From Sketch to Digital: A Guide to Creating Illustrations for Fäng

by | Apr 2, 2025 | Blog, Fun With Fang | 0 comments

When designing an adventure for the Fun with Fäng Adventure Jam, visuals can help bring your ideas to life. Whether it’s a dungeon map, a monstrous creature, or an item illustration, having a simple process to move from paper sketches to final digital art can make a huge difference.

This guide will walk you through how I create my illustrations, including the tools I use, best practices, and beginner-friendly tips for working in Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign.

1. Sketching Your Idea

It all starts with a simple sketch. I like to use pencil and paper, keeping the lines rough and exploratory. The goal is to establish the shapes and structure, not to create a finished piece.

You don’t have to be a professional illustrator—just get your ideas down! If you’re designing a monster, focus on silhouette and posture. If it’s a dungeon map, experiment with different layouts before committing to one.

Tip: If you’re stuck, start with basic shapes (circles, squares, triangles) and refine from there.

2. Bringing Your Sketch into a Digital Space

Once you have a sketch you’re happy with, it’s time to digitize it.

Taking a Photo or Scanning

  • Use your phone camera to snap a picture in good lighting.
  • If you have a scanner, set it to at least 300dpi for clarity.
  • Transfer the image to your computer.

Importing into Illustrator

  • Open Adobe Illustrator and create a new file. I suggest making it the same dimensions as a page with 0.25″ extra bleed on all sides to create a document that is 9″ wide X 6″ high – just to keep it consistent with the final page size.
  • Drag your image into the workspace.
  • Lower the opacity of the sketch to 30-50% and lock the layer—this will be your reference.
  • Use the Pen Tool or a more hand-drawn Bezier Buddy CC (available here for $20) to trace lines.
  • Another key tool is the Stroke Width tool within Illustrator that can help give stroke weights a little more of a hand drawn look.
  • Try to be diligent about your layers within Illustrator, giving them proper names so that you can be better prepared for the next steps.

You can also use a Wacom tablet, or iPad with other software such as Procreate – whatever works for you!

3. Adding Textures in Photoshop

Once your illustration is refined in Illustrator, you can bring it into Photoshop for textures and color depth. Use the same settings of 9″ wide X 6″ high at a minimum of 300dpi. I sometimes go as high as 600dpi, but this is more of a preference in case I ever want to make a higher resolution poster in the future.

Why Photoshop?

Illustrator is great for clean, scalable vector art, but Photoshop lets you work with textured brushes and layer effects, giving your art a handcrafted 1960’s children book style.

Layering for Control

  • Import your different pieces of the Illustrator files into Photoshop as separate layers, and re-assemble them so that they line up
  • Keep key elements (characters, backgrounds, objects) on their own layers—this allows for more flexibility.

Using Textures

I use Kyle Webster’s “Attic Mildew” for textures and “Wet Media” brushes if I want a bit more of a hand drawn line. Both are available in Photoshop’s brush pack, and will help give artwork a classic 1960s texture, similar to Art Seiden’s illustrations.

To apply texture:

  1. Lock the layer you want to texture.
  2. Select Kyle’s Attic Mildew brush and lightly paint over the area to either highlight or darken it.
  3. If there are any lines that need to be added such as scales, fur tufts, I like to use Kyle’s wet brushes which has a nice roughness to the lines
  4. Adjust opacity and blending modes if needed.

4. When to Switch to InDesign

If you’re combining multiple elements, you have two options:

  • Photoshop is best for single, complete images (e.g., full-page illustrations) that you are 100% certain will stay the same.
  • InDesign is best for when you still want some control to arrange elements and move pieces independently (e.g., a monster that may shift positions on a map).
  • I provided some InDesign file templates that have some backgrounds already in the layout. You are welcomed to use them as part of your adventure jam entry.

5. Finalizing and Exporting

Once everything is assembled within InDesign you can export the final PDF using the “High Quality Print” setting. There are also options for making the PDF interactive with links… but we’ll cover that in a future post.

Final Thoughts

This process keeps things flexible and efficient, letting you sketch freely, refine digitally, and add finishing touches without feeling overwhelmed. Even if you’re new to digital art, starting with a rough sketch and working step by step will help you create unique, vibrant pieces for your adventure.

Want to try it out? Sketch a monster or dungeon and see how it evolves as you bring it into the digital space!