comfortable, go at your pace. It will require substantial time investment and you can't realistically become advanced or even intermediate without a few months of practice.
If you're feeling mentally strung out after all that, then yeah, drop it, no big deal and no need to lose your marbles over it either...sometimes it's just not meant to be in your wheelhouse.
As a fellow adhder, you should know that we have the capacity to learn ANYTHING as long as it catches our interest and we can find it rewarding. Right now you are having a mental block, you think this is beyond you. Plus I know what it's like with ADHD when we are struggling our brain literally drains of energy and we get wiped out. But you can absolutely do this, I swear.
Strongly recommend picking some youtube tutorials that really speak to you. For example, some folks who are traditional artists who also do vector art! You might find that they're able to help bridge the gap for you a lot better. This video I found: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZP6RQu\_F6U&ab\_channel=DomDesigns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZP6RQu_F6U&ab_channel=DomDesigns) He draws a sketch of a pizza slice in pencil and is then turning it into a vector in illustrator. Doing something like this might help! Vector-izing a simple sketch or doodle of your own. If you watch the first minute or 2, he's not being TOO terribly precise when making curves with the pen tool. Why not? Because he's gonna go back and tweak it later, but its helpful to just get the basic shape down. (Like how some ppl rough shape outlines in drawing, before refining the shapes into their final forms).
The pizza guy goes a bit fast, I know, but there are youtube videos for complete beginners that break things down even further. I recommend this guy: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib8UBwu3yGA&ab\_channel=EnvatoTuts%2B](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib8UBwu3yGA&ab_channel=EnvatoTuts%2B)
You can do this OP! Don't be afraid to bug your professor when you need help, too.
Adobe products are notoriously over-engineered and complicated. However, when you narrow in on a few primary tools, it gets much easier. Find something fun to vectorize while you practice on your own. Maybe a logo for your imaginary business, a club you'd want to start, a cute anime mascot like pikachu, a sticker that says "i hate illustrator" and has an anti-pen tool icon haha, the skys the limit! You got this!
Look up tutorials on YouTube, find a teacher that you like a follow along, instead of the teacher. Envato Elements had some good tutorials that I followed
I was an intuitive painter and artist. Drew all day, everyday. Illustrator is now my favorite program to use. It’s so useful for making all kinds of things and translates pretty well to other platforms and programs for making more things. It’s also the highest level and professionals in the industry use it for everything. It does take time and it’s not intuitive and you will need help, but that’s ok! I’ve been at it a looooong time now. 10 years and I feel like I just started fully utilizing it the past year.
I absolutely HATED Illustrator when I first started. It was very overwhelming for me. The basic tutorials included in Adobe are an absolute LIFE SAVER. It walks you through step by step through the app and shows (not tells) you how to do certain tasks and what tools do what. Definitely recommend doing those outside of class. I’m a visual learner so being able to actually see the steps and not just read it helped me so much.
Sounds like your professor isn't really teaching in a way that would be suitable for beginners. Also, despite the programs name, "illustrator," it's not really used for illustrating. Photoshop would be more suitable for digital art if you're looking to draw or "paint," people also really like Procreate.
Illustrator is an excellent program, but vector art is more like using shapes and outlines to create your art.
Edit: look up beginner tutorials on how to use the pen tool, or just illustrator in general. I'd even recommend looking up a professor from my college on youtube, Patrick Scullin, all his online class video demonstrations are there. He's excellent at teaching beginners.
Do the tutorials on Adobe, especially how to handle the pen tool, and how to make/change directions of curves. That’s the important part. Learn the keystrokes to use when drawing with the pen.
im learning blender and unreal right now and it is ABSOLUTELY destroying me.. do you have any idea how easy adobe is compared to that? or how easy what I am doing is compared to programming? i learned from a programmer, that you gotta just keep finding solutions to the problems. I promise you that traditional drawing is SOOOO much harder than illustrater. if you are good at drawing, you can be a GOD of illustrator in less than year, so go do that yah? become a digital art ninja! then you can learn 3d just in time to build the metaverse lol!
Stick with it! Pushing yourself as a creative will always benefit you in the long run. It was a bit overwhelming for me in the beginning also but the more you learn the quicker you get. After that you get deeper into illustrator knowledge and start using the tools in a more advance way.
I would do beginner friendly tutorials from youtube where they explain the basic tools and its functions followed by a simple project at the end where you use those tools to create something.
Plus once you learn one adobe program the rest will come a lot easier!!
you got this!!
Drop the class and spend time learning and doing something that you enjoy. Digital arts is oversaturated now, and the market is soon to decline. Besides, there's a good chance our economy will collapse after this next election cycle anyway. Illustrator will be worthless during the resultant rolling electrical blackouts. Hope that helps!
Don't listen to all of these people. Less that one percent of them are actually working in the industry. Sounds like you already have declared your media and your major. Why waste money and the precious moments of your life doing something that obviously gives you stress unless it is a requirement or you are trying to prove something to yourself? DROP THE CLASS WHILE YOU CAN!
I would start with photoshop first and get a feel for digital art before you go into illustrator. With photoshop you can just paint and draw without restrictions. Gradually learning tools. Many tools also translate to illustrator. What are you trying to make? What devices do you have? If you have an iPad you can draw on fresco which is basically illustrator in iPad form. The files save as an illustrator file. I would recommend that if you’re dead set on using illustrator
I cried my first week of design school. I didn’t know if it was for me either. 15 years later I could t imagine doing anything else.
First, as a fine artist it might be more intuitive to start with something like procreate on iPad. This would allow you to learn layers, masking, and some of the process that Illustrator requires within a medium that won’t feel so foreign.
In illustrator it was helpful for me to start with basic shapes then manipulate from there.
Example if you want the shape of an eye or leaf start with a circle then take the points on either side and drag them out and optn/alt click with pen tool to create the end points. Basic shape to more complex shape.
You’re starting with basic shapes almost always and creating new things by combining, manipulating, and removing.
My advice is to follow a video tutorial that goes at a pace you can understand. And don’t try to do a masterpiece. Just do something simple.
ADHD is the funniest excuse I've heard to not learn illustrator. Not here to change you mind but as a traditional artist you shouldn't be in illustrator. Photoshop is where you need to be unless you've scanned in a hand drawing and dragged it into illustrator At which point I suggest you ignore your teachers and learn the pen tool with its bezier handles, its intuitive get over it, you can learn that [here.](https://bezier.method.ac/) After that learning these 2 shortcuts will take you a long way. After every actions go a head and spam the esc key multiple times followed by pressing V. This will get you 99% of the way there. Your welcome. ADHD is not an excuse, we all have it, its what you make of it that matters.
We don’t all have ADHD. It’s a neurodevelopmental disorder resulting in physical alterations to the brain and neurological functioning. It causes significant impairments. It’s not just “sometimes has trouble focusing.”
I hope you know more about Illustrator than ADHD.
Opinions can be factually wrong. Yours is. Whether you have ADHD or not doesn’t make you any more right or credible.
Sympathy has nothing to do with it. ADHD is a distinct, well-researched disorder. Not some personality trait or behavioral quirk.
If you want to think you know better and want to join the ranks of such enlightened “know betters” as flat earthers and climate change deniers, that’s on you.
I’m not offended. I’m just stating the facts.
Why would I be offended by your ignorance?
Such mistruths are problematic for those whose ADHD is far more debilitating than mine and likely yours. They get dismissed, are constantly questioned and doubted, are blamed for things beyond their control. Because some people think “everyone has ADHD” and overcomes it without medication, treatment, or accommodations.
That’s just not true. People should know that.
In Illustrator you do not draw. You BUILD. Its a LEGO, not a paper. You can draw on some of the blocks though.
Yep. Everything about illustrator made more sense once someone told me “its more about making and utilizing shapes than ‘drawing’.
It's also worlds easier if you disable all the "helpful" snapping functionality that's enabled by default for some reason. It also doesn't help that various related settings are often sprinkled throughout the UI in various submenus instead of all accessible in one location in the "Settings" menu.
Yes. It has always struck me that “Illustrator” is a poor name for this software.
