Background design

Hand-Drawn to Vector

| quirkymundo

I’ve been going through some more of my older hand-drawn patterns and making vector versions of them. It is pretty time consuming but I really like the results.

Hand drawn to vector versions of a lime and blue floral pattern
Hand-Drawn and Vector Versions of a Lime and Blue Floral Pattern

I love the pattern making tools in the latest version of adobe Illustrator, they are an efficient way to create complicated and accurate pattern repeats. I’m having a hell of a time getting the pattern tiles not to explode when the file is saved in a legacy version though. Stock agencies like Shutterstock want the file saved as an Illustrator 10 eps so it’s a problem I need to solve. I have some ideas on how to do that which will keep me busy.

I think this one will be good as a fabric pattern too so it will eventually end up on my Spoonflower collection too.

Oodles of Doodles

| quirkymundo

One of the fun things about going down the stock image route is that I can get out all my old illustration experiments. I’ve always had problems settling on one creative style so there are a few of them. Here’s a pattern I made from a loose doodle style made with watercolour and fine liners. I like the light-hearted brightness of this one.

Doodle pattern using watercolour and fine liner
Doodle Pattern Using Watercolour and Fine Liner

Tasty Textures

| quirkymundo

As part of my stock selling mission I’ve decided to include textures in my portfolio. I have a long habit of scanning anything I think might make an interesting texture and then tinkering with it in Photoshop. This week I have mostly been making two-toned lino textures.

These are for sale on Shutterstock and the red one has already had some downloads which is an exciting start. More textures to come soon…

Coloured lino print background textures
Coloured Lino Print Background Textures