ArtProf.'s Blog: Digital Image to Vector Painting (intermediate skill level) Ai

This is a tutorial aimed at developing a decent vector painting geared around a digital image. The exercise is to get an intermediate designer more comfortable with the pen tool as well as the brush tool. The color swatches are mostly stock I tweaked a little opacity and some base colors to fit my personal taste. However, the design is simple and can offer a new designer away to create some fun illustrations in vector.

The first step is to open a new document. Choose a web format that way you can share your final product with others. Next you will have to use an image from your collection. I did not provide one at this time or if you have a Grab or Snagit program then you can just copy mine.

Choose an image (you can also snag mine if you like)

I have 8 different layers which, I have developed I used the default color codes but you can choose yours to benefit your design style.

We will start with the Shirt layer. (Red code)

I hope you are familiar with the pen tool we will be using it considerably with in this tutorial.
I outlined the shirt trying to be precise as possible. (The color swatch is the neutrals) I then moved on to the shadows from the wrinkles which, are on the shirt. I used a gradient fill to form the shadow highlights.

Next we are going to outline the pants with the pen tool. And I am going to change my text bubble to a Blue text bubble, Sorry, I did not really want to go back and adjust at this time. I know Lazy right?

Continue to use the pen tool in order to create the highlights of the jeans and the wrinkle accents. Again I used the gradient swatches from the tool bar to get my taste in contrast. Also you may want to adjust the opacity with in the layer so can see the wrinkles and accents better from the jeans.

Now that you are starting to get the hang of it repeat the same technique for the shoes, you do not need to worry about the socks unless you are OCD. I used the pen tool for shoes as well.

The skin layer; I change the opacity to 50% so I could see through my color mask and I oriented the gradients as close as possible. I performed the bottom face layer with one mask, then slowly applying the dark tones and accents to the chin and neck. I also included in this layer some highlights for the hair I felt the hair could use some contrast to give it body. Just like Pert.

Try and follow the dark shadows and give them a neutral color that is not to much different from the original. After all the natural shadows are not that much different. The bottom left highlights of the hair were created with the brush tool and I included a fill color as well as the outline to achieve this effect. Experiment with this it is quite fun.

The eye is not that difficult I did not spend much time on making it perfectly realistic after all this is an exercise. I used both the pen tool to outline and the eclipse shape in order to achieve the look. there are several layers of gradient. Look at the layers in bottom right corner.

The lips mouth and under the eye are somewhat considered shadows. I spent very little time on these areas as well. But you can take your time and develop a nice look it is up to you.

The hair was the most fun I had a blast creating the gradients and the difference in color with polar opposites. The layers are the same I duplicated them and gave each a job. The bottom layer is to highlight the outer edge and the top layer is to highlight the inner scalp area. I adjusted the opacity of the outer color on the top layer to 0% that way the bottom color would show through. Play around with it.

With a 3 point round brush I added some hair strokes I did not care about the look greatly because I went back in adjusted the stroke to basic and added a tapered end.