Recreating a Character Sketch in Illustrator
In this series of lessons, we'll focus on recreating a character sketch as a vector illustration. Software required: Illustrator CS4.
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.
Table of contents
- Placing Our Sketch into Illustrator and Beginning the Silhouette 12m
- Adding Shoulder Pads to the Silhouette 10m
- Creating a Silhouette for the Torso 8m
- Creating a Silhouette for the Left Arm 11m
- Creating a Silhouette for the Right Arm 8m
- Creating a Silhouette for the Left Leg 11m
- Creating a Silhouette for the Right Leg 12m
- Beginning to Pull out the Details in Our Character's Head 10m
- Adding an Eye to Our Character's Head 10m
- Continuing to Detail the Head of Our Character 11m
- Completing the Shapes in Our Character's Head 11m
- Adding Details to Our Character's Shoulder Pads 11m
- Adding Details to Our Character's Torso 9m
- Breaking up the Left Arm of Our Character 11m
- Beginning to Detail the Character's Left Forearm 11m
- Completing the Shapes in Our Character's Left Forearm 10m
- Breaking up the Right Arm of Our Character 10m
- Adding Details to the Right Forearm of Our Character 11m
- Beginning to Detail the Left Leg of Our Character 11m
- Continuing to Detail the Left Leg of Our Character 10m
- Completing the Shapes for the Left Leg of Our Character 11m
- Breaking up the Right Leg of Our Character 10m
- Beginning to Detail the Lower Portion of the Right Leg 10m
- Continuing to Detail the Lower Portion of the Right Leg 11m
- Completing the Shapes in Our Character's Right Leg 11m
- Cleaning up the Document 7m
- Beginning to Add Basic Shadows and Highlights 11m
- Continuing to Add Basic Shadows and Highlights 11m
- Adding More Focused Shadows to Our Character 10m
- Beginning to Add Additional Embellishments 10m
- Continuing to Add Additional Embellishments 11m
- Adding Sharper Highlights to Our Character 11m
- Completing Our Character Illustration 12m
About the author
Eddie began teaching creative professionals over ten years ago for Digital Tutors. In 2014 Digital Tutors was acquired by Pluralsight and he continued his focus on creating high quality training for artists in both the film and games industries. With a background in graphic design and illustration Eddie has always been focused on visual appeal. This can be seen through his courses in which he shares secrets for achieving production level quality for concept art, illustrations, textures, mater... more