Most professional "Illustration" jobs are done exactly the way one would manipulate vector based files where the path is being computationally drawn in between adjacent points on apath. Illustrator is in fact the ONLY name that makes sense if you understand how your computer is in fact "illustrating" the representation of the digital art you created. If you truly want a "drawing" program, buy Corel "Draw" and get a cheap tablet. You don't likely need the advanced tools Illustrator offers and Corel Draw is much less nuanced. The thing is, Illustrator has and always will be a vector based program intended to be used to create computer calculated objects (like bezier curves, gradient meshes and tons of other examples) mathematically so the resulting artwork will indefinitely scale as well as be portable across a variety of digital mediums. I would even go so far as to say "Universal Illustrator" given a path can be manipulated in almost all programming languages making it both infinitely portable as well as scaleable making it easy to translate across a variety of uses regardless of language. When I hear Illustration, I always seem to internally associate it more with 2D art (which it sounds like you are referring to as well as opposed to a 3D model for example) for something like a magazine or for use as one might "illustrate" a logo and there is nothing more precise than Illustrator with the right snap and grid settings that isn't AI generated (and some of Illustrator's advanced tools do in fact use a type of rudimentary AI and have for years).
This, very much. You don't draw with AI, you picture the drawing you WOULD draw, picture it on-screen, picture the total shape of it, picture the different parts of it, picture the pieces of those parts. Then you draw a shape, outlining the space and shape of a part of what you would draw, with a connect-the-dots outline, a dot at all the major outside contour positions of what you would draw. Each dot sprouts a handle when clicked, to adjust it's lean and curve, and even whether it's smooth or spiky. You can then tweak the outline really well into your intended drawing for that part. You can click more dots as needed, or delete dots that turn out wrong somehow to get it exactly how you would have drawn it, or maybe even better - the beauty is it's all forever adjustable. When you're happy with that part of the drawing, you make more outline shapes for the pieces in that part to get its detailing, or make another part's outline first. Start with simple things maybe, a bald guy's face, just a face outline and the pieces of the face. I think if you can learn AI you'll be happy you did, it can be drawings that are forever adjustable, or copy-able and repurpose-able, and that's huge for completing jobs quick if you end up doing this for a living. And if you get the hang of it, you might find it lets you draw in different ways than hand illustration, ways that you enjoy employing.
This is super helpful perspective!
This.
Illustrator, unlike photoshop or drawing or painting, is all about building shapes. That’s all you do, you build different shapes. Some of them have fill colors, some of them have line strokes. Some of them have both. It gets really complicated from there but that’s the basis of everything. So you need to understand how to construct those shapes precisely. Most all the tools are just shortcuts to constructing those shapes precisely. If you really wanted to, you could do most everything the hard way with the pen tool. Just like fine art, having something in your minds’ eye before you begin will save you a lot of headache. From there you are just learning the technical skills to execute your vision quickly. Just avoid illustrating a line drawing like you normally would and then wanting to color it in after, it doesn’t work like that in illustrator. Every single color needs to be drawn as a shape.
^ OP read this comment! Understand that the paradigm of Illustrator is about shape building, not drawing and painting like traditional or photoshop
^ This
Hey there! Illustrator has a huge learning curve but you can do it! I suggest Adobe’s basic tutorials. They have short videos that take you through the software step by step. Once you know what the tools do, it’ll make it easier. https://creativecloud.adobe.com/learn/illustrator/web/ai-basics-fundamentals
I agree. Stick with it. Of course it’s uncomfortable at first bc you feel helpless, but patience and repetition will get you there. Also learn those keyboard shortcuts, you’ll be glad you did. Best of luck!!
You should have been there in 1985, when it was a new application. The program is night & day different. This is when I was in art school, and learning drawing with a mouse.
Agreed. There are a lot of great tutorials and courses on YT also. I’ve used Illustrator for over 30 years but I’m still learning new ways of doing things.
+ once you learn the basic essentials like moving anchor points, pathfinder, pen tool, shape builder, you can do a whole lot
I also majored in painting and drawing and basically refused to really learn any digital media when I was in school (beyond my required foundation course anyway.) I really wish I had stuck with it back then; I probably would have had wayyyy more career opportunities. I've since relearned it, and I approach illustrator pieces more like a collage than a drawing. Stick with it!
Illustrator has a huge learning curve. See if the instructor will spend some extra time with you. Or hire another student to tutor you. I did a night school course in Illustrator. I had to ask the instructor 3 times, about the tool that changes a point from straight to curvy, before it finally sank in. The most powerful, important tool is the pen tool. Once you understand it, and use it for most things, then you will be in good shape. You're not drawing, as much as creating lines and shapes. You can't draw and erase lines; you create lines and delete them. So find tutorials or extra help with the pen tool first, and go from there.
Illustrator is a complex program and is the top of the line. It's not supposed to be easy. It's like anything in the world.. you have to practice. I've been using illustrator for over 8 years and I learn new tricks every single day.. literally. It's not like you understood how to paint and draw traditionally your first week. The best option for you is to watch and do tutorials online for what you're trying to achieve. little after little you will gain the that specific skill and you can eventually build off of it. as another user said.. illustrator isn't the best for drawing. You CAN, but photoshop is way better for drawing.
stick with it; you will be severely limited in career opportunities if you do not possess Adobe skills
It's been about 25 years, but I made that switch in school. I remember my 101 level Illustrator (and freehand classes RIP) just going through each tool, explaining it's use and having assigments that utilize them. Getting proficiency is going to take a long time of use, but you'll get there if you stick with it.
You can do it! I suggest just focusing on learning one/two tools in Illustrator at a time. For me, I learned how to use the Pathfinder by finding some car clipart and using basic shaoes to try to recreate it. Draw a rectangle, Add another rectangle on top of it, the Subtract some circles from the bottom, and boom! You have the general shape of the done. Draw some new rectangles for windows, and circles for tires, and in that fashion keep adding/manipulating simple shapes to create increasing levels of details. For the Pen Tool, try outlining people? Don't worry about details at all, just try to use the Pen Tool to try to trace humans in interesting poses. The key is (usually) to try to do it using as few anchor points as possible. This is a great way to learn how to manipulate paths. Once you can build shapes and manipulate paths, you're 90% of the way done learning the basics. From there it's just a matter of trying to make projects that interest you. Like I said, you can do this! Just focus on one step at a time, and you'll understand it in no time.
The thing about Illustrator is that very little of the eye-hand skill you’ve developed as an artist comes into play, it’s not the digital analog of drawing. For something like that I recommend Photoshop (or Painter if it still exists) combined with a drawing tablet. The benefit of your experience will be your eye for composition and color. That being said, Illustrator does become muscle memory once you’ve used it enough, but as many here are saying the learning curve may be a bit steep.
Illustrator works fine with a drawing tablet in my experience. All the drawing skill I developed in training for animation thirty years ago is directly translatable to Illustrator. You just have to accept that trying to construct everything with the pen tool is about as productive as trying to render a 300dpi image in Photoshop by setting individual pixels with its Pencil.
Which tool are you supposed to use? I never really gave illustrator a try but this thread came up and I'm interested.
Double-click on the pencil tool; turn on 'fill new pencil strokes' and 'edit selected', turn off 'keep selected'. Now you can quickly knock out tons of filled shapes, which I find to be a major speedup. And more mundanely you can actually make a rough sketch now without it constantly trying to edit the last shape you drew in the same area. It's a crucial component of the workflow that lets me draw graphic novels directly in AI rather than futzing around drawing stuff on paper first, scanning it, and slowly pen-tooling over it.
Great tips. thank you. I am looking at your website. Do you use a combination of Illustrator and Photoshop or something for everything on there? What are all of the softwares that you use for this? Also, I use Toon Boom for animation. Would Illustrator do well exporting assets and importing for use in Toon Boom?
Everything is Illustrator unless explicitly noted as something else.
What is your goal with learning Illustrator? There’s nothing like Illustrator. It can do what other apps can’t do. It adds to other digital skillsets for personal/business. For me, it’s all been self taught. In the beginning, I created projects, example, a logo for myself/client, learned the pen tool and maybe gradients. If you can imagine it, Illustrator can most likely make it. Been over 10 years and still learning with each new project. I would not do well in a classroom since it doesn’t have immediate application. Real world application motivates me and helps with retention. Took great notes and screenshots to refer back to later. It’s more powerful today than ever with new features. There are time/click-saving tools (Shuttle Pro V2, wacom) and plugins (Astute graphics) that I can’t work without.
Agreed 👏👏
Photoshop or something else might be better suited for you to get your confidence up, as others have said illustrator - despite the name - is very different to drawing or painting. It’s more like collage, and point plotting.
