What you'll learn

In this series of lessons, we'll focus on recreating a character sketch as a vector illustration. We'll begin this course by learning how we can place our character sketch into Illustrator and use it as a template. Next, we'll begin to create a silhouette of our character by isolating and drawing in basic shape areas. From there, we'll learn how we can use Illustrator's pathfinder panel and these basic shape areas to create the smaller shapes that make up the details of our character. We'll then learn how we can clean up our document and eliminate some of the unnecessary anchor points that have been created. Next, we'll establish a light source and use Illustrator's gradient tools to create both shadows and highlights. Finally, we'll complete our character by adding in a few smaller details as well as clean up our silhouette. Software required: Illustrator CS4.