2 Exercises to Get Started with Illustration in Figma

Hey, Jessika here 👋

In this post, we’ll tackle how you can get started with illustration in Figma with 2 exercises. After reading this newsletter post, you’ll be able to start practicing your illustration skills right away.

Wondering how learning illustration could benefit you? Here are a few of the advantages:

Wider career options
Adding illustration to your skills will improve your employability and open up freelance opportunities.

Improved design skills
You’ll develop your creative ability, and become better at visualizing and realizing your ideas.

Improved tech competence
Your technical skills will improve as you learn effective methods for digital design.

Many people hesitate to learn illustration because of:

• The cost of tools and equipment

• The thought of not being “creative”

• The fear of not being good enough, or failure

• The overwhelming feeling to learn new software tools

But don’t worry. The 2 exercises we’ll tackle today don’t cost anything, don’t require any previous experience, or require you to have creative ideas of what you want to illustrate.

Let’s get into the exercises!

Exercise 1: Trace Sketches to Understand the Basics of Creating Illustrations from Scratch

1. Find a sketch on Google - Search for “simple sketches” or “creative sketches” and look through the pictures. Choose a sketch you would like to trace.

   For example: this one👇 I found on Google, perfect for tracing!

2. Use the pen tool to trace the lines in the sketch - I recommend you do one uniting section at a time. This will help you further on when you add color to the illustration.

3. Once you are done, remove the sketch - There you have your first tracing illustration outlined!

4. Next Level Exercise 🔥: Experiment with adding your own details or changes to make the illustration unique.

Disclaimer: Tracing others' sketches should only be done as a practice exercise. Always make sure to credit the original source and clearly indicate that it is not your own work.

Exercise 2: Mastering the Essential Pen Tool in Figma

The most important tool to master when creating illustrations is the pen tool. You will use it most of the time for creating the initial draft and outlining your illustrations.

I will demonstrate in this image how to use the pen tool most effectively:

You can use this exercise for both learning the pen tool and enhancing your pen tool skills.

1. Decide on an object - whatever comes to your mind. To find inspiration you can take a scroll on these sites: vecteezy, freepik, drawkit.

2. Replicate the object in Figma with the pen tool - without importing it and tracing it. You should only look at the image for reference.

3. Next Level Exercise 🔥: Once you have replicated it, try to create your own version of it.

💡 Tip: It’s normal to search for inspiration by looking through others work - as long as you don’t aim to copy it. If you know you want to create eyes on a dog, for example, research how eyes on dog illustrations usually look like. It will be easier to create when you have some sense of how it could look like. 

Summary

By practicing these exercises, you'll be well on your way to mastering illustration in Figma.

If you haven't already, you can sign up for a free Figma account to get started on their website.

Liked this post? Subscribe to this newsletter to receive more content like this.

I update daily on Instagram and X (Twitter).

Happy illustrating! 🌷

Best,
Jessika