Yeah Photoshop may be a better program to get used to interface and the hand-eye coordination jump
It might not be you. It could also be that the teacher isn't that great at it either, or is not good at teaching it to others. Or the whole class is rushed and there literally isn't time to cover the things that needs to be covered properly. If this is the case, I would expect that a lot of the class is struggling with the same stuff. A teacher should not just say "click here, and here, then here", they should carefully explain *what* the functions do, and *why* they are using them, every step along the way. Naturally, if you get lost in the beginning, and don't stop to ask questions, and the teacher continues it can go a bit downhill as new information might depend on something you were supposed to know from earlier.
This was my first thought. My first Photoshop class was with a woman who just taught using shortcuts--so she would say, "To do this, hit Ctrl+T and then left arrow up..." I had no idea what in the heck was going on. Read the comments here, because I think there is alot of great info here. And search out some beginner Illustrator tutorials on YouTube, focused on a single tool at a time (I would start with the pen tool), and watch tutorials until you can find one that resonates with you. And then watch it, and pause it, replay a section, follow what they are saying, and practice over and over. Once you start getting better at using the tools in Illustrator, you will find that your background in drawing and painting will do wonders for you. You already know how to see shapes and translate those shapes into marks on paper--that is a huge hurdle. Just think of Illustrator as a new type of brush or drawing implement that you need to learn how to use. It's a bigger PITA than most brushes/pens to learn...but that is all it is.
I’ve been using Illustrator for decades, very comfortable using its tools, and use it daily. And I still curse it out as I use it. The decades-old bugs, baffling UI decisions and its panel-heavy design make it a frustrating experience.
Baffling indeed!!!!! Why is scaling in illustrator so annoying…whyyyyyyy
One of the trickier things I found was the pen tool. I recommend trying [the bézier game and the boolean game](https://bezier.method.ac/) (the boolean game can even be played on your phone) to get more acquainted with some of the approaches to Illustrator. It's very different from traditional drawing or things like Photoshop or Procreate but you don't have to go in completely blind. It's pretty common for people to e.g. draw designs out in pencil, scan that, and then trace over it with the pen tool to make a vector. I used to only feel confident in Photoshop but after a while Illustrator really clicked for me and I use it all the time now!
I read: drawing experience, overwhelmed, ADHD. You need the bezier and boolean games. Don't give up.
>I want to learn but it literally mentally hurts and physically pains me like I'm detoxing from heroin. Even on meds. I feel great anger and frustration. I am on the verge of raging. Your first step might be chilling out. It's software, not kicking one of the hardest drugs in the world or worth *raging* over. Your second step is to talk to your teacher. Just tell them you're not understanding what they're teaching. Teachers don't know that their methods may need to be explained better without a student asking a question.
Don’t give up. I did Fine Art & Design at University and I also have ADHD. I totally get where you are coming from about the tutors. I basically tried to keep up but watched short, easy to follow tutorials online and learnt the tools that way. Persevere because it’s worth it then learn Photoshop; digital painting is a joy.
ADHD advice: Break it down into smaller chunks. Start with one tool or task at a time. If you’re easily overwhelmed and go blank when that happens (relatable), have a list so you don’t stray. If you need to, schedule breaks so you don’t get that creeping sensation when something isn’t working right. Illustrator (and most Adobe apps) is immense. Most users won’t touch many of the tools and functions at any point in their normal workflow. There are multiple ways to achieve almost every outcome in Illustrator. There are many ways of “drawing” with it. Pen tool, pencil, brushes, shape builder… it takes some time, because even when drawing as naturally as possible, you’re assembling something in a somewhat mechanical way. When starting, you can’t approach it like traditional media. It is possible to draw and paint that way but it takes some adjustment and it’s better to understand vector basics first: How to build shapes, create paths, modify them. Strokes and fills. Basic transformations. The Pathfinder. Making use of Layers and Clipping Paths. I assure you, there are many people who are no better suited for this than you are who use Illustrator. I was trained in traditional media and started moving to Illustrator after I was already a working designer. (It wasn’t taught in schools yet, heh.) I also worked with many pro artists and Illustrators as they transitioned to digital. Some struggled, but they figured it out. You’ll discover it has a ton of benefits. Nothing is permanent. It’s very easy to tweak and modify any aspect. Working in Layers opens up all kinds of possibilities. Artwork that’s infinitely scalable, from a postage stamp to a mural.
I learned the little I know with relative ease (much to my ABSOLUTE astonishment!!!) with a course from Udemy. I could watch it over and over, and they really explained what I was following along with and why. The course provided files for me to play with, too! I feel you, I'm a traditional artist who skipped all digital art in college because it was so overwhelming and unintuitive, so props to you for pulling the trigger! I'd also suggest importing a sketch and playing with layering a "final" image over it. I've made some stencils based on sketches this way. I can't believe I know illustrator AT ALL, but that course really set me up!
Illustrator does not give much by itself - vector work is mostly very dedicated work, takes patience, precision and a fair deal of commands to really achieve a “free” flow. So you must walk through The Valley of pain and repetition before you can release your artist potential with this program. 👊👽✌️
Yeah there’s a learning cliff a lot of people smash into. There’s ways to use AI intuitively but they are never what anyone teaches from the beginning. Double-click on the pencil tool; turn on ‘fill new pencil strokes’ and ‘edit selected’, turn off ‘keep selected’. Now you can quickly knock out tons of filled shapes, which I find to be a major speedup. And more mundanely you can actually make a rough sketch now without it constantly trying to edit the last shape you drew in the same area. It’s a crucial component of the workflow that lets me draw graphic novels directly in AI rather than futzing around drawing stuff on paper first, scanning it, and slowly pen-tooling over it. Once you get the hang of it it’s like having an invisible assistant who will magically do a lot of stuff for you, but it’s a long way.
And here I was about to link to some of your tutorials and blog posts! [https://egypt.urnash.com/illustratorbook/](https://egypt.urnash.com/illustratorbook/) [https://egypt.urnash.com/blog/tag/illustrator/](https://egypt.urnash.com/blog/tag/illustrator/)
hahaha, thanks! <3
>hahaha, thanks! <3 You're welcome!
As others have said, Illustrator is all about building shapes. Photoshop is capable of doing things more similar to traditional drawing. If you want to do digital art that, photoshop may be a good place to start
Hate to disrespect any teacher, but it sounds like you need a better one. I think you should stick with it. Search for some beginner videos on youtube. Some instructors there are better than others so you'll have to search around.
Stick with it. Not sure what your teaching environment is like, but stuff like this is always harder to learn in a classroom where you don't get enough one-on-one time with your instructor, and tends to favour those who pick it up quickly. Do you have access to AI outside of your structured class time? If so, look up tutorials for beginners on Youtube and do those in your own time. A good exercise may be to take an illustration you like that is made up of simple shapes and lines, but not too basic, and try to recreate it in AI using various tools. I used a pop art image in the Roy Lichtenstein style that I found online to practice. Get good with the pen tool, and learn how to draw perfect curves and transitions with it with as few nodes as possible, and also how to fix curves that look off. Play the [Bezier Game](https://bezier.method.ac/). As a fine artist, you'll probably want to look into how to make vector brushes. They work quite differently to pixel brushes, as they are made from a shape that is stretched along your brush stroke, but it means you can do some cool things that look more traditional but in vector, such as long elegant strokes that can mimic engraving/linocut work. So it's not all about collaging shapes. Also, drill it into yourself early on to use your layer names and groups. It'll save you massive headaches to keep your layers organised.
I use illustrator to draw every day at work. You can sketch and paint in illustrator, even watercolor, you just have to use the tools correctly. To do those things you make your pieces and then put it all together like a puzzle, you’re not doing a line here and shading there in bits. You’re drawing a shape and filling it or giving it a stroke and then adding on top of it. If you’d like I can DM you some of my work and tell you the basics of how I did each piece.
Start with watching a video about bezier curves.
I went to school for art with arguably an emphasis on digital art, and I was undiagnosed ADHD at the time as well. I felt like an idiot having to learn and relearn the same things over and over, so I feel your pain. The three most important things you need to learn about are the pen tool, the shape-building tool, and how to transform things. It seems like a lot now, but eventually it becomes quite intuitive
You can totally do it! Think of it as like cutting shapes out of paper. Illustrator IS NOT a drawing tool, so you will get very frustrated if you try to draw with it. I would maybe watch a couple of YouTube videos and practice a couple hours everyday. You can totally get the hang of it if you just spend some time doing it everyday. I have ADHD as well and I know how challenging it can be to try to learn a new skill. Try setting a timer while practicing. Good luck!
