Painting vector artwork for eventual printing to posters and garments advice

[T4Z]

I'm currently working in Designer to create vector artwork, and a few of the designs are getting a little more complex than I'm usually used to and I'm having trouble trying to fill in shapes - my designs are eventually printed onto posters and clothing. I have a few options when it comes to filling in but feel they are unorthodox or won't give me the desired print quality at 300dpi. 

1. At the moment I have been creating the line work from an image, tracing the main outlines of shapes. This has resulted in a lot of open lines. I have then been keeping the lines in a separate layer from the colour layer. This also includes a lot of duplicating shapes, breaking lines and joining them together with others to be able to then fill the shape on the colour layer and turning off the stroke. 

Overall this method feels very clunky and effects my work flow, it also gets quite confusing, never quite knowing which outline is connected to which colour and any small movement of a shape will ruin the piece. I feel like this whole process could be improved with a 'smart fill bucket tool' similar to what is is AI. IS there a suitable work around for this missing tool, or is the the quickest method?

2. I haven't actually used this method yet, but it is something I have thought about quite recently which i think could improve my workflow in lieu of the magic fill bucket tool - however not sure if this will hamper the quality of my print by leaving Designer to colour in Photo. 

I have both Designer and Photo. My idea was to use the appropriate print template i have supplied for my garments all at the correct dimensions and at 300DPI to create my line work. I would then open the line work in Photo and use my tablet and pen to paint in the colours between the lines.  I feel like this would improve my work flow tenfold, but advice regarding the print quality would be appreciative - or even if this is a poor method. Look at this is would increase the speed of my design work. I think I'm just scared/paranoid to leave Designer and have my Designs raterized as opposed to working with crips, sharp vectors.

Its worth noting that at the moment my designs are flat colour designs without gradients/shading at the moment and my designs are exported asP NGs at 300dpi

Many thanks in advance! Would also love to hear your own work flows regarding the filling of complex vectors.

Edited July 17, 2020 by T4Z

[Callum]

Hi Taz,

Welcome to the forums

I would say the only work around to your first question is to be mindful while you trace and try and only  draw with closed curves as much as possible you could try and join/close them once you have finished your line work but this can create more problems. You could switch to Photo to colour as its selection tools would make this process easier however your design would no longer be vector and therefore would not scale as well which I find is crucial for t-shirt printing.

Thanks

C

 

[T4Z]

Hi Callum, 

 

I have had a bit of success keeping everything in designer at the moment. I've been keeping my line work on one layer then duplicating the work onto another and colouring on that layer. I've been breaking curves at intersecting points when unclosed line crosses a path. This seems to work well, however when I need to go back and make a change its a bit fiddly. 

Thanks for your advice