Creation illustration - what tool to use?

I would like to create illustrations from pictures . But I am not sure which tool to use for this.
In the pictures an example of what i am looking for.


Schermopname (119)

Assuming you know how to draw and can visualize things like wrinkle shadows and hair tonality…

Those are probably done in Adobe Illustrator, or similar software like Affinity Designer, or Inkscape would work too to create these as Vector art.

While you could use Photoshop, or Affinity Photo or Gimp or any number of tablet based softwares, doing them as Raster images would limit the scaling possibilities.

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And you own the copyright of the images you are copying if you are planning a commercial setting.

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For something like that I’d just do a quick pencil sketch, scan it in (or photograph it these days) and build the machine-perfect illustrator file over it. Not my favorite style, but I’ve done it once or twice.

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It’s vector art for sure. Doing it in Photoshop would be very difficult and frustrating compared to Adobe Illustrator or Affinity Designer which is tailor made for such projects.

And as always, be sure you have the correct license for the image if you are going to use it commercially.

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If you’re using a tablet and pen to draw, there are several other software tools in addition to those already mentioned. A Google search will turn up several of them. I can’t recommend them because I don’t use them, but I’ve seen some nice Illustration work done with stylus pens.

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FireAlpaca and ProCreate are probably the two most popular as far as tablets go among the online crowd I hang out with.

PopsD, doing this in Photoshop is actually very easy. You can easily do it with a brush with the correct nib and the smoothing setting at around 55%.

But it is raster and the OP would need to know final usage to get the resolution correct.

These type of illustrations are vectors. Assuming that you are not so familiar with graphic design and probably do not wish to spend money on an editing software, I would recommend using GIMP and Inkscape to vectorise images.

Also, make sure that you get permission before using a copyright image for commercial purposes. To get free stock images, I recommend using Pixabay.