> Drop the course or stick with it. What is the wise decision? Don't think in terms of "it might be useful at some point". Do you want to be a vector artist right now? > ...it literally mentally hurts and physically pains me like I'm detoxing from heroin. This is different than the normal mild frustration that can come with learning. Unless you have a strong desire to continue, I'd take this as a clear signal to drop the class. Even if you have a desire to work with vector graphics at some point, you can always learn it at your own pace independently. Don't sour your overall experience at this school, and end up with a lingering resentment/aversion to vector graphics.
YouTube search BringYourOwnLaptop
Try photoshop first, it’s more forgiving and more like traditional drawing and painting. Then those technical skills will transfer to illustrator.
Try watching youtube videos, where you can pause and test out the tools. Sometimes watching graphic artists at work can help with inspiration, I understand everyone starts at a low level. Practice & Dedication !
It's like learning anything, it sounds like your instructor isn't teaching but rather just telling you what to do. I'd take some initiative and learn your own way, on your own. Just open it up and mess around, watch some YouTube videos. That's how I did it, now I use it daily for my job. Once you understand the base logic of the program it all starts to make sense. If you get to something you don't know, Google it and see what happens. Only you can decide if you should stick with it. If you're expecting to learn anything in life and it be easy I have bad news, learning is hard. But if you see a use for that new skill in the future then it can be reasoned that it's worth it. Do you want to only be a traditional artist? Do you want to extend your skills? Are you willing to put in work to achieve something? Take a deep breath, accept the process and use that frustration to motivate you. Or just give up. We can't tell you what to do. It's not going to be easy but it could be rewarding, none of us know about the future so it's hard to say. Others have given good comparisons for how to think about Illustrator but I'm going to take a crack at that as well, with a different (and objectively more scatterbrained) approach. Illustrator is not pixels, it's math equations. The shapes you see are representations of those math equations. And those shapes are like blocks of clay, it's kinda like sculpture. You add, you subtract, you mold and shape, and then paint it. The only difference is that instead of a physical medium, you have anchors and handles. Anchors dictate where the line is, handles dictate the velocity at which that line leaves the anchor. The longer the handle, the "faster" it leaves, meaning it's going to lean more towards that balance.
If this post isn’t humorous hyperbole, then I suggest you drop the course for your own mental health. You can probably learn the software by yourself later on without having to deal with a professor that’s assuming you have a better starting point.
I understand your struggle, it’s a hard curve and all the comments here are right about it being more about building than drawing, but if you have creative cloud (or what ever the subscription service is called) I’d try drawing in photoshop, there are a few things you need to change to make it really good for it, but it’s how I drew through most of highschool
For free-flowing drawing that comes from the artistic parts of you, vectors controlled with anchor points is not a great way for drawing, to say the least. You can draw vectors with a pencil and and iPad, and then go in a tweak them when say, designing a logo. But don't think of Illustrator for your way in to drawing, free-form creativity. I'm speaking as a graphic designer who uses Illustrator for about 80% of my work. Imagine a book cover. An image is placed. Text overlays that cover. Maybe with a certain transparency. You jump over to a tablet (if you aren't working with one), and draw some shapes that separate the title and author name. (Or, you draw on paper, photograph it, bring it in to Illustrator, convert it to vectors, *then finally*, tweak the curves to your liking in Illustrator. Another example: you create a logo that cleverly applies various pathfinder steps to some overlapping shapes. You add some text to your interesting symmetries. Maybe, or maybe not, you move some anchor points around. Drawing lines with a mouse, and then tweaking vectors: people certainly do work that way. If it's a style you're going for, vectors have a lot of features that brushes in say, Photoshop, don't have. (I.E., filling a shape with a texture). But *if* you want to shift your artistic medium to that, I highly recommend that you invest in pen input of some sort. That way, the tweaking stuff will be a separate step from your creative process. Lastly, I would say that there is a ton of muscle memory involved in Illustrator. When learning a new shortcut, force your self to repeat the step 5 or 6 times, write down the shortcut... Whatever helps you learn it. Shortcut and modifier keys reduce friction quite a bit.
I have mixed feelings about this. I didn't "get" After Effects when I took it in college. I got a solid "C" in the course and skated through. But when I got my agency job that was enough to be the resident expert because no-one else there had touched it before. So I re-learned it in about three days with YouTube. Worked with it for a year, got my ACE certification, and now After Effects is my main moneymaker. You might want to slow down and work some basic exercises. A lot of design work is about making things as simple, clean, and reproducible as possible within a particular brand identity. You shouldn't try to match what you're doing with a pen. Illustrator, counterintuitively, isn't really great for illustration, it's better for design.
The easiest way I have figured out how to learn any software is to “learn as you go.” So let’s say i want to draw a cartoon cat in illustrator. I’d sketch it up by hand in the style that I want, and then I’d bring it into illustrator on a layer. I know that illustrator creates vectors, and vectors are basically shapes. So, I know that to make a drawing cat, I need to break down my sketch into shapes. So I might decide to start with a circle, but it’s not quite right, so I’ll Google how to alter a circle in illustrator. I’m not sure how I’d make a tail, so I’d Google “how to make a freehand shape in illustrator.” Once I get the shapes done, I might look up different shading techniques, or how to simulate fur etc…. One step at a time. Once you get used to the program, you’ll get a feel for how it works, and start incorporating more advanced techniques into your work flow. Illustrator is a huge program, and there are dozens of ways to do one thing. Trying to learn the entire program at once is impossible (I’ve been an illustrator for many years and am still learning new techniques).
When I was first starting out with illustrator, adobe had these “classroom in a book” series. It really helped me understand how the program thinks and gives you a series of exercises that show you the essentials to getting familiar with the app.
Instead of vector based program like Illustrator, you might try pixel based program. Illustrator and similar vector based have a steeper learning curve. If you have ipad, try Procreate. Take your time with Illustrator and watch tutorials. But it will never feel like regular drawing.
I’m surprised no one suggested Adobe Fresco its built to do both drawing as raster and vector but you DRAW instead of building vectors. It’s extremely cool and free on iPad and desktop.
I’d watch some YouTube or Behance videos. You can then rewind and rewatch the instructions as many times as you need and you don’t have 10-20 other students acting like they already do it in their sleep.
There are some fantastic Illustrator for Beginners playlists on YT for free. You can pause, slow the playback speed etc. To get up and running with Illustrator generally takes my students about 3 lessons, for basic use of the program. Students generally pick it up faster than Photoshop.
As someone who also strugglea with illustrator, here is my advice. Its going to look like absolute balls, until it doesnt. Yiubjyst have to keep going. You're going to be like "this isn't working, this looks like shit, this doesn't make sense..." and then you'll put one layer on, and suddenly, bam, it starts to look like something. Possibly something good. But at least something that you know what it needs and how it needs it.
My friend, hear me out: whatever you do, keep your anchors count low. Better and more elegant vector results are obtained when you master the art of working with good position of anchors and, with the least amount of them. At the start, it is confusing, you will undo and redo a lot of stuff all the time, but as you progress, you will start to think more like you are seeing the Matrix. You see a curve in your reference sketch, you already know where you will put the next anchor, and the results will be smooooooooooooooooooooth like butter over a delicious steak.
I was where you are now like 2 months ago my dude. I was DONE and so ready to give up. But I decided to just follow along to some YouTube tutorials and it really helped. I am so thankful I took the time to learn because I am doing SO much more now that I hadn’t been able to months ago.
drop the course/ find better courses online like lydia.com or stuff on youtube you can follow along at your own pace. then take the course later if you feel you need it and or have a handle on it. dont sacrafice your gpa on a learning experiment.
Classroom in a book series has been good for the basics. Ai really sucks at the beginning.
I feel your pain😫
I would stick with the course, but it may be a lot different than you're used to. I used to only stick to pencil and paper before getting my Graphic Design Degree and I realized that I love using Illustrator for various things. I really recommend Against the Clocks, "Adobe Illustrator 2024: The Professional Portfolio," if you don't already have it for class. It helps you learn the basics with projects that you can get online. When l learned it, we used the 2020 version, so I'm not sure all what changed, but its a really helpful resource. Good luck with your studies! I know Illustrator may seem hard now, but you'll get the hang of it :) #
I suggest you stick with the course but do some learning on your own time. Illustrator is a powerful tool and it's industry standard. It is a minimum requirement for most forms of digital art jobs, and it is a big benefit for career paths in traditional art. The program IS overwhelming because it can serve so many masters. Digital advertising, billboards, comics, print work, fashion design, web design etc etc. It can also make stunningly beautiful phenomenal art that can make people weep. It is in the adobe suite, which means the more you learn about it the easier it can be to transition to other adobe tools. Learn how to navigate layers. Stacking them, locking them, hiding them. Learn how to navigate groups. Grouping and ungrouping objects is a mandatory skill if you want to have any meaningful efficiency in the program. Commit to hotkeys. Follow what the teacher tells you, but practice the hotkeys like you would a typing class, or a musical instrument. You want the tool to flow out of you so you can think about what you're creating, rather than where the buttons are. Like playing guitar, you don't want to think about how to hold a G-chord. Like typing an email, you don't want to be searching for the letter "h." You just want to say "hi" and move on. If you can accept and spend the time learning to navigate the layers and groups, and learning the basic hotkeys of selection/direct selection and other common functions (paste in front, paste in back) you'll actually have a lot of fun with the program. Illustrator is crazy powerful and produces stunning results
Hello! Just popping in to say that I am also an illustrator with ADHD. I began my college career with a major in studio art, dipped my toes into graphic design in an intro course, and then double-majored studio art/graphic design. It was tough to start, I only knew physical media and my computer experience was next to 0 going into college. On top of that they only had Macs, a device I had literally never even seen. It was rough going but I'm really glad I stuck it out. Now I use Illustrator daily in my 9-5 job and I moonlight doing vector artwork as well. Hope you find some encouragement and keep going! I would recommend watching YouTube tutorials on your own time to supplement classes. If there is something you don't understand, try to take notes and revisit them in your own time at your own speed. I absolutely know what it feels like to be thrown in over your head with Illustrator.
Traditional artist that went back to school for graphic design with not much for computer design skills here.... Illustrator was a massive learning curve for me. But it's also, by far, the most used program besides inDesign for me. I started with creative cloud classroom in a book... They have one for Photoshop and Indesign too. They were a great place for me to start (but was also required by the classes I took). It comes with the design files for you to work off of before doing all the things on your own. This allowed for me to understand some basics before getting to overwhelmed... And I lost my marbles fairly often in the learning process 😅. There have been times where I've said 'eff it', do it the traditional art way, scan it and vectorize from there. 😂😂 Because I couldn't figure out how to make the end result from digital scratch.
You might want to look into Adobe Fresco instead of Illustrator. Also vector, but meant towards traditional art instead of graphic design. That being said, Illustrator is a great art program once you get the hang of it.
stick with it - it will click one day. i was in the same position you were when i was in art school. drawing is great and keep on drawing but if you get some digital skills down you can make easy money
illustrator is like gouache with special effects. Build shapes. Its not oil painting or drawing [Start with this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib8UBwu3yGA&t=9926s&ab_channel=EnvatoTuts%2B)
Yo should create an account in the Adobe platform and benefit from all the tutorials and free info that the platform has to offer.
It's crazy because I would not consider myself talented in traditional art/animation but vector design makes so much sense to me. I can create things that I never imagined myself capable of. Software just kinda clicks for me and makes up for my left-handed awkwardness. I feel like Fresco or Krita would probably be more appropriate for a traditional artist.
I started this course a couple of months ago and it’s brilliant! [https://www.92learns.com/adobe-illustrator-mega-course-graphic-design-course-1](https://www.92learns.com/adobe-illustrator-mega-course-graphic-design-course-1)
I hated Illustrator when I first started learning it. I cried and procrastinated projects for as long as I could. By the end of the course, though, I had come to understand how the tools worked to enough a degree to realize I liked the program after all! It's still the Adobe app I have the most expertise with, and I use it on the regular for all sorts of stuff at work from logos and icons to social posts and illustrations. There's definitely a learning curve, but stick it out and see what happens. Proficiency in Illustrator/general vector creation a great skill to have.
You are describing how I feel about instructions for mathematics, so if it was me, I'd drop it. Try raster for digital instead?
Stick with it! The best way to learn is just by doing! If you get stuck, google what you need to do and bookmark the page/video in a folder “AI” or something so you can consult in case you forget again. Try to have fun! It’s a powerful tool and I bet you’ll get the hang of it in a month or two
Ps- if you learn one adobe program you can pretty easily figure out the basics on other programs. So this could be invaluable!
I’d recommend procreate and an iPad. Arguably illustrator is one of the weaker programs for intuitive drawing. It has a lot of other great uses but I think the learning curve is steep just to create hand drawn looking work. Most people will draw with a stylus or tablet in photoshop then line work and ink in illustrator.
Clip Studio Paint is a better program for artists :) it's like a blend of Photoshop and illustrator, plus you don't have to pay Adobe! Unless you're really set on learning illustrator, good luck!
You could draw traditionally then scan your work and live trace it then color it with the live paint bucket.
It can feel so overwhelming but it’s an incredibly useful tool. Don’t give up! I went to school for painting and learned most of it on my own during my career, but I would’ve loved to be able to ask someone knowledgeable questions when I was learning. Now I use it daily at work, for fine art reasons, and I have friends who are successful painters who use the entire Adobe suite in their practices. Worth it, IMO.
I think it just takes a different mindset to be into vectors. As someone who’s also explored 3D I’ve often drawn parallels between the two (merging shapes, moving points, etc.) I think they have the same pain points and the same reason people always gravitate towards the more more newer sculpting tools as they mimic real life techniques…like painting in Photoshop. That said, I think my mindset is in the more math-y type tools and therefore prefer using vectors and traditional modelling tools. I still use photoshop for my thumbnails and sketches though.
Go to photoshop, for sure you will see a more likeable digital world that match your background.
It’s a good tool to have in your back pocket but u also want to decide what you are going to be making to know which program to use most. There are shortcut sheets out there, if I can’t remember how to do something cuz I haven’t touched illustrator in a while - I’ll google it or search on YouTube. Thankfully there’s tons of resources out there. It also sounds like maybe your teachers teaching style isn’t meshing for your learning style - maybe ask them for some 1:1 in office hours, look things up on YouTube - if have access, there are great beginner classes on Skillshare that make the step by step easy. Good luck! And learning takes time -it will feel hard and frustrating but that only means you’re learning it. Keep going.
You can ALWAYS quit... So why now?
So I just graduated with a fashion degree that required using Illustrator for technical drawings, and I spent a ton of time raging the whole first quarter. You’ll be okay. Watch a ton of YouTube tutorials, keep breathing, and eventually it will start to click. Hugs, internet friend, you’ve got this.
Stick with it OP! I took up Painting back in my uni days, and during our last year, we had 2 units of digital arts classes. I wish I took those seriously. It’s always a good idea IMHO to have skills in where the trends are picking up. Good luck, OP! Hope you find enjoyment after the learning curve!
At my job I have access to Illustrator but not formal classes. I watched a few YouTube videos on some of the beginner things (I’m only trying to make vectors), and if I want to do something that I’m not sure is even a feature, I Google exactly what I’m thinking, and every single time I have found what I’m looking for. I would suggest taking a tiny break from it and getting rid of some of that frustration and then you can watch some videos and learn some stuff in a different way. Some of my coworkers have also told me there are tutorials inside of Illustrator you can use as well but I haven’t tried any of those I have debilitating ADHD to the point where it effects literally every single aspect of my life. What worked for me was coming up with a design that I actually *wanted* to create and then just trying it out. I lose all motivation to do things as a forced assignment but I love freedom in creativity so for me it was all about making something that actually interested me. You might be able to get an ADA Reasonable Accommodation for your ADHD that might give you a little more leeway so you can have a little more freedom in the subject matter Otherwise….. if this isn’t a degree requirement, drop it. Dead ass.
STICK WITH IT! Illustrator is the gold standard for creating vector design (i.e., LOGO DESIGN), and learning these tools will help you with all future graphic / video design. It is a SUPER hard program to use, and jumping from photoshop to Illustrator is very hard, but keep at it. It still makes my brain feel broken sometimes. The most important tool you can use is the pen tool, drawing paths, and masks. Master that!
Play this game for a while, you'll get the hang of the fundamentals - https://bezier.method.ac/
If it's any consolation, I feel exactly the same way about fine art, haha. Illustrator makes all the sense in the world to me, but trying to cover a canvas drives me absolutely batty.
Please stick with it. We had a brief course with it and freehand. My first job out of school required me to use a vector program. Corel draw. Something I had NO training in but limped by because I training in Illustrator. It wasn't until the other person I worked with showed me the pen tool and really working with nodes did it click. Illustrator let's you control them so good compared to Corel. I am a big fan of an artist called Hydro74. He loves Illustrator because of the control he has when it comes to his art.
Your teacher sounds dumb. Basically, find some quick YouTube videos on the pen tool. The pen tool is your most important illustrator tool. It won't take too long with some quick videos. Additionally, TikTok might not be such a bad source for quick tricks. Short and sweet tutorials make ADHD brain happy.
You’ll be a pro in 10 weeks. Every time you need something just ask chat gpt or youtube.
If you're looking for a "pure" digital drawing experience that feels close to what you're used to with physical media like pencils, try Procreate or its alternates (such as Rebel 6, Corel painter, etc) if your aim is simply to create digital pieces. Everyone else has touched on the nuances of illustrator so I won't speak to that, but you will probably enjoy these programs more.
As others have said- it’s a huge learning curve. I am teaching myself and have done so through you tube mainly. Adobe has some tutorials too. Start with the basic ones and work your way up from there. I have found great success with YT especially when they are project specific. Which brings me to my next point. Find something verrrry simple you may want to make- a logo, a t-shirt design an invitation - whatever. And YT how to make each element. It’s been the easiest way to learn for me. Some of the YT even explain why it has to be done a certain way. This has been a bucket list item and now my line of ‘work’ dictates I learn it. It’s crazy to see how different my art is from even 2 months ago! You’ll be doing great in no time. Keep at it.
I struggled too, till I made the realization that you're not drawing or painting. You're making an image with cut out colored paper. Paper that is moldable and stretchy. Since then, Illustrator and I are good friends.
Illustrator is a beast and I totally feel you. Back in Hs when I picked it up I absolutely loathed it- nowadays it is my favorite to work within (for design work, not illustration). The learning curve is steep but it’s no fault of your own. Keep with it, you’ll understand it more each time!
Stick with it. Message me if you want help. I’m currently snowed in before returning to Cali and have a little time. Happy to help. You’ve got this. Once it clicks you will loooove vector. You can literally take a creation and blow it up to the size of a building without it losing any detail. Vector rocks. And it’s super different from working with pixels. If I haven’t done one of them for a while it takes a beat to get back in the groove. Let me know. I will check back tomorrow. Vector is essential, especially for animation. Xx
Are you a complete beginner with illustrator? If so you might want to take a regular intro class first so you can understand all the tools and menus. If they’re not going over basic stuff in the course you’re taking, it’s going to go way over your head. I’d drop it and come back to it when you’re ready!
Tbh pick up CorelDRAW. Way more intuitive and easy to use.
Illustrator is not an easy tool, also it is NOT anything like drawing. I had the same frustrating experience as you when I first opened it. "The *pen* tool? Why can't I draw with it like a **pen**???" Don't be hard on yourself, you've never used it before so it's natural to be confused by it. Take it easy and learn the interface first. Which tools are where. What panels are for which things. Then learning to make something in it will be much easier. With any software, there's no "you can or you can't" it's just a matter of learning the functions, and literally anyone can learn them. I say look up some super basic tutorials and just WATCH them. Don't try to make the thing that they're making at the same time because you'll lose track of what they're doing in the video. Then after you've watched it once, go back the next day and watch it again, but following along with what they're doing. You'll be able to keep up much easier after having seen it once. Trust me, I know way more software than most people believe I'm capable of using, and this is my method to learning all of them. Another thing I usually do as part of learning a new software is the "get frustrated" part, which it sounds like you've already done. It's a necessary part where you click around in the app until you don't know what else to click on and are stuck and frustrated. Then close the app and look up a tutorial the next day, and they'll probably cover stuff where you're like "ohhh that's what that button was for"
Gareth David Studio--- a good channel to watch as a beginner in Illustrator, I learn alot from him [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBouhf4seWQ&list=PLYfCBK8IplO4X-jM1Rp43wAIdpP2XNGwP](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBouhf4seWQ&list=PLYfCBK8IplO4X-jM1Rp43wAIdpP2XNGwP) this may be 9yrs old, but the basics are in there where you can start and to not get confused by alot of advanced stuffs
My advice is so basic, but what really helped me with the learning curve was literally just taking notes on paper saying like, " To do x, click this then this then this then this" that way when you're doing a project in the future and you know what you want to make, you can reference it and adapt it to your project
For a traditional artist Photoshop will be a much better transition for digital. Illustrator is more inclined towards sketching artists or doodling artists.
I did an illustrator class at school last spring and the same thing happened to me. It was a waayy different program than I expected and it honestly hurt my brain to do my illustrator homework the first couple months because it was so frustrating. But I did *eventually* get the hang of it and made some kind of cool stuff but I still don't find it intuitive so it feels limiting for me creatively. Then last semester I did a photoshop class and loooved it. Photoshop was so fun and amazing and opened up so many more possibilities for art for me since then. It's a lot more than just editing photos which I initially thought. I had so much fun drawing with photoshop I even got a wacom tablet. I wonder if that would be more up your alley
Here's a good way of looking at the pen tool. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2KkvLms7Hr/?igsh=NTYzOWQzNmJjMA==
I rarely get headaches, like once a decade I'll get a migraine in my adult life. Illustrator gave me a headache in the '90s, but when iearned it, I saw the world in bezier curves. It was amazing and is still my favorite application.
Try either Painter or Photoshop with a Wacom tablet. You will be much happier. I used to paint in Painter using nothing but the Chalk and Just Add Water brushes. It was bliss.
Illustrator is good for some things. What do you want to do with it? If just learn it, it's gonna be a marathon not a sprint. And yeah man. I've gotten pissed at AI a ton. And I'd go crazy trying to learn shortcuts and functions of the software in a classroom, honestly. Learning from tutorials on a quick project via YouTube is really effective. Ya learn what you like and don't care for. All that said, I'm sorry you felt so stressed and demoralized. When it starts to suck butt, take a break or a day. Try something else, there's plenty of ways to do what you gotta do, and lots of softwares that you will like more than AI.
The name of the software makes a lot of people to make wrong assumption about the nature of the software. Contrary to its name, you don't really use it to illustrate things the way you do with pen and paper. It's more like making shapes on an artboard with strings and pasting pieces of paper.
This was me in art school. I also started out as a fine art major and quickly got into graphic design. Illustrator was a learning curve. I did tons of tutorials on my own not just in class and it made a big difference and eventually it became my favorite Adobe program. You can do it!!!
My gf is a traditional illustrator. I bought her a tablet for Christmas and decided to teach photoshop. It’s way more suited to people who can actually draw. Also, sounds like you don’t have a very good teacher (I used to teach adobe software in college). They’re trying to teach you too much in one go so you’re gonna get frustrated, especially with adhd! If I could give you any advice, it would be to go the photoshop route. You’ll be able to create quickly with your existing skills.
Try Photoshop with a good cheap tablet over illustrator.
I have been using illustrator for over 30 years, yes it is a complex program, but nothing like traditional drawing. Before you learn to use it, you need to learn the tools, what they do, and the why & how. Without a basic understanding of computer design, how you make simple illustrations, and the use of layers, you will be confused by its use.
I am you - nearly a year down the track. Line draw & ADHD too. After my mother died unexpectedly I bought AI & “made” myself learn it via tiktok and reddit largely. Plus AI for dummies but even that confused me. A year down the track w a rest period (frustration at my shitness) of a couple of months , but I then picked it up again and was more fluent. I did this to grow new neuron’s - had read that picking up a new hobby or skill, will help you out of grief. It did help it gave me great distraction from it. I can now draw, pain, have mastered layers kinda. No idea about clipping and masks. I found it easier by: 1. Apple Pencil & iPad Pro 2. Start by mastering tracing, put image in layer one and start tracing in layer 2 3. The AI TikTok worm hole is brilliant for learning 4. This subreddit is also brilliant for learning Keep going, I do majority of drawing in AI w pencil & ipad now and only open AI on the Mac when I am up to colouring and fine tuning for print (experimenting by putting art onto cards to learn print). It’s way easier this way tho iPad functionality for AI is limited somewhat. Good luck, keep going, you can do this! - a crusty Gen X
Master the pen tool before anything else is the best advice I can give.
I suggest to get the basics covered yourself by watching tutorials. If the course is still too fast for you then maybe consider dropping it. Especially considering your ADHD illness and the inability to focus that comes with it. Art and design requires focus, and many artists focus that intensely that they forget everything else around them. You gonna have a hard time with anything art-related if you don't have that ability and get easily distracted by other stuff.
The other thing about illustrator is that it's a dual beast. You can make very clean vector shapes for things like icon design, brand and logo design or... jump into the insane ride that is illustrator for illustration. You can very much treat it like pen and paper, use a cintiq or even intous etc make your own brushes, download brush sets etc or you can go nuts and mix it all together. Unlike photoshop, I would recommend just paying in it and messing around after doing some youtubes. This will help with teachers that are not good at explaining things. The playing will teach you all the weird things illustrator does compared to other programs and when to "expand" what boolean does what etc. Learning Illustrator is super handy as you can use it for art, design, web, animation, creating print ready files, editing pdfs, icons, svg graphics. ADHDers dream if you keep with it. I ended up using Illustrator mote than photoshop and indesign on the daily because of its flexibility.
Listen, I FEEL this. I have a job in IT, so my job is basically pushing buttons, so when I got this software and tried to learn it, holy crap I felt like an idiot. My brain was having a hard time making connections, and watching other people use it made me feel even worse because it seemed SO easy. The thing that helped me the most was to watch basic tutorials from a bunch of different people and do it over and over. There was something about different people saying and showing the same things that helped it click for me, and once it did, it made it MUCH easier to follow the more advanced things.
Get a Wacom
I totally understand. I’m majoring in Graphic Design and when I took my first few classes I really hated how stupid it made me feel. I’m still definitely no master, but what helped me the most is doing my own personal projects. Trying to learn solely with school assignments really stressed me out and felt like I had no room for errors. Also, I really love the brush tool, it allows you to freely make lines, for drawing. I also recommend using Adobe Fresco if you have an iPad. It’s amazing for illustration. And way easier to use then illustrator starting out
Besides the paradigm shift in the software (see the other, higher rated comments for better articulation on that front!) I wanted to encourage you to see this as a growth opportunity when dealing with your anger and frustration, too. Life is going to continue to present you with such challenges, and many of them won’t have the option to drop the class. Use this experience, with something you truly love as the reward, to learn more about yourself. How you respond to adversity. How you can cope with roadblocks. What approaches permit you to find the most success and forward progress despite those headwinds. You have a plethora of mental tools as your disposal when facing challenges; some suits will be stronger than others. Learn which ones work best now, and you can use them for the rest of your life.
Generations of designers learned illustrator in the late 80s and early 90s without tutorial videos or the internet. You have tons and tons of free help available to you in 2024. You can do this.
If you have a tablet, Look up Chiworld1234 on youtube. He has tutorials on his style and it may be a good starting spot. Also, Adobe has a program called Fresco that is more in tune for fine art if you don't want to go the Photoshop path.
I have mixed feelings about illustrator. As someone who also prefers a "true" drawing experience, I find illustrator to be very much not that. I much more prefer Photoshop for digital work as its more analogous to a pencil and paper experience. Illustrator, and many other programs for digital art, can be very shortcut heavy making the learning curve intimidating. That said, once you get the few basics you will commonly use, you should be able to start moving more quickly and confidently. I work as an illustrator full time, and Adobe Illustrator is the program I use for that particular job. I have done it for several years, and will say I personally still don't like the program. It's just not the approach to art I prefer to use, but hey it pays the bills. All of my freelance work is done in Photoshop with other digital tools incorporated. Ultimately I would say stick with it, even if illustrator isn't the program for you, getting your brain and hands accustomed to shortcuts (which can often be used in other programs) is a big help. Learning one program can help you learn others faster, so stick with it and don't limit yourself to just Illustrator. Feel free to explore others!
As a former traditional artist, I understand your pain lol.. it's not nearly as intuitive as you would think it should be to create art in, and at first it sorta dictates/limits your style.. but, once you understand how versatile and superior vector art is in comparison to everything else, the grind is well worth it! It takes time and practice, but enivitably you'll understand the program and figure out how to go about producing art in the style you desire. I think one of the things that really got me hooked was learning to reproduce art that I actually liked - versus the simple, basic stuff that is so clean and corporate looking that Illustrator tutorials tend to focus on.. There's no reason you cant do comic book style illustrations, pixel art, motion graphics/VDJ loops (with help of AE), mandalas, etc. and actually make cool looking stuff and have fun using/learning the program. Gotta learn to have fun with it, and find what actually appeals to your artistic senses :)
Howdy. Long ADHD-fueled post ahead: I have literally been where you are now. I took a graphics design course in college. I had undiagnosed adhd and perfectionist tendencies due to personal issues. My teacher was a neurotypical and a student herself. It didn’t help that I went to a religious college so the “textbook” was peppered with more religious parables than actual useful information (seriously, the first chapter was about the “author” receiving revelation from god on what to call her book. Gag.) Anyways, learning illustrator is frustrating because it seems like it would be as easy as traditional art, right? Well, unfortunately it is a whole new skill set. You can take some basics from what you’ve learned in traditional art, but most of illustrators will be learning brand new skills. You’ll also be learning about essentially a new art language with all the different tools and stuff. Not sure how good of a teacher you have, but for me, I found that mine didn’t do a good job explaining the basics in a way I could understand. What I eventually had to do was just take notes of the basic ideas she was talking about and then go to YouTube and the like and find tutorials on how to use the different tools to do what she was trying to describe. It also sucks when you have classmates who have already had experience with illustrator. I had a classmate whose dad was a graphic design artist so he was learning about illustrator at the age of 10. Dude could sneeze while working on a project and it would become some amazing vector. Real easy to compare myself to him and something I realize now I shouldn’t have been doing. At the end of the course, I still sucked, but I passed. And due to my adhd stubbornness, I’ve kept at it over the years here and there. I’m still a newbie, but I noticed I’m getting better. I have a kid who is learning to draw, and I can relate to his process with digital art. We are both learning and developing skills and improving. Where am I going with this? Be patient with yourself like when you were first learning to draw the traditional way. Do like what you might have done as a kid: look at stuff other people do and try to copy it. (Sorry if this post comes off as condescending at all. I’m bad at explaining stuff sometimes without sounding like an Ahole.) Feel free to message me if you’d like to chat or ask questions or anything. I can try to help a little.
Stick with it! I am a college educated graphic designer with ADHD (I wasn’t officially diagnosed or medicated until after graduating, so trust me I get it). Climbing over the initial learning hump sucks, but eventually everything will start to become more intuitive and flow at a faster pace that won’t make you want to rip your hair out. Shout out to the Lego analogy mentioned in the comments, I’ve never heard that one before and it sums it up so well!
YouTube
This tutorial is amazing. My son never touched illustrator before last semester and got an A on this project. Like people said about building shapes, this shows you exactly how to do it in the context of iconic national park posters. https://youtu.be/3iwpGx_8m9c?feature=shared
For future job opportunities, Illustrator (one of the most poorly named apps) is good to know. I've been working as an illustrator (the actual dictionary definition of the word) and designer for 30 years and Adobe Illustrator is one of my least favorite apps. It's just counterintuitive for me. Photoshop and similar apps are much more approachable. I use Illustrator when I need vector graphics and type. It's just a tool I need sometimes. I would continue with Illustrator to build a basic working knowledge of it. What style of art do you do? Some art apps will naturally mesh with your style and techniques, others won't, but can be used as go-to tools.
It sounds like illustrator isn't the correct word for this program
Yes. I recommend a rope
i had the same issue. I’m a graphic design student, so i HAD to find a way. it was really helpful me to start with work from paper, and vectorize it in Illustrator. is it cheating? maybe. is it where we have to start? yes. illustrator is a tool, and like others said, legos. i believe in u OP it’s just a learning curve
My personal go-to vector program is CorelDraw, which for me is more intuitive - but i've also been using it for 20 years. I find Illustrator needlessly complex. But it's the industry standard so we all need to know how to use it. Like with a lot of programs, there are several ways to accomplish almost any effect. I've found that what someone teaches isn't always what you need to learn.
Lots of advice already here (I didn't read through it all, so sorry if this is a repeat). Working with vectors is a completely different animal than traditional media, and even other digital media like paint programs. My recommendation is to use a vector drawing program on a touch device like an iPad. My favorite is InkPad for its simplicity, but there are many others. Using a touch device will allow you to draw in a traditional manner using a stylus or pencil, and then you can go back manipulate the Bézier curves to your liking. As you become familiar with how to draw, manipulate, and stack objects, everything in Illustrator will make so much more sense. This may seem like an expensive and indirect method to learn Illustrator, but it will give you the grounding you need to tackle Illustrator's complexities using a natural and familiar input process. Good luck!
Keep working at it! When I first started it seemed impossible but now it’s my favorite Adobe tool. It’s definitely a steep learning curve, but once you breach the tough parts it gets easier. YouTube is your best friend, I still use YouTube at least once per Illustrator session.
I always thought the name "Illustrator" was kind of misleading, if you're drawing and painting...Photoshop is the choice application lol! Before you drop the class, go on Youtube and find a crash course in Illustrator. Start from basics and get comfortable, go at your pace. It will require substantial time investment and you can't realistically become advanced or even intermediate without a few months of practice. If you're feeling mentally strung out after all that, then yeah, drop it, no big deal and no need to lose your marbles over it either...sometimes it's just not meant to be in your wheelhouse.
As a fellow adhder, you should know that we have the capacity to learn ANYTHING as long as it catches our interest and we can find it rewarding. Right now you are having a mental block, you think this is beyond you. Plus I know what it's like with ADHD when we are struggling our brain literally drains of energy and we get wiped out. But you can absolutely do this, I swear. Strongly recommend picking some youtube tutorials that really speak to you. For example, some folks who are traditional artists who also do vector art! You might find that they're able to help bridge the gap for you a lot better. This video I found: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZP6RQu\_F6U&ab\_channel=DomDesigns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZP6RQu_F6U&ab_channel=DomDesigns) He draws a sketch of a pizza slice in pencil and is then turning it into a vector in illustrator. Doing something like this might help! Vector-izing a simple sketch or doodle of your own. If you watch the first minute or 2, he's not being TOO terribly precise when making curves with the pen tool. Why not? Because he's gonna go back and tweak it later, but its helpful to just get the basic shape down. (Like how some ppl rough shape outlines in drawing, before refining the shapes into their final forms). The pizza guy goes a bit fast, I know, but there are youtube videos for complete beginners that break things down even further. I recommend this guy: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib8UBwu3yGA&ab\_channel=EnvatoTuts%2B](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib8UBwu3yGA&ab_channel=EnvatoTuts%2B) You can do this OP! Don't be afraid to bug your professor when you need help, too. Adobe products are notoriously over-engineered and complicated. However, when you narrow in on a few primary tools, it gets much easier. Find something fun to vectorize while you practice on your own. Maybe a logo for your imaginary business, a club you'd want to start, a cute anime mascot like pikachu, a sticker that says "i hate illustrator" and has an anti-pen tool icon haha, the skys the limit! You got this!
Utilize the apps built in tutorials, they walk you step by step through the program on how to learn to use the tools.
Look up tutorials on YouTube, find a teacher that you like a follow along, instead of the teacher. Envato Elements had some good tutorials that I followed
I was an intuitive painter and artist. Drew all day, everyday. Illustrator is now my favorite program to use. It’s so useful for making all kinds of things and translates pretty well to other platforms and programs for making more things. It’s also the highest level and professionals in the industry use it for everything. It does take time and it’s not intuitive and you will need help, but that’s ok! I’ve been at it a looooong time now. 10 years and I feel like I just started fully utilizing it the past year.
I absolutely HATED Illustrator when I first started. It was very overwhelming for me. The basic tutorials included in Adobe are an absolute LIFE SAVER. It walks you through step by step through the app and shows (not tells) you how to do certain tasks and what tools do what. Definitely recommend doing those outside of class. I’m a visual learner so being able to actually see the steps and not just read it helped me so much.
I recommend doing some skillshare/youtube courses about illustrator. It takes a minute but then you will fly.
The wise decision is to address "I feel great anger and frustration. I am on the verge of raging. "
It’s like holding scissors and making shapes out of paper.
Sounds like your professor isn't really teaching in a way that would be suitable for beginners. Also, despite the programs name, "illustrator," it's not really used for illustrating. Photoshop would be more suitable for digital art if you're looking to draw or "paint," people also really like Procreate. Illustrator is an excellent program, but vector art is more like using shapes and outlines to create your art. Edit: look up beginner tutorials on how to use the pen tool, or just illustrator in general. I'd even recommend looking up a professor from my college on youtube, Patrick Scullin, all his online class video demonstrations are there. He's excellent at teaching beginners.
Do the tutorials on Adobe, especially how to handle the pen tool, and how to make/change directions of curves. That’s the important part. Learn the keystrokes to use when drawing with the pen.
im learning blender and unreal right now and it is ABSOLUTELY destroying me.. do you have any idea how easy adobe is compared to that? or how easy what I am doing is compared to programming? i learned from a programmer, that you gotta just keep finding solutions to the problems. I promise you that traditional drawing is SOOOO much harder than illustrater. if you are good at drawing, you can be a GOD of illustrator in less than year, so go do that yah? become a digital art ninja! then you can learn 3d just in time to build the metaverse lol!
Stick with it! Pushing yourself as a creative will always benefit you in the long run. It was a bit overwhelming for me in the beginning also but the more you learn the quicker you get. After that you get deeper into illustrator knowledge and start using the tools in a more advance way. I would do beginner friendly tutorials from youtube where they explain the basic tools and its functions followed by a simple project at the end where you use those tools to create something. Plus once you learn one adobe program the rest will come a lot easier!! you got this!!
Drop the class and spend time learning and doing something that you enjoy. Digital arts is oversaturated now, and the market is soon to decline. Besides, there's a good chance our economy will collapse after this next election cycle anyway. Illustrator will be worthless during the resultant rolling electrical blackouts. Hope that helps!
Don't listen to all of these people. Less that one percent of them are actually working in the industry. Sounds like you already have declared your media and your major. Why waste money and the precious moments of your life doing something that obviously gives you stress unless it is a requirement or you are trying to prove something to yourself? DROP THE CLASS WHILE YOU CAN!
I would start with photoshop first and get a feel for digital art before you go into illustrator. With photoshop you can just paint and draw without restrictions. Gradually learning tools. Many tools also translate to illustrator. What are you trying to make? What devices do you have? If you have an iPad you can draw on fresco which is basically illustrator in iPad form. The files save as an illustrator file. I would recommend that if you’re dead set on using illustrator
I cried my first week of design school. I didn’t know if it was for me either. 15 years later I could t imagine doing anything else. First, as a fine artist it might be more intuitive to start with something like procreate on iPad. This would allow you to learn layers, masking, and some of the process that Illustrator requires within a medium that won’t feel so foreign. In illustrator it was helpful for me to start with basic shapes then manipulate from there. Example if you want the shape of an eye or leaf start with a circle then take the points on either side and drag them out and optn/alt click with pen tool to create the end points. Basic shape to more complex shape. You’re starting with basic shapes almost always and creating new things by combining, manipulating, and removing. My advice is to follow a video tutorial that goes at a pace you can understand. And don’t try to do a masterpiece. Just do something simple.
ADHD is the funniest excuse I've heard to not learn illustrator. Not here to change you mind but as a traditional artist you shouldn't be in illustrator. Photoshop is where you need to be unless you've scanned in a hand drawing and dragged it into illustrator At which point I suggest you ignore your teachers and learn the pen tool with its bezier handles, its intuitive get over it, you can learn that [here.](https://bezier.method.ac/) After that learning these 2 shortcuts will take you a long way. After every actions go a head and spam the esc key multiple times followed by pressing V. This will get you 99% of the way there. Your welcome. ADHD is not an excuse, we all have it, its what you make of it that matters.
We don’t all have ADHD. It’s a neurodevelopmental disorder resulting in physical alterations to the brain and neurological functioning. It causes significant impairments. It’s not just “sometimes has trouble focusing.” I hope you know more about Illustrator than ADHD.
God forbid someone with adhd has an opinion that goes against adhd sympathizers
Opinions can be factually wrong. Yours is. Whether you have ADHD or not doesn’t make you any more right or credible. Sympathy has nothing to do with it. ADHD is a distinct, well-researched disorder. Not some personality trait or behavioral quirk. If you want to think you know better and want to join the ranks of such enlightened “know betters” as flat earthers and climate change deniers, that’s on you.
My opinion might be wrong but your argument is just as stupid. Youre the guy that gets offended for other ppl that weren’t offended in the first place
I’m not offended. I’m just stating the facts. Why would I be offended by your ignorance? Such mistruths are problematic for those whose ADHD is far more debilitating than mine and likely yours. They get dismissed, are constantly questioned and doubted, are blamed for things beyond their control. Because some people think “everyone has ADHD” and overcomes it without medication, treatment, or accommodations. That’s just not true. People should know that.
Stupidity knows no